Return to home 1999 Oct 1,
South Korean activists thanked the US government for promising to
investigate an Associated Press report that US forces allegedly
killed several hundred refugees at the start of the Korean War. But
the protesters also demanded the US punish some of the veterans
involved and compensate the victims’ relatives.
(AP, 10/1/00)
1999 Oct 1, In Thailand the
Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors took 38 diplomats as hostages at
the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok. Two Thai officials were exchanged
for the hostages and 12 [5] students were reported to have flown to
the Thai-Burma border by helicopter, where they were released. The
students demanded the release of political prisoners, dialogue
between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi and an elected parliament.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A25)
1999 Oct 1, In China the
celebration for the 50th anniversary of Communism included 50
approved slogans for the masses to chant and 61 approved songs to
sing. Central TV had already aired a 16-part documentary on the past
50 years.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 1, In Indonesia the
new national Assembly met for the first time in the post-Suharto
period. The assembly elected Amien Rais as speaker and chose Oct 20
as the date to select the next president.
(WSJ, 10/1/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 1, Israel planned to
implement the Wye River accord and pull troops from the West Bank.
(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 1, Joao da Silva
Tavares, a militia leader in West Timor, said he planned to lead
12,000 fighters back to 6 western districts of East Timor.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.C1)
1999 Oct 1, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked Shiites in Karachi and killed 9 people in a mosque. A
retaliatory attack on a Sunni Muslim school left 4 dead. Another 5
people were killed in eastern Punjab.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 1, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin cut ties with the elected government of Chechnya.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 2, The controversial
art show "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi
Collection" opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Mayor Giuliani
withheld the museum's monthly city subsidy and started eviction
proceedings. The show included Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary"
fashioned with some elephant dung.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 2, The US and Russia
opened a new video-conferencing center in Moscow to allow real-time
links with the White House.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 2, Bo Mya, leader of
the Karen National Union, said he would grant sanctuary to the
Burmese students who were flown to the Thai-Burma following a 26
hour takeover of the Burmese Embassy in Thailand.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A25)
1999 Oct 2, In India 6 people,
including 4 police personnel, were killed as national elections
began in Tripura state.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A23)
1999 Oct 2, From Kenya it was
reported that the flamingos of Lake Nakuru had migrated away to
other locations. Environmental stress from industrial refuse and
other wastes was blamed. Fluctuating salinity was also suspect in
that flamingoes feed on the algae spirulina platensis, which blooms
in saline waters. It was later reported that tens of thousands of
flamingos on Lake Bogoria had died since July due to heavy metals.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/4/00, p.A8)
1999 Oct 2, Russian troops
engaged Chechen guerrilla defenders as armored columns rolled into
the villages of Alpatova and Chernokosova.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 2, In the Ukraine
Natalia Vitrenko of the leftist Progressive Socialist Party was
wounded in a grenade attack at a campaign meeting in Inguletsk.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A)
1999 Oct 3, Sony co-founder
Akio Morita, the entrepreneur, engineer and savvy salesman who
helped give new meaning to the words "Made in Japan," died in Tokyo
at age 78.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)(AP, 10/3/00)
1999 Oct 3, Austria’s the
far-right Freedom Party (the Blues) led by Jörg Haider (49) won 2nd
place behind the Social Democrats, who won with 33% of the vote. The
conservative People’s Party (the Blacks) fell to 3rd place with 27%.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(Econ,
11/24/07, SR p.6)(Econ, 5/21/16, p.50)
1999 Oct 3, Flooding in Central
America left 21 dead in Honduras, 10 dead in Nicaragua, and 11 dead
in El Salvador and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 3, In India the
elections ended and the Bharatiya Janata Party under PM Atal Bihari
Vajpayee was expected to return to power with an alliance of 21
other parties. The BJP was expected to gain 34 seats to 287. The BJP
won a projected 296 of 545 seats. The Congress Party won 114 seats.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/8/99, p.A1)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.45)
1999 Oct 3, In Peru 9 soldiers
were killed in a weekend clash with some 60 Maoist guerrillas in the
central jungle.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 3, Veselin Boskovic,
the brother-in-law of former deputy PM Vuk Draskovic, was killed
when a truck swerved in front of a convoy of cars 25 miles southeast
of Belgrade. A 2nd car with bodyguards hit the truck and exploded.
