Timeline 1998-March

Timeline 1998 March

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1998        Mar 1, "Art" opened at Royale Theater NYC.
    (SC, 3/1/02)
1998        Mar 1, Burma’s military regime arrested 40 people it accused of planning to assassinate leaders and bomb buildings.
    (WSJ, 3/2/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 1, China pledged to spend $32.6 billion to stabilize nearly insolvent state banks amid the Asian financial crises.
    (WSJ, 1/4/99, p.R4)
1998        Mar 1, In Germany, Lower Saxony Governor Gerhard Schroeder won a sweeping re-election that paved the way for his successful campaign to oust Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
    (AP, 3/1/99)
1998        Mar 1, Weekend clashes in Kosovo left 24 ethnic Albanians and 4 Serb policemen dead. Police arrested 5 people and seized weapons caches.
    (WSJ, 3/2/98, p.A1)(FT, 3/4/98, p.1)

1998        Mar 2, Henry Steele Commager (b.1902), American historian and champion of the Constitution, died in Amherst, Mass. He and R.B. Morris edited the 40-volume series "The Rise of the American Nation."
    (WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/3/98, p.D8)
1998        Mar 2, Natascha Kampusch (10) vanished in Vienna, Austria, on her way to school, triggering a massive search that extended into neighboring Hungary. In 2006 Kampusch, who had been held captive in a cellar, managed to escape. Wolfgang Priklopil (44), her alleged abductor, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. In 2007 Natascha’s mother, Brigitta Sirny authored: "Desperate Years: My life Without Natascha." In 2008 Herwig Haidinger, the former head of Austria's Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau, accused authorities of ignoring a tip in April 1998 from a local policeman that pointed to Priklopil. He also alleged that Interior Ministry officials refused to look into that accusation once Kampusch reappeared, so to avoid a scandal before parliamentary elections that fall.
    (AP, 8/24/06)(AP, 8/8/07)(AP, 2/11/08)
1998        Mar 2, U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deal to open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors.
    (AP, 3/299)
1998        Mar 2, Serb police clashed with 30,000 protesting Albanians in Kosovo.
    (WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 2-3, Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said that some 70 government soldiers were killed near the Caguan River. The bodies of 58 were later recovered. Forty soldiers were rescued and 27 were captured. The fate of 28 was unknown.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 3, Presidential confidant Vernon Jordan testified before the grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter.
    (AP, 3/3/99)
1998        Mar 3, It was reported that the US had slashed aid to fight drugs in Bolivia by 75% or some $34 million. Aid in 1997 was $46 million. The allocation was partly shifted to Colombia.
    (SFC, 3/3/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 3, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that his company wasn't a monopoly out to crush rivals in the Internet software market.
    (AP, 3/3/99)
1998        Mar 3, The US Supreme Court ruled that local lawmakers' votes are immune to lawsuits even if they had been based on illegal or discriminatory motives.
    (AP, 3/3/99)
1998        Mar 3, Larry Doby (d.2003 at 79), the first black player in the American League (1947), was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
    (AP, 3/3/99)(WSJ, 6/20/03, p.A1)
1998        Mar 3, Former CBS News president Fred W. Friendly died in New York at age 82.
    (AP, 3/3/99)
1998        Mar 3, Dr. Hans J. Muller-Eberhard, one of the first scientists to explain the importance of the complement system, died in Houston. He showed that front line attack of the immune system was a complex of about 20 separate protein molecules that together attacked cells through a series of reactions referred to as a cascade.
    (SFC, 3/8/98, p.C5)
1998        Mar 3, In Germany over 130,000 public sector workers stopped work. The 2nd walkout in 2 days was for a 4.5% increase in pay.
    (SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)
1998        Mar 3, In India the BJP with regional allies emerged as the largest grouping from the general election. It was still 20 seats short of a governing majority in the 543-seat parliament.
    (FT, 3/4/98, p.1)
1998        Mar 3, In Mexico Senator Layda Sansores discovered a government spy center in Campeche. 22 similar operations throughout the country were indicated by the records found.
    (SFC, 4/13/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar 3, In Northern Ireland Damien Trainor (25) and Phillip Allen (34) were shot and killed by sectarian gunmen in the Railway Bar in Poyntzpass. Three others were wounded.
    (SFC, 3/5/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 3, In Kosovo, Serbia, a mass funeral of 30,000 was held for 24 ethnic Albanians killed Feb 28.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 3, In Zimbabwe a strike over soaring taxes and food prices left 80% of the nation’s workers at home.
    (SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)

1998        Mar 4, The US Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment at work can be illegal even when the offender and victim are of the same gender.
    (WSJ, 1/4/99, p.R4)(AP, 3/4/99)
1998        Mar 4, The US House approved a special referendum in Puerto Rico that would allow voters to choose one of 3 options: continued commonwealth status, statehood or independence.
    (SFC, 3/5/98, p.A5)
1998        Mar 4, A judge ordered Miami to hold a new mayoral election, saying widespread absentee-ballot fraud played a role in the victory of Xavier Suarez the previous fall.
    (AP, 3/4/99)