The truck driver escaped. Draskovic was not injured and called the
accident an assassination attempt.
(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 3, In Sierra Leone
Foday Sankoh returned home with former junta leader Johnny Paul
Koroma and met with Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. Sankoh gave a radio
speech and pleaded for forgiveness.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 4, It was reported
that Edmund T. Pratt, an ex-Pfizer executive, planned to donate $35
million to endow the Duke Univ. School of Engineering.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 4, An Illinois jury
ordered State Farm to pay $456 million to 4.7 million customers in a
lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest car insurer of using inferior
parts for auto body repairs. Four days later, the judge ruled State
Farm had committed fraud, and awarded $730 million in actual and
punitive damages on top of the jury verdict. State Farm appealed.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A3)(AP,
10/4/00)
1999 Oct 4, MCI WorldCom
planned to acquire Sprint Corp. for over $100 billion. The deal was
quashed in 2000.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/28/00, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council approved a one-time increase in oil sales for Iraq from
$5.26 billion to $8.3 billion.
(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, Israeli PM Ehud
Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed on terms for the
first safe route between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 4, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin planned to resettle thousands of Chechens in areas
under Russian control, an indication that Moscow planned to split
Chechnya in two. Chechen fighters shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24
warplane that was searching for another downed plane.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 4, In South Korea
radioactive water leaked inside a nuclear power plant in Wolsung and
exposed 22 workers to small amounts of radiation.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 5, It was announced
that MCI WorldCom Incorporated had agreed to pay $115 billion for
Sprint Corporation.
(AP, 10/5/00)
1999 Oct 5, Initial indictments
in the Russian money-laundering scheme were handed up. A former bank
of NY vice president, her husband, and a Russian business associate
were accused of conspiracy to transmit about $7 billion illegally.
(WSJ, 10/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 5, In London 2 morning
commuter trains collided near Paddington Station and 31 people were
killed. At least 70 people were later feared dead and some estimates
reached over 100. It was later confirmed that one train ran a red
light. 64 people remained unaccounted for.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)(SFC,
10/9/99, p.A10)(AP, 10/5/04)
1999 Oct 5, In Chechnya Russian
troops seized the northern third of the country. A suspected Russian
artillery shell hit a busload of people and killed 40 people, mostly
women and children.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 5, Kofi Annan
presented a UN plan to take full control of East Timor and guide the
territory to nationhood over 2-3 years.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 5, In Kosovo at least
one Serb was killed when ethnic Albanians attacked a Russian-Serb
convoy. The Albanians had gathered for the funeral of 18-28
countrymen found in a mass grave the previous week.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 5, In Mexico flooding
from Tropical Depression No. 11 killed at least 83 people in ten
states including 42 in Puebla after 7 rivers overflowed following
heavy rains. The death toll soon reached at least 342. A large
mudslide in Teziutlan left 72 confirmed dead and 30 people missing.
The Catholic Church expected the toll to reach near 600.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)(SFC,
10/8/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A12)(SFC,
10/12/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 6, The US NFL voted to
place an expansion team in Houston after Bob McNair agreed to pay
$700 million for a franchise to begin in 2002. This left Los
Angeles, the second-largest TV market in the nation, without a
football team.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/6/00)
1999 Oct 6, The US introduced a
resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the seizure of
assets of the Taliban militia and grounding all int'l. flights from
Afghanistan until Osama bin Laden is turned over.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)
1999 Oct 6, Five clothing
designers agreed to settle a class action suit over working
conditions in Saipan. They included Ralph Lauren, Philips-Van
Heusen, Bryland L.P., Karan Int'l., and Dress Barn.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 6, The Chechen
president called for a holy war against Russia.
(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 6, In East Timor
Australian peacekeepers killed 2 anti-independence militia-men near
the West Timor border.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, In Ecuador one
person died as the Pichincha volcano dumped 5,000 tons of ash over
the city of Quito.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, In Mexico, furious
rains sent swollen rivers raging through the streets of the Gulf
coast city of Villahermosa and caused mudslides; dozens of deaths
were reported in eastern Mexico’s coastal mountain ranges.