1998        Mar 5, Details of President Clinton's deposition testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against him were published in The Washington Post, prompting an angry denunciation from the president for the news leak.
    (AP, 3/5/99)
1998        Mar 5, NASA officials announced that the Lunar Prospector probe found the presence of water on the moon at the north and south poles. As much as 100 million tons of water was estimated. They said that the water frozen in the loose soil of the moon might support a lunar base and a human colony.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/5/99)
1998        Mar 5, In a speech by Premier Li Peng it was announced that China planned to eliminate 11 ministries and lay off as many as 4 million bureaucrats. The plan was developed by economic chief Zhu Rongji, who was expected to replace Li Peng.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 5, In Japan prosecutors raided the Finance Ministry and later arrested 2 officials, Takashi Sakakibara and Toshio Miyano for accepting bribes in exchange for approving new financial products.
    (SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998        Mar 5, In Chiapas, Mexico, 46 prison inmates escaped after a labor group of taxi drivers marched into the Ocosingo jail in a protest demanding the release of some inmates and the withdrawal of government troops.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998        Mar 5, Serbian police mounted a counterinsurgency operation and killed 20 ethnic Albanians in the Drenica region of Kosovo.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998        Mar 5, In Colombo, Sri Lanka, a bus bomb with at least 2 shrapnel-laden bombs killed at least 32 people and injured over 300.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)

1998        Mar 6, It was reported that the conservative Tax Foundation estimated that the state of Mississippi received $1.64 for a $1.00 it sent to Washington.
    (WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 6, The US Army honored three Americans who risked their lives and turned their weapons on fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.
    (AP, 3/6/99)
1998        Mar 6, Matthew Beck (35), a Connecticut state lottery accountant, shot to death three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.
    (SFC, 3/7/98, p.A3)(AP, 3/6/99)
1998        Mar 6, It was reported that Panama hired a Canadian Indian tribe, the Tsuu T’ina, to clean out unexploded bombs and shells from an area of Empire Range, which US military forces abandoned.
    (SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 6, The IMF announced that it would delay the release of $3 billion in aid to Indonesia because basic requirements were not yet met.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar 6, Francesca Trombino, lawyer, was bludgeoned to death in Pordenone, Italy. She was representing a US Marine in the Feb 3 cable-car disaster. She was also representing the wife of the captured suspect in a divorce case.
    (SFC, 3/7/98, p.A7)
1998        Mar 6, Police in Kosovo reported that they killed Adem Jashari, a leader in the Kosovo Liberation Army, in Donji Prekaz in the Drenica region. 45 Albanians and 6 Serb police were reported dead. Of the 46 bodies 11 were women and 9 children. six of the men were elderly.
    (SFC, 3/7/98, p.A6)(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A8)

1998        Mar 7, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking in Rome, said the United States wouldn't tolerate any more violence in Kosovo, which she blamed on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
    (AP, 3/7/99)

1998        Mar 8, James McDougal, one of the most important cooperating witnesses in Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigation, died of cardiac arrest in a federal medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas, at age 57.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A1) (AP, 3/8/99)
1998        Mar 8, More than a foot of wind-driven snow paralyzed travel across the central Plains and Midwest.
    (AP, 3/8/99)
1998        Mar 8, Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke died in Florida at age 61.
    (AP, 3/8/99)
1998        Mar 8, In northern Afghanistan an avalanche crushed the village of Darbandi and killed 70 people.
    (SFC, 3/7/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar 8, In Algeria attackers slit the throats of 6 people on a farm in Haouch Mena, near the home village of Antar Zouabri, believed to be the leader of the militant Armed Islamic Group.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar 8, Colombia elected new representatives to Congress. Rebels interference forced vote cancellations in 46 municipalities. 8 guerrillas and 7 soldiers were reported killed in combat.
    (SFC, 3/7/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 8, In Israel a letter from over 1,500 Israeli army reserve officers urged Pres. Netanyahu to curb settlements and reach a West Bank deal with Palestinians.
    (WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 8, In Kosovo 7,000 Albanian women marched against the crackdown on separatist guerrillas.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A10)

1998        Mar 9, In a case pitting former high school sweethearts against each other, Brian Peterson pleaded guilty in Wilmington, Del., to manslaughter in the death of his newborn son in a Newark, N.J., motel and agreed to testify against the mother, Amy Grossberg. A month later, Grossberg also pleaded guilty to manslaughter; she ended up serving nearly two years of a 2 1/2-year sentence; Peterson served 1 1/2 years of a two-year sentence.
    (AP, 3/9/08)
1998        Mar 9, It was reported that the government owned the fastest computer, an Intel ASCI Red unit at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. It was designed to perform 1.5 trillion operations per second. It was planned to develop computers capable of 30 trillion calculations per second by 2001, and 100 trillion per second by 2004.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A7)
1998        Mar 9, A vast storm caused deadly flooding in the US South and heavy snows in the Midwest. In Elba, Alabama, the Pea River broke its levee and put the town under 5 feet of water. The death toll rose to 8 after 3 days of storms.
    (SFC, 3/10/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 9, In Israel soldiers at a checkpoint killed 3 Palestinian laborers in a van near Hebron. Two soldiers involved were arrested.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 9, In Paraguay a military tribunal sentenced Lino Oviedo to 10 years in jail for leading an attempted coup in 1996 and for insulting Pres. Wasmosy in 1997.
    (SFC, 3/10/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 9, An arms embargo was imposed on Yugoslavia by the US, Britain and other powers. It lasted until Sep 2001.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A6)

1998        Mar 10, U.S. Air Force and Navy personnel in the Persian Gulf received vaccinations against anthrax. In 2004 a federal judge ordered a halt to anthrax vaccinations and ruled that the FDA had violated its own rules by approving the vaccine in 2003.
    (AP, 3/10/99)(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A4)
1998        Mar 10, In Alabama a teenager killed his parents with an ax and a sledgehammer. Jeffery Franklin (17) also wounded 3 siblings and led police on a "wild car chase" before being captured.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 10, In South Carolina the FBI received a videotape made by Daniel Rudolph, brother of abortion clinic bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph, in which he amputated his left hand with a circular saw.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 10, Lloyd Bridges, actor, died at 85 in Westwood, Calif. He played in over 100 movies and starred in the 1957-1961 TV series Sea Hunt.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A4)(AP, 3/10/99)
1998        Mar 10, In India 6 Tibetans in New Delhi, aged 28-70, began a hunger strike to force the UN to address Tibet’s dispute with China.
    (SFC, 4/15/98, p.C2)
1998        Mar 10, In Indonesia Pres. Suharto was re-elected by acclamation of the People’s Consultative Assembly to his 7th 5-year term.
    (SFC, 3/10/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 10, In Kosovo Serbian police seized the bodies of 51 ethnic Albanians, killed in a sweep of separatists, and buried them into bulldozed over graves.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 10, In Northern Ireland guerrillas launched 2 mortar bombs at a police station in Armagh.
    (SFC, 3/9/98, p.A9)

1998        Mar 11, It was announced that the David and Lucille Packard Foundation would give $175 million over 5 years to protect the California landscape from over-development.
    (SFC, 3/11/98, p.A13)
1998        Mar 11, A Florida appeals court restored Joe Carollo as mayor of Miami after charges of voter fraud on absentee ballots.
    (AP, 3/11/99)
1998        Mar 11, The International Astronomical Union issued an alert, saying a mile-wide asteroid could zip very close to Earth on Oct. 26, 2028, possibly colliding with it. But the next day, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said there was no chance the asteroid will hit Earth.
    (AP, 3/11/99)
1998        Mar 11, In Los Angeles Efren Saldivar, a respiratory care therapist, claimed to have killed as many as 50 terminally ill patients from 1989 to 1997 at the Glendale Adventist medical Center. He later recanted his confession. Exhumations to verify the claims began Apr 30. In 2001 Saldivar was arrested for the murder of 6 patients whose remains indicated that they were murdered. In 2002 Saldivar pleaded guilty to murdering 6 patients.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.C7)(SFC, 1/10/01, p.A5)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A7)
1998        Mar 11, In Chile Gen’l. Pinochet could not be removed as head of the army until this date. His successor would be chosen by Pres. Eduardo Frei from 5 generals proposed by Pinochet. He had agreed to resign on condition that he be allowed to assume a Senate seat. Pinochet stepped down and was replaced by Patricio Aylwin.
    (SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A11)(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A3)
1998        Mar 11, In Japan the Tokyo Public Prosecutor’s Office raided the offices of the Bank of Japan. Yasayuki Yoshizawa, director of the capital markets division, was arrested on suspicion of leaking market moving information.
    (SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998        Mar 11, In Moscow Marino Yarovov (43) was boiled to death when she fell into a sinkhole of muddy, boiling water, created from leaking underground hot water pipes run by Mosenergo. A 10-year old boy died similarly 6 weeks previously. His father, who tried to rescue him, died 11 days later from severe burns.
    (SFC, 4/8/98, p.A14)

1998        Mar 12, The US Senate passed the ISTEA legislation, a $214 billion, 6-year bill called the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act.
    (SFC, 3/12/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 12, The government reported the rate of new cancer cases among Americans had inched down for the first time; so 70,000 fewer people than expected were diagnosed between 1992 and 1995.
    (AP, 3/12/99)
1998        Mar 12, Beatrice Wood, ceramicist, died at age 105. She was called "Mama of Dada" for her liaisons with Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roche and others associated with the Dada movement of the early 20th century. A 1993 documentary was made titled: "Beatrice Wood: The Mama of Dada."
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A19)
1998        Mar 12, Manuel Pineiro (b.1934), the leader of Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, died in a car crash at age 63.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A19)
1998        Mar 12, China agree to sign a UN pact on civil and political rights.
    (WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 12, In Indonesia students continued protests against Suharto and violent clashes with police broke out in Surabaya.
    (WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 12, A 22-part documentary on Israel’s 50-year history was being shown by state television. Rightwing politicians complained that it was too sympathetic to the Palestinians.
    (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A13)
1998        Mar 12, In Japan Yoshio Sugiyama (46), a Finance Ministry official, hanged himself following a widening investigation in corruption.
    (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 12, Serbian leaders proposed talks for autonomy in Kosovo, but residents dismissed the offer.
    (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A12)

1998        Mar 13, US Sergeant Major Gene McKinney (47), once the Army's top enlisted man, was cleared on 18 of 19 charges brought against him by women who said he pressured them for sex. He was convicted for obstruction of justice for trying to persuade his chief accuser to lie. McKinney was reprimanded and demoted by one rank.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/13/99)
1998        Mar 13, U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., announced he would not seek a seventh term.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1998        Mar 13, Canada legalized the growing of industrial hemp.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 13, Israeli and Palestinian troops made a joint effort to end four days of protests over the killing of West Bank workers.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 13, In South Korea Pres. Kim Dae-Jung approved an amnesty that cleared the records of 5.5 million Koreans and freed scores of political prisoners. He also planned to release 2,300 prison inmates who spent over 2 decades in jail for supporting North Korea.
    (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 13, In Kosovo 40,000 ethnic Albanians protested against Serbia.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A8)