(AP, 10/6/00)
1999 Oct 6, Jon Lech Johansen
(15) of Norway released DeCSS, a program that allows users to copy
DVDs onto computer hard disks.
(WSJ, 10/13/05,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS)
1999 Oct 6, Philippine
government officials and Muslim separatists agreed to halt a series
of deadly clashes in at least 2 southern provinces, Maguindanao and
Sultan Kudarat, and to start formal peace talks.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, Amalia Rodrigues
(b.1920), Portuguese actress and fado singer, died at age 79.
(SFC, 10/11/99,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A1lia_Rodrigues)
1999 Oct 7, It was reported
that American fighter jets had begun using non-explosive concrete
bombs to destroy military targets in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C20)
1999 Oct 7, In the US the 9th
annual National Depression Screening Day was coordinated by the
National Mental Health Screening Project.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A6)
1999 Oct 7, American Home
Products agreed to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle claims that its
fen-phen drug combination caused heart valve problems.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A3)(AP, 10/7/00)
1999 Oct 7, In Chechnya Russian
planes bombed the village of Elistanzhi and 32 people were reported
killed with 60 injured and 200 houses destroyed.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 7, In Iran the Asr-e
Azadegan began publishing. It replaced the Neshat, which was closed
by conservative clerics after 149 editions.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.A26)
1999 Oct 7, In Mexico the
Nahuatl village of Acalana was buried under a collapsed mountain
killing all but 30 people. As many as 200 people had lived there.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 7, In Nigeria it was
reported that floodgates were opened on the Niger River at 2 dams,
Jebba and Shiriro, to prevent Shiriro Lake from overflowing its
banks. 400 villages were submerged leaving 300,000 people homeless
and some 500 people were estimated to have been drowned.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 7, In the Philippines
Typhoon Dan left at least 7 people dead and thousands of homes
flooded. This was the 13th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 7, Rwanda reported
that army troops and Congolese allies had killed over 200 Rwandan
Hutu rebels over a weeklong operation along the border where 4,000
Hutu rebels had been based.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 8, Laila Ali, the
21-year-old daughter of Muhammad Ali, made her professional boxing
debut by knocking out opponent April Fowler 31 seconds after the
opening bell in Verona, New York.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, Pres. Clinton asked
the US Senate to postpone a vote on the global nuclear test ban
treaty (CTBT) due to insufficient votes for passage [see Oct 13].
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A1)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.64)
1999 Oct 8, President Clinton
dedicated a new US embassy in Ottawa, Canada.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, It was reported
that the US Congress had approved $1 billion over 20 years for 7
luxury aircraft for the Pentagon's top commanders.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 8, A damage award to
State Farm auto insurance customers swelled to nearly $1.2 billion
after a judge in Illinois ruled that the nation’s largest auto
insurer committed fraud by using generic auto-body repair parts. The
$730 million award of actual and punitive damages came on top of a
jury’s $456 million verdict in the same class-action lawsuit.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, In Congo Pres.
Kabila ordered foreign businessmen to put down a $500,000 guarantee
by Dec. 21 or leave the country. The order came less than a week
after he ordered a crackdown on Congo's illegal foreign exchange
market, the shutdown of the main commercial district and the arrest
of currency traders.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 8, In London a court
ruled that Gen'l. Pinochet can be extradited to Spain for trial on
torture and conspiracy charges.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 8, In Venezuela
authorities suspended 122 judges for corruption and incompetence.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 9, In boxing’s
first sanctioned battle of the sexes, Margaret MacGregor defeated
Loi Chow by winning all four rounds on all three judges’ cards in a
promotion held in Seattle.
(AP, 10/9/00)
1999 Oct 9, The UAW and Ford
reached a tentative contract agreement that included a 3% raise on
top of increases to compensate for inflation.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 9, Sea Launch Co. put
a Direct TV satellite into orbit in the first sea based launch.
Partners included Boeing, Kvaerner Maritime of Norway, and rocket
builders from Russia and the Ukraine.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 9, Milt Jackson,
vibraphonist for the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), died at age 76 in
Manhattan. His compositions included "Bags' Groove," "Bluesology,"
and "The Cylinder."
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 10, In Texas 6 college
students of Texas A-and-M University were killed just after midnight
as they got out of their cars for a party at Tau Kappa Epsilon in
College Station. The driver of a pickup had fallen asleep.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A3)(AP, 10/10/00)
1999 Oct 10, Windsor, Nova
Scotia, Canada, held its first pumpkin regatta on Lake Pesaquid.
Danny Dill, son of Howard Dill, had proposed the pumpkin boating
event to help the town capitalize on its history as the birthplace
of giant pumpkin growing. In the 1970s Howard Dill had engineered
mammoth pumpkins and patented the seed as Dill’s Atlantic Giant.
(WSJ, 10/20/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/3y5me4)
1999 Sep 10, It was reported
that Canada has 339 species in serious danger of disappearing and no
federal legislation for protection of endangered animals.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 10, Portugal’s
governing Socialist Party was returned to power by a comfortable
margin in a general election.
(AP, 10/10/00)
1999 Oct 11, Dr. Guenter
Blobel, a German American researcher of Rockefeller Univ., was
awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology for his work on
how the body puts addresses on individual proteins so that they
arrive at a correct location.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, Gov. Davis signed
a California bill that required set a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:6
beginning Jan 1, 2004. It was the 1st such law in the US. The ratio
was to go to 1:5 in 2005.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.AA1)(SFC, 3/4/05, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Chechnya more
people fled Russian attacks and Moscow rebuffed a peace overture and
demanded that Islamic militants be handed over before any peace
settlement.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Paris riot
police used tear gas against egg-throwing chefs, who demanded that
the government lift a 20.6% tax on restaurant meals.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Indonesia the
acting attorney general announced that he was halting a yearlong
investigation into alleged corruption by former Pres. Suharto due to
insufficient evidence for prosecution.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 11, Israel confirmed
that some 400 Jews from Cuba were brought to Israel over the last 5
years in a secret operation.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 11, In Kosovo a UN
employee, Valentin Krumov (38) of Bulgaria, was beaten and shot to
death by a group of ethnic Albanian teenagers in Pristina.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 11, In Portugal the
Socialist Party returned to power with a 44% vote in the elections
giving them 111 seats in the 230 seat Assembly. The Social Democrats
won 32% and got 79 seats.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 11, South Africa and
the European Union signed a free-trade pact.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 12, Professors
Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman of the Netherlands won
the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of mathematical tools
to calculate properties of fundamental particles. From 1981 to his
retirement in 1997, Veltman was an active member of the Univ. of
Michigan physics department.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)(MT, Fall/99, p.7)
1999 Oct 12, Ahmed H. Zewail,
an Egyptian chemist at the California Inst. of Tech., won the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry for finding a way to freeze-frame the private
matings of molecules using ultra fast laser probes.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 12, It was reported
that Calvin Klein would soon begin marketing "dirty jeans" for as
much as $78 retail.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 12, The world
population was projected to reach 6 billion. This day was declared
by the UN as the Day of 6 Billion. The designated 6 billionth baby
was born in Bosnia.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.A19)(SFC,
10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, Wilt Chamberlain,
basketball legend and Hall-of-Famer Wilt "The Stilt," died at
age 63 in Bel Air, Ca.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/12/00)
1999 Oct 12, In Burundi Hutu
rebels attacked a UN humanitarian convoy and killed 9 people at the
Muzye refugee camp in Rutana.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, In Hong Kong it
was reported that a $2.6 billion Cyberport was to be developed
beginning in 2001.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Pervez Musharraf led a military coup after PM Shariff tried to fire
him and replace him with Gen'l. Zia Uddin. Musharraf avoided martial
law and left the parliament intact. Sharif refused to let a
passenger plane land in Karachi with 198 people aboard that included
Gen. Musharraf. The coup cut short a Pakistani commando operation
set up by the CIA to get Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. In 2009 the
Pakistani Supreme Court acquitted Sharif of hijacking charges.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A21)(SFC,
4/6/00, p.A12)(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A10)(SFC, 7/18/09, p.A2)
1999 Oct 12, Bjorn Soderberg
(b.1958), a member of a Swedish far-left union, was shot and killed.