1998        Mar 14, India's Congress party picked Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, as its new president.
    (SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/14/99)
1998        Mar 14, In Iran a 6.4 earthquake hit in the southeast and at least 5 people were killed and thousands left homeless.
    (SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A22)(AP, 3/14/99)

1998        Mar 15, CBS' "60 Minutes" aired an interview with former White House employee Kathleen Willey, who said President Clinton had made unwelcome sexual advances toward her in the Oval Office in 1993, a charge denied by the president.
    (AP, 3/15/99)
1998        Mar 15, Dr. Benjamin Spock (b.1903), whose child care guidance spanned half a century, died in San Diego at 94. He was the author of the 1946 "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care."
    (SFC, 3/17/98, p.A5)(AP, 3/15/99)
1998        Mar 15, Random drug testing at all Malaysian schools was to be instituted with urine testing equipment.
    (SFC, 3/16/98, p.A9)

1998        Mar 16, Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, once the Army's top enlisted man, was reprimanded and demoted one rank by a jury that had convicted him of obstruction of justice in a sexual misconduct case.
    (AP, 3/16/08)
1998        Mar 16, In Armenia elections for president were held and the voting was marred by fraud. Prime Minister Robert Kocharian led the vote over former Communist boss Karen Demirchian, but failed to get a majority and a runoff was planned for Mar 30.
    (SFC, 3/17/98, p.B3)(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 16, Zhu Rongji was chosen by the National People’s Congress as Premier to replace Li Peng, who served his limit of two 5-year terms. Hu Jintao (55) was appointed vice-president, the youngest in modern Chinese history to that post.
    (SFC, 3/17/98, p.A9)(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 16, In Northern Ireland David Keys (26), one of the jailed suspects in the Mar 3 murders, was found hanged in his cell at Maze Prison. His death was violent and considered a murder.
    (SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2)
1998        Mar 16, A 2nd negotiating session between North and South Korea will be held under the guidance of the US and China.
    (SFC,12/11/97, p.A18)
1998        Mar 16, In a long-awaited document promised by the Vatican on Sep. 1, 1987, that Jewish leaders immediately criticized, the Vatican expressed remorse for the cowardice of some Christians during the Holocaust, but defended the actions of Pope Pius XII.
    (SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A24)(AP, 3/16/99)

1998        Mar 17, In Alaska Jeff King battled through blowing snow and poor visibility to earn his third victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
    (AP, 3/17/08)
1998        Mar 17, In Mississippi after a 21-year court fight the state unsealed over 124,000 pages of secret files of the State Sovereignty Commission that revealed numerous illegal methods to thwart the civil rights workers of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
    (SFC, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 17, Washington Mutual announced it had agreed to buy H.F. Ahmanson and Co. for $9.9 billion dollars, creating the nation's seventh-largest banking company.
    (AP, 3/17/99)
1998        Mar 17, In Texas Joe Collins (64) was killed during a break-in at his home outside Nagadoches. In 2009 Khristian Oliver (32) was executed for beating and shooting Collins.
    (www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9BPMCQO0.html)
1998        Mar 17, From Brazil it was reported that a 3-month-old fire was raging out of control in the state of Roraima, home of the Yanomani Indians.
    (SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2)
1998        Mar 17, More than 10,000 Catholics marched in the first-ever St. Patrick’s Day parade in Belfast.
    (SFC, 3/18/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar 17, In Zambia the state of emergency imposed last Oct. was lifted.
    (WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 18, Julie Hiatt Steele, a former friend of Kathleen Willey's, released a sworn affidavit undercutting Willey's claim that President Clinton had made an unwanted sexual advance toward her in 1993. According to Steele, Willey instructed her to tell Newsweek that Willey had confided the alleged episode to her immediately after it supposedly happened; Steele said she first heard about the accusation in 1997.
    (AP, 3/18/08)
1998        Mar 18, The NYC Board of Education voted to require its schoolchildren to wear uniforms. The dress code would begin in 1999.
    (SFC, 3/19/98, p.A5)
1998        Mar 18, A study of Finnish smokers reported in the Journal of the national Cancer Institute indicated that vitamin E reduced the risk of prostate cancer.
    (WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 18, In India the Bharatiya Janata Party agenda was outlined. It included plans to protect domestic industry from foreign competition and to develop nuclear weapons for protection against China and Pakistan.
    (SFC, 3/19/98, p.A11)

1998        Mar 19, Pres. Clinton eased US restrictions on humanitarian aid and travel to Cuba. Cuban-American households would be allowed to send back $1,200 a year.
    (WSJ, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 19, Completing baseball's transformation from family ownership to corporate control, Rupert Murdoch's Fox Group won approval to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers for a record $350 million. News Corporation later sold the Dodgers to Boston real estate developer Frank McCourt.
    (AP, 3/19/08)
1998        Mar 19, A new product was approved by the FDA to reduce salmonella in chickens. Preempt or CF-3 was a mixture of beneficial microbes that would be sprayed onto newly hatched chicks, and then ingested by the chicks to prevent salmonella growth.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A4)
1998        Mar 19, In Vermont a bomb exploded in a teenager’s bedroom. Christopher Marquis (17) was killed and his mother was injured. A package bomb was suspected.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 19, Two small planes collided over Riverside Ct. in California and 3 people were killed.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 19, In Afghanistan a Boeing 727 operated by Ariana state airline crashed 12 miles south of Kabul and killed all 22 people on board.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A16)
1998        Mar 19, Russian security officials reported that 2 young US Mormon missionaries were kidnapped in the Volga region of Saratov. The missionaries were released after 3 days with no ransom paid.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 19, In Serbia Pres. Milosevic agreed to pull back special police in Kosovo under a deadline by world powers.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 19, In South Africa hundreds of black demonstrators clashed with police as they marched on the Vryburg High School. Some 2,500 residents of Huhudi township marched in support of the students who said they no longer feel safe at school. A later investigation revealed that the 140 black students were isolated from the 750 white students in classrooms and facilities.
    (SFC, 3/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)

1998        Mar 19-25, CeBIT, the world’s largest exhibition for information and communications, was held in Hanover, Germany. 600,000 visitors were expected.
    (FT, 3/4/98, p.IT4)

1998        Mar 20, President Clinton's lawyer, appearing before a federal court, declared that Paula Jones' evidence of sexual harassment was "garbage" unworthy of a trial.
    (AP, 3/20/99)
1998        Mar 20, The Wall Street Journal published its first Friday cultural section, "Weekend Journal."
    (WSJ, 3/20/98, p.W1)
1998        Mar 20, George Tenet, director of the CIA, disclosed that $26.7 billion was the 1998 budget secret intelligence activities, one-tenth the overall US military budget.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A4)
1998        Mar 20, An Indiana man, Chris Dean (35), was arrested for sending the pipe bomb that killed Christopher Marquis of Vermont. Marquis had defrauded Dean in a $400 trade of Citizens Band radio equipment arranged on the Internet.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 20, A twister killed 11 people in northeast Georgia and 2 people in North Carolina and injured 100.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/20/99)
1998        Mar 20, At least 400 firefighters were sent to fight the fires in the northern Amazon. Firefighters from Argentina and Venezuela were also brought in. A UN offer of assistance was accepted Mar 23 to combat thousands of fires raging out of control.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998        Mar 20, In Germany thousands of protestors attempted to halt a train of atomic waste from southern Germany from reaching its final destination of Ahaus in northern Germany.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 20, In Mexico a new law, the Nationality Act, went into effect that allowed Mexican-born Americans and their children to hold Mexican nationality and US citizenship. The law permitted dual nationality but not dual citizenship.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)

1998        Mar 21, Six members of the SF-based Peaceworkers group were arrested and sentenced to 10 days in jail in Kosovo for not reporting their presence to police. 3 were from the Bay Area. They were released Mar 23.
    (SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A11)(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 21, It was reported that Chinese researchers had discovered heavy industrial pollution in the snow around the North Pole.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 21, In Germany Christina Nytsch (11) was found raped and murdered in woods 8 miles from her home in Struecklingen. In April Police began collecting saliva from 18,000 local men to test for a DNA match. Police found a match and arrested a suspect in Elisabethfehn in May, 1998. The man, a father of 3 children, confessed to another rape of an 11-year-old girl in Jan, 1996.
    (SFC, 4/10/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A24)
1998        Mar 21, In Jordan Sheik Assad Bayoud Tamini (86), a militant Muslim leader who later advocated peace with Israel, died in Amman.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1998        Mar 21, In Nigeria Pope John Paul II arrived in Abuja and began urging the military government to respect human rights and release political prisoners. He pressed the military regime to release dozens of prisoners, including prominent opposition figures and journalists.
    (SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/21/99)
1998        Mar 21, Maciej Slomczynski, Polish translator, died at age 77. He made Polish translations of Shakespeare’s complete works, Joyce’s "Ulysses" and works by Faulkner, Swift and Milton.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)

1998        Mar 22, President Clinton departed Washington for an historic 12-day tour of Africa.
    (AP, 3/22/99)
1998        Mar 22, A deeply divided United Auto Workers union approved a new contract with Caterpillar Inc., ending a 6 1/2-year contract battle.
    (AP, 3/22/99)
1998        Mar 22, In Miles Township, Pa., 11 students were killed in a cabin fire while on a camping trip.
    (SFC, 3/23/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/22/99)
1998        Mar 22, Kosovo Albanians elected Ibrahim Rugova as president. Serb officials pronounced the elections meaningless.
    (SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 22, In Moldova elections were held and the Communist party received about 30% of the vote. Political parties scrambled to form a coalition to keep the Communists out of power.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 22, A Philippine Airbus 320 jetliner overshot its runway on landing and hit a row of houses and a disco in Bacolod. 3 people were killed and a hundred injured.
    (WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 23, In the 70th Academy Awards the film Titanic tied the record by winning 11 Oscars including best picture and best director (James Cameron) and song ("My Heart Will Go On"). Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson won the best actor awards and Kim Bassinger and Robin Williams won the best supporting actors awards.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/23/08)
1998        Mar 23, Pres. Clinton visited Ghana, the first nation where Peace Corps volunteers were sent. He hailed "the new face of Africa" as he opened a historic six-nation tour.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/23/99)
1998        Mar 23, The U.S. Supreme Court allowed term limits for state lawmakers.
    (AP, 3/23/99)
1998        Mar 23, The California State Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts were a private organization and not subject to the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 23, In California a LA Fire Dept. helicopter crashed while transporting an injured 12-year-old girl to a hospital. The girl and 3 others were killed.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 23, In Pakistan rival groups clashed in Karachi and 17 people were killed.
    (SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T14)
1998        Mar 23, Serbian and Albanian leaders agree to allow ethnic Albanians into the state university system in Kosovo.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 23, In South Korea the president ordered the pay of 930,000 public servants cut to raise funds for the unemployed.
    (WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 23, Pres. Yeltsin fired his entire cabinet. Some cabinet members were ordered to stay until replacements were named. He named Sergei Kiriyenko (35), an energy minister, as acting premier.
    (SFC, 3/23/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 23-25, Pres. Clinton was scheduled to visit Uganda.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)