Prosecutors said the killing was revenge for the Soderberg's public
denouncement of a co-worker who belonged to a neo-Nazi organization.
In 2000 three men, including Hampus Hellekant, were convicted in the
fatal shooting. Hellekant served 7 years in prison and in 2007 was
admitted to the medical school of the Karolinska institute under the
name Karl Svensson. He was expelled after 4 months when his former
identity was revealed.
(AP,
1/25/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_S%C3%B6derberg)
1999 Oct 13, Robert A. Mundell
(66), a Canadian born professor at Columbia Univ., won the Nobel
Prize in Economics for his study of cross-border capital flows,
flexible foreign exchange rates, and supply side economics. A 1961
paper by Mundell had pioneered the theory of an “optimal currency
area," which later helped shape the euro zone.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A2)(Econ, 6/13/09, SR p.10)
1999 Oct 13, Pres. Clinton
proposed to place 40 million acres of federal forest beyond the
reach of loggers, miners and road-builders. He urged the forest
service to engage the public in how best to manage and conserve over
50 million acres of the last roadless tracts.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A1)(SFC, 8/9/00,
p.A21)
1999 Oct 13, The US Senate
rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty 51-48.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/13/00)
1999 Oct 13, Vice Pres. Al Gore
received endorsement from the AFL-CIO for his presidential bid.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 13, In Boulder,
Colorado, the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13
months of work with prosecutors saying there wasn’t enough evidence
to charge anyone in the six-year-old’s strangulation.
(AP, 10/13/00)
1999 Oct 13, In Texas 3
Pleasanton law officers, Mark Stephenson, Thomas Monse and Terry
Miller were shot and killed by Jeremiah Engleton (21), who had been
arrested earlier for beating his wife.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 13, In Colombia drug
police arrested 30 cocaine traffickers including Medellin cartel
leader Fabio Ochoa and reputed distribution boss Alejandro
Bernal-Madrigal. Some 1,290 traffickers were also arrested in
Mexico, Ecuador, the US and other countries over the last 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A1,22)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 13, France legalized
same sex unions under legislation called "civil solidarity pacts"
pushed through by the Socialist-dominated National Assembly.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 13, In Georgia gunmen
seized 6 UN observers and a translator as they delivered aid to
Abkhazia. 4 of the observers were released the next day and the
ransom was raised to $350,000. The last of the hostages were
released 2 days later.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)(SFC,
10/16/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 13, In Indonesia the
military chief, Gen'l. Wiranto, was picked by Golkar as the running
mate to Pres. Habibie.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A1,23)
1999 Oct 14, President Clinton
accused Senate Republicans of recklessness and irresponsibility for
defeating the nuclear test ban treaty, and pledged the United States
would refrain from testing despite the treaty’s rejection.
(AP, 10/14/00)
1999 Oct 14, At Cape Canaveral,
Florida, Launch Complex 41, built in 1945, was destroyed to make way
for Atlas V rockets.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 14, Hurricane Irene
drenched Cuba and proceeded to the Florida keys.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 14, In Bosnia 4 NATO
soldiers were injured as they attempted to seize weapons in the
divided city of Mostar.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 14, In Chechnya the
Russians pressed an offensive below the Terek River as the Chechens
rallied in Grozny.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 14, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie gave a speech lauding his accomplishments as security forces
fought back demonstrators.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 14, Israel released
151 Palestinian prisoners as part of the interim peace accord signed
Sept. 4.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 14, Japan’s Sumitomo
and Sakura Banks announced merger plans. In 2001 they fused into
Sumitomo Mitsui.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A10)(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey
p.22)
1999 Oct 14, Former Tanzanian
Pres. Julius Nyerere (77) died in London from a massive stroke. He
was called Mwalimu, the Swahili word for teacher.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D7)
1999 Oct 15, The US stock
market Dow Jones average dropped 266.9 points, 2.6%, to 10,019.71.
It was the largest % drop since Oct 13, 1989.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 15, The French
organization "Doctors Without Borders" (Medecins Sans Frontieres)
won the Nobel Peace Prize.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 15, Hurricane Irene
hit southern Florida and 5 people were electrocuted by down power
lines in Miami.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 15, In China The
People's Daily published an order that demanded that "foreign
organizations or individuals using encryption products or equipment
containing encryption technology in China must apply" for permission
by Jan 31.