1998        Mar 24, The Clinton administration announced a $56 million food and medical supply donation to Indonesia.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998        Mar 24, In Jonesboro, Ark., 2 boys, Mitchell Johnson (13) and Andrew Golden (11), opened fire on a group of schoolchildren and killed four girls and one teacher and wounded 11 others. The older boy was angry at a girl who had broken up with him. Golden had stolen 7 guns from his grandfather. The boys were remanded to the Division of Youth Services until their 18th birthdays. Federal prosecutors used weapons laws to keep the boys locked up until age 21. Mitchell Johnson was due to be released in 2005.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A3)(AP, 8/12/05)
1998        Mar 24, In California the Oakland City Council voted to adopt a Jobs and Living Wage Ordnance that mandated businesses contracting with the city to pay workers at least $8 an hour with benefits or $9.25 without benefits. It was the 17th city nationwide to adopt such an ordnance.
    (SFC, 3/26/98, p.A21)
1998        Mar 24, The UN announced a pullout from Afghanistan after the governor of Kandahar slapped the face of a UN employee.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998        Mar 24, In Colombia leftist guerrillas killed at least 9 people, wounded 14 and took 20 hostages when they blocked a major highway 30 miles south of Bogota.
    (WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 24, In India a tornado killed 105 people and some 500 were missing. At least 80 died in the Midnapore district of West Bengal state and some 1,100 were injured. At least 200 people were killed and thousands injured from a tornado in West Bengal and Orissa states.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998        Mar 24, In Indonesia a plan to service its $74 billion foreign debt was being modeled on the Mexican debt program of the 1980s. Some 4 million construction and manufacturing jobs were already lost due to the crises.
    (WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A18)
1998        Mar 24, In Kosovo Albanian separatists ambushed a police patrol and one policeman was killed.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 24, In Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Apas Dzhumagulov (63) resigned due to age and said new forces were needed for reform. He was expected to be appointed as an ambassador.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998        Mar 24, In South Korea the government fired two-thirds of the senior officials at its spy agency in a move to get the agency out of domestic politics.
    (WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 24, In Ukraine Vasyl Koryak, mayor of Lubny in central Poltava, was badly wounded when gunmen opened fire on his car.
    (SFC, 3/25/98, p.A11)

1998        Mar 25, Pres. Clinton visited Rwanda. Shaken by horror stories from the worst genocide since World War II, President Clinton grimly acknowledged during his Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the slaughter of up to 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13) (AP, 3/25/99)
1998        Mar 25, The FCC netted $578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.
    (AP, 3/25/99)
1998        Mar 25, The executive body of the EU endorsed a proposal for 11 nations to be part of the new system. These included Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, Austria and Luxembourg.
    (SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998        Mar 25, Russia promised to support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not support new sanctions urged by the US.
    (SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998        Mar 25, In Tajikistan Islamic rebels killed over 60 government troops and held another 60 hostage after a 2-day battle near the capital.
    (WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 26, President Clinton stood with President Nelson Mandela in a racially integrated South African parliament to salute a country that was "truly free and democratic at last."
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/26/99)
1998        Mar 26, The US federal government endorsed a new HIV test that yielded instant results.
    (AP, 3/26/03)
1998        Mar 26, In Nevada a new satellite-based survey of the Yucca Mountain site for storing radioactive wastes indicated that the Earth’s crust at the site was stretching 10 times faster than previous studies have shown.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 26, In Greece a 2-day storm closed the Athens airport and left much of the capital without electricity. At least one person was killed.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 26, In Japan the ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced a $124 billion economic stimulus package.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A13)
1998        Mar 26, In Kenya a fire at a school near Mombasa killed 25 teenage girls in their dormitory.
    (WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 26, In Malaysia riots flared in 4 detention camps that housed mainly Indonesian illegal immigrants. The Internal Security Act allowed the detention without trial of people caught helping illegals. 8 inmates and one policeman were killed. Over 200 inmates escaped from one camp.
    (WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 26, In Mexico a mob in Huejutla lynched 2 suspected kidnappers after a judge ordered the 2 men freed on $600 bail. 30 residents were arrested in the lynching.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 26, In the Philippines Imelda Marcos claimed to have $800 million in foreign banks and promised to give it all to the poor if she is elected in May.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 26, In Serbia Pres. Milosevic ordered several hundred additional police to Kosovo. Serbs protested the killing of a policeman and 2 ethnic Albanians were killed in a police counterattack.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 26, Three major Swiss banks pledged to set up a compensation fund in the US for a global settlement with Holocaust victims.
    (SFC, 3/27/98, p.A12)