(WSJ, 1/25/00, p.A10)
1999 Oct 15, In Indonesia
thousands of anti-Habibie demonstrators fought police and pressured
the official assembly to go forward with reforms.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 15, Irish tenor Josef
Locke, whose life inspired the 1992 film "Hear My Song," died in
County Kildare, Ireland, at age 82.
(AP, 10/15/00)
1999 Oct 15, In Kosovo Some 100
people were injured as they tried to force their way against NATO
forces across a bridge in Mitrovica to the Serb half of town.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 15, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the
constitution.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, A New York Air
National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole
research center after she’d spent five months isolated by the
Antarctic winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast
lump.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, Hurricane Irene
rumbled up the US East Coast.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, A 7.0 earthquake,
centered near Joshua Tree, Ca., struck in the Mohave Desert. An
Amtrak train was derailed, but there were no deaths.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, Jean Shepherd,
radio personality, died in Sanibel, Florida, at age 78. His
syndicated PBS TV programs included "Jean Shepherd's America" and
"Shepherd's Pie."
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.D10)(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, In Afghanistan the
Taliban rejected the UN ultimatum to surrender Osama bin Laden and
castigated the UN for threatening sanctions.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 16, The 1st graduate
class of the Kosovo Police Service School was honored in Pristina.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A21)
1999 Oct 17, US negotiators
proposed to Russia an alteration to the 1972 ABM treaty to allow
construction of defensive systems.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 17, The FBI reported
that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight
year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, Former nurse
Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a
western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count.
Major is serving a 360-year prison sentence.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, In Niger the 1st
round of the presidential election was held.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 17, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Musharraf announced a unilateral reduction of troops on the India
border, the establishment of a military-technocrat ruling council,
and an eventual return to civilian rule. He unveiled a 7-point
agenda to save the nation.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/ruuth)
1999 Oct 17, In Yemen Abu
Hassan, "a nom de guerre" for the head of the Islamic Army of Aden
and Abyan, was executed.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A10)
1999 Oct 18, The New York
Yankees won a record 36th pennant, beating the Boston Red Sox 6-to-1
in Game Five of the American League Championship Series.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/18/00)
1999 Oct 18, Career prosecutor
Robert Ray was sworn in as the Whitewater Prosecutor to replace
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and wrap up the wide-ranging
investigation of President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/18/00)
1999 Oct 18, A US presidential
panel recommended that Navy gunnery on the Vieques Island of Puerto
Rico be reduced and abandoned in 5 years.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 18, In Botswana
election results showed the ruling Botswana Democratic Party of
Pres. Festus Mogae won 30 of 40 seats in the National Assembly.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 18, In Indonesia Gen.
Wiranto turned down Pres. Habibie's offer for the vice-presidency.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 18, Nelson Mandela
visited Israel for the 1st time in an effort to end enmity between
the Jewish state and the African National Congress. Israel had
supported the apartheid government in South Africa.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 18, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, an explosion in a candy store that sold illegal fireworks
killed at least 5 people.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 18, In Sierra Leone US
Sec. Albright paid a visit and promised $55 million in US aid and
$65 million in debt forgiveness, conditioned on the implementation
of an IMF economic program.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 19, The Atlanta Braves
won the National League pennant by beating the New York Mets,
10-to-9, in Game Six of their championship series.
(AP, 10/19/00)
1999 Oct 19, Legislation to
overhaul US campaign finance laws fell to a filibuster by Senate
Republicans for the fourth straight year.
(AP, 10/19/00)
1999 Oct 19, Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia began trading on Wall Street with 7.2 million
shares at 18. It closed at 35.56. World Wrestling also made its
debut with 10 million shares at 17. It closed at 25.25.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, A 2-year Rand
analysis concluded that the drug pyridostigmine bromide could not be
excluded as a contributor to Gulf War syndrome. The drug was an
experimental nerve gas antidote given to as many as 300,000 US
troops during the Persian gulf war.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, In Cambodia Prime
Minister Hun Sen reportedly gave his approval for a tribunal to hear
genocide charges against the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 19, In East Timor
refugees were returning at the rate of 500 per hour and 17,000 were
expected by the end of the day.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 19, In Germany tens of
thousands of workers marched through Berlin to protest the
government's austerity budget and the pay gap between workers in the
east and west.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, In eastern India
residents of the state of Orissa cleaned up after a cyclone killed
at least 79 people and injured over 1000.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, In Indonesia the
People's Consultative Assembly relinquished the national claim to
East Timor.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, In Nigeria US Sec.
of State Albright recommended that US aid to the country be increase
4 times the current level. The extradition of drug lords as also
discussed with Pres. Obasanjo.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, Puerto Rico Gov.
Pedro Rossello told a US congressional committee that live firing
exercises on Vieques could not be resumed.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 20, The US government
laid out new rules to protect children’s privacy on the Internet and
to shield them from commercial e-mail.
(AP, 10/20/00)
1999 Oct 20, Elizabeth Dole
quit the US presidential race and her Republican bid to be America’s
first woman president due to insufficient campaign funds.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/20/00)
1999 Oct 20, The Cold War
(1951-1977) locations of nuclear weapons minus their nuclear charges
was partly revealed in a 1978 top secret Pentagon document titled
"History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons."
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 20, In France it was
reported that Maurice Papon (89), convicted for collaboration with
the Nazis, had fled the country.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 20, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie withdrew his bid for re-election. The People's Consultative
Assembly voted Abdurrahhman Wahid as the new president. Followers of
Megawati Sukarnoputri immediately rioted.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 20, In Israel
Netanyahu's home was raided by police as part of a corruption
inquiry.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, Organizers called
for a "Jam Echelon Day," an effort to overload US National Security
Agency (NSA) supercomputers with e-mail containing words such as
"bomb." Echelon was a worldwide surveillance network run by the NSA
and partners in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 21, The US Justice
Dept. sued the city of Columbus, Ohio, for a pattern of civil rights
violations by the police.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Chechnya
Russian rockets hit and market and 2 other sites in Grozny and as
many as 140 people were killed.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 21, In East Timor Jose
Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, the exiled guerrilla leader, returned to
Dili.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 21, France’s highest
court upheld the conviction of Maurice Papon, the former Vichy
official who had fled France rather than face prison for his role in
sending Jews to Nazi death camps; Papon was captured in Switzerland
and deported the following day to begin a 10-year sentence.
(AP, 10/21/00)(AP, 9/18/02)
1999 Oct 21, It was reported
that a French-led expedition chopped clear the fully preserved
carcass of a 20 thousand-year-old woolly mammoth, the "Jarkov
Mammoth," from the permafrost of Siberia at Khatanga, Russia.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Indonesia the
People's Consultative Assembly voted 396 to 284 for Megawati
Sukarnoputri as vice president over Hamzah Haz. The vote came after
Gen. Wiranto dropped his candidacy.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 21, In Palestine a
West Bank fire killed 16 women making cigarette lighters in an
unlicensed Hebron facility.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Taiwan a 6.4
earthquake was centered near Chiayi.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B4)(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 21, In Turkey Ahmet
Taner Kislali (60), a columnist for the pro-secular newspaper
Cumhuriyet, died from a bomb placed on his car windshield.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B6)
1999 Oct 21, In Venezuela
corruption cases against 2 former presidents, Carlos Andres Perez
and Jaime Lusinchi, were reopened.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 22, The book
"Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American
President," by J.H. Hatfield (d.2001), was recalled by St. Martin's
Press after the publisher learned that the author was a convicted
felon in a 1987 car bombing attempt. A 2nd edition was published in
2001.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A5)(SSFC, 8/5/01, DB p.60)
1999 Oct 22, Five of the 7
Republican presidential hopefuls met in New Hampshire for their
first debate of the 2000 nomination race, with front-runner George
W. Bush notably absent.
(AP, 10/22/04)
1999 Oct 22, The US government
announced one of the biggest toys recalls ever, advising parents to
remove the batteries from their kids’ "Power Wheels" cars and
trucks, made by Fisher-Price, because of faulty wiring that could
cause them to erupt into flame.