1998        Mar 27, The US Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, saying it helped about two-thirds of impotent men improve their sexual function. Viagra’s effects were shown to last 8-12 hours. Pfizer had originally tested the compound UK 92,480 as a drug for angina and found that male volunteers were getting frequent erections. They renamed it Viagra and sought sales approval.
    (AP, 3/27/99)(SFC, 5/28/02, p.A4)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.76)
1998        Mar 27, It was reported that toxic waste was sold to 454 fertilizer companies by 600 steel mills, foundries and chemical plants between 1990-1995.
    (WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A1,B8)
1998        Mar 27, In California federal documents were released that charged Dr. Aramais Paronyan with heading a $13 million Medi-Cal fraud ring from LA to SF.
    (SFEC, 3/29/98, p.E1)
1998        Mar 27, Robbers in Commerce, east of LA, escaped with $2.94 million in cash from a Dunbar Security armored car after shooting the driver.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 27, Two Afghans convicted of murder had their throats cut in front of 30,000 spectators in Kabul’s sports stadium.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 27, Ferdinand Porsche Jr., creator of the Porsche sports car, died at age 88 in Zell am See, Austria. He was born in Wiener-Neustadt and moved to Germany with his family after WW I where his father became chief engineer of Daimler-Benz, the manufacturer of the Mercedes Benz cars. He wrote an autobiography titled "Cars Are My Life."
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)(AP, 3/27/99)
1998        Mar 27, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay signed a pact to heighten security on their triple frontier.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 27, In Colombia rebels under Commandante Romana freed 9 Colombian hostages but held 4 American birdwatchers and an Italian businessman for ransom.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 27, In Cuba two oil tankers collided and spilled heavy crude into Matanzas Bay, 60 miles east of Havana.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 27, In Mexico Adrian Carrera Fuentes, former director of the Federal Judicial Police, was arrested on charges of being on the payroll of the Arellano Felix drug gang.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 27, In Northern Ireland a former policeman was shot and killed by masked gunmen in Armagh.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 27, In Paraguay the Supreme Court ratified Lino Oviedo as the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate, despite his jail sentence.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 27, Pres. Yeltsin nominated acting Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko (35) to head the government.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A8)

1998        Mar 28, President Clinton, during his visit to South Africa, went to Soweto, a landmark in the bloody uprising against apartheid, to honor South Africans "who answered the call of conscience" and defeated their country's system of white supremacy.
    (AP, 3/28/99)
1998        Mar 28, It was reported that the US government conducted a series of "sub-critical" underground explosions involving radioactive plutonium in a sealed chamber 960 feet below ground at the Los Alamos National Lab.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998        Mar 28, In France tens of thousands marched in demonstrations against the right-wing National Front, which made gains in recent regional elections.
    (SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 28, In India the Hindu Nationalist BJP won a confidence vote in parliament by a narrow margin, 274-261.
    (SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar 28, In Madagascar the locust swarm was reported to have covered an estimated 24 million acres in the south of the country.
    (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998        Mar 28, In Russia former Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin announced his candidacy for the presidential election in 2000.
    (SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)

1998        Mar 29, The Lady Vols of Tennessee won a third straight NCAA basketball championship, defeating Louisiana Tech.
    (AP, 3/29/99)
1998        Mar 29, In Denver 4 men beat a cabbie, Mostapha Maarouf of Morocco, to death as people watched from their high-rise apartments. One person was arrested.
    (SFC, 3/30/98, p.A4)
1998        Mar 29, In Minnesota twisters from St. Peter to Comfrey damaged an estimated 819 homes and left 2 people dead.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 29, In Cambodia civilians fled fighting between factions of the Khmer Rouge.
    (WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 29, In Mexico Carol Janet Schlosberg, an American artist, was raped and beaten at Puerto Escondido. She was then tossed into the Pacific and drowned. In 1999 Cirilo Olivera Lopez and Rosendo Marquez Gutierrez were convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
    (SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1998        Mar 29, In Palestine the body of Mohiyedine Sharif, a master bomb-maker for Hamas, was found at the scene of an exploded car in Ramallah. His body had bullet holes. Israel denied involvement in the killing. Sharif was a member of the Izzedine Qassam, a military wing of Hamas. Palestinian security officials later assigned the murder to Adel Awadallah, a rival for leadership in Hamas.
    (SFC, 4/2/98, p.A12)(SFC, 4/798, p.A12)
1998        Mar 29, In Peru an air force plane evacuating people stranded by flooding crashed in Piura. Twenty-two people were killed when a Russian-made Antonov military plane crashed into a Peruvian shantytown outside the northern city of Piura.
    (SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)(AP, 3/29/99)
1998        Mar 29, In Portugal the $1 billion, 10-mile Vasco da Gama bridge over the River Tagus opened in time to bring traffic from Spain for the Lisbon Expo.
    (SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 29, In Russia Andrei Klimentyev, a controversial entrepreneur, won the mayoral election in Nizhny Novgorod. The election was invalidated on Apr 1 and Klimentyev was arrested on Apr 2 for instigating civil disobedience. He had been convicted in 1997 of embezzling $2.5 million.
    (SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)
1998        Mar 29, In Somalia factional fighting killed 13 people in Hobyo, 2 days before a national reconciliation conference.
    (WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 29, In the Ukraine parliamentary elections gave the Communists about 121 of 450 seats.
    (SFC, 4/1/98, p.A10)

1998        Mar 29-1998 Mar 31, Pres. Clinton visited Botswana and took 2 days off to explore the Chobe National Park, home to 45,000 elephants and other species.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)

1998        Mar 30, The Univ. of Kentucky beat the Utah Utes 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio for the NCAA men’s basketball finals. It was Kentucky’s 7th national title.
    (WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A16)
1998        Mar 30, In eastern Arizona nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 30, In Columbia Falls, Mont., it was reported that $100 million would be distributed amongst 1000 employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta Gilmore led a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not divvy out profits to workers as promised.
    (WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1998        Mar 30, In Algeria some 123 people including 58 civilians and many children were reported killed in the west and south in the last 3 days.
    (WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 30, In Armenia Prime Minister Robert Kocharian led the runoff vote with 60%.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar 30, In Britain the Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for $570 million. However, BMW was later successfully outbid by Volkswagen AG
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)(AP, 3/30/08)
1998        Mar 30, Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and will oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26 elections.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998        Mar 30, In Colombia it was reported that oil pipeline sabotage had spilled 1.5 million barrels of crude over the last decade.
    (SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 30, In Romania Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as mayor of Bucharest.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998        Mar 30, In Somalia Ali Mohamed Mahdi and Hussein Mohamed Aidid agreed to a joint administration for Mogadishu after 7 years of fighting. 30 people were killed as rival clans clashed in Kismayu.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998        Mar 30, A Syrian-Iraqi Health week started. Health Minister Iyad Shatti arrived in Iraq from Syria with 12 trucks of food and medicine.
    (SFC, 3/30/98, p.A9)

1998        Mar 31, For the first time in history, the Clinton administration released a detailed financial statement for the federal government showing its assets and liabilities.
    (AP, 3/31/99)
1998        Mar 31, Hon-Ming Chen, Taiwanese leader of a spiritual sect in Garland, Texas, was to meet God at 10 AM.
    (SFC, 3/23/98, p.A3)
1998        Mar 31, Former New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug died at age 77.
    (AP, 3/31/99)
1998        Mar 31, In Egypt a sweeping press ban forbade publishing houses from printing in tax-free zones. This amounted to a temporary de facto ban for over 50 publications that printed in the Nasr City tax-free zone outside of Cairo.
    (SFC, 5/9/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 31, The EU set this date for membership talks with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus. Preliminary talks were also set with Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
    (SFC,12/13/97, p.A12)
1998        Mar 31, In Lille, France, an 18-year-old boy was shot dead by a fellow student in front of his classmates and teacher.
    (SFC, 4/22/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 31, The UN Security Council imposed a new arms embargo on Yugoslavia to press Milosevic to grant ethnic Albanians concessions in Kosovo.
    (SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)(AP, 3/31/99)
1998        Mar 31, In Cambodia government soldiers made a major offensive to destroy the remnants of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, which was disintegrating due to defections and internal fighting.
    (SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar 31, In Lebanon a roadside bomb in the Israeli security zone killed 6 construction workers in their pickup truck near Kaoukaba.
    (SFC, 4/1/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 31, It was reported that in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province, women of the Padaung tribe of Burma were attracting tourists with their necks elongated by wearing brass coils. They began fleeing Burma’s Kayah state over a decade ago.
    (SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)

1998        Mar, In St. Augustine, Fla., the Tragedy in US History Museum, created by L.H. "Buddy" Hough, closed.
    (SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A22)
1998        Mar, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said sexual diseases such as chlamydia were epidemic in the US and launched a campaign to raise public awareness. 4 million new cases a year were being reported.
    (SFC, 8/12/98, p.C16)
1998        Mar, Scientists at MIT Lincoln Laboratory began watching the sky for near-Earth objects.
    (SFC, 3/6/99, p.A8)
1998        Mar, In Buenos Aires, Argentina, a law was repealed that granted police wide authority to arrest prostitutes and drunks. A new law allowed prostitutes on the streets.
    (SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T13)
1998        Mar, In Indonesia the 1,000 member assembly will affirm the leader for the next 5 years.
    (WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A18)
1998        Mar, A US spy accompanied a UN inspection team and placed an electronic eavesdropping system in Baghdad.
    (SFC, 1/8/99, p.A1)
1998        Mar, In Iraq Nassir Hindawi, germ weapons scientist, was arrested as he prepared to flee the country.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.A12)
1998        Mar, In Mexico Pres. Zedillo issued a revised proposal of the 1996 San Andres Larrainzar accord on autonomy for indigenous people.
    (SFC, 5/11/98, p.A8)
1998        Mar, In Nicaragua Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo (30), the stepdaughter of former Pres. Daniel Ortega, went public with charges that Ortega had sexually abused her since she was 11 years old.
    (SFC, 5/30/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico began talking to reduce oil output. They pledged to take 2-3% of the world’s oil production off the market in what came to be called the Riyadh Pact.
    (WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A1)
1998        Mar, The Seoul government approved a plan to compensate South Korean women used by Japan as sex slaves from 1910-1945, when Japan colonized the Korean peninsula.
    (SFC, 4/22/98, p.A11)
1998        Mar, In Sierra Leone Ahmed Kabbah was restored to power with the help of a Nigerian-led African force that ousted the military junta. In May it was reported that Sandline Int’l. was paid $10 million on behalf of Kabbah to arm and train a force to return him to power. Peter Penfield, the British ambassador, coordinated the operation. The planeloads of weaponry that were brought were in direct violation of a UN arms embargo on Sierra Leone. The US was reportedly kept informed of the entire operation.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A11)

Go to April 1998