(AP, 10/22/00)
1999 Oct 22, It was reported
that dinosaur fossils, found 4 years ago in Madagascar, may be the
oldest known. The creatures were long-necked prosauropods from about
230 million years ago.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, In California Jan
Davis (60), co-owner of an aerial photography business in Santa
Barbara, plunged to her death during a skydiving stunt from El
Capitan in Yosemite. The stunt was to protest the banning of sport
parachuting from cliffs in national parks.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, In Bosnia Zeljko
Kopanja, editor-in-chief of Nezavisne Novine, lost both legs due to
a bomb attack as he opened his car door. He had recently published a
series of war time atrocities committed against non-Serbs by Bosnian
and Serb forces.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, The Italian
missionary news agency MISNA reported that the bodies of 61
civilians were reported found near the Congo village of Kashambi.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, Maurice Papon
(89), was arrested in Gstaad, Switzerland, and turned over to French
police.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 22, US Sec. of State
Albright visited Kenya and discussed efforts to curb AIDS which was
claiming 500 Kenyans a day.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, In Mexico police
arrested Jacobo Silva Nogales (41), aka Commandante Antonio, leader
of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People, ERPI.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 22, In Peru 28 school
children died near Cuzco after a breakfast of cereal that doctors
suspect was prepared in a vat once used to mix pesticides.
(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, The UN Security
Council voted to send a 6,000 member peacekeeping force to Sierra
Leone to safeguard the July 7 peace deal.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 23, The New York
Yankees won the first game of the World Series, beating the Atlanta
Braves, 4-to-1. The Yankees went on to sweep the series.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1999 Oct 23, Rev. Falwell and
200 members of his Baptist Church were scheduled to meet with 200
gay and lesbian religious leaders in Lynchburg, Va.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 23, A Ku Klux Klan
rally was allowed to proceed in NYC with no masks as thousands of
counter-demonstrators jeered them. 16 Klansmen and 2 Klan women
appeared at Foley Square along with some 6,000 protestors and 2,000
tourists.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A26)(SFEC,
10/24/99, p.A2)(AP, 10/23/00)
1999 Oct 23, Pres. Jiang Zemin
of China visited France and signed a $2.5 billion deal that included
an order for 28 Airbus planes.
(SFEC, 10/27/99, p.A28)
1999 Oct 23, In Palermo, Italy,
Giulio Andreotti (80), 7 times prime minister, was acquitted of
charges that he was the Sicilian Mafia's protector in Rome.
(SFEC, 10/24/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 23, In Mexico the
first monarch butterflies arrived at sanctuaries in Michoacan in
their annual migration.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A24)
1999 Oct 23, Palestine planned
to issue a national currency and the IMF estimated that 2 years of
preparations would be needed.
(SFEC, 10/27/99, p.A28)
1999 Oct 24, The New York
Yankees took game two of the World Series, defeating the Atlanta
Braves, 7-to-2.
(AP, 10/24/00)
1999 Oct 24, Pat Buchanan and
Donald Trump announced that they would seek the Reform Party
nomination for president.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, Senator John
Chafee (Republican, Rhode Island) died in Maryland at age 77. He was
first elected to the state Legislature in 1956 and served 3 terms as
governor. He was also a veteran of the Korean War and served as
Secretary of the Navy.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A5)(SFEC, 6/25/00, Par p.4)
1999 Oct 24, In Argentina
Elections were scheduled with Buenos Aires Gov. Eduardo Duhalde as
the candidate for the ruling Peronists. Fernando de la Rua (62) of
the center-left Alliance led with a 48% to 38% margin.
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC,
10/25/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, In Chechnya
Russian artillery and jet bombers killed at least 27 people during a
dawn attack at Serzhen-Yurt.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 24, In Colombia the
government began formal negotiations with the Marxist FARC guerrilla
group as millions marched to demand an end to civil war.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, An Israeli court
sentenced American teen-ager Samuel Sheinbein to 24 years in prison
for killing an acquaintance in Maryland in 1997.
(AP, 10/24/00)
1999 Oct 24, In Sierra Leone
some 100 soldiers were killed over the weekend as the Revolutionary
United Front battled former junta soldiers between Makeni and
Lunsar.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 24, In Swiss
parliamentary elections the right wing People's Party gained 14
seats in the 200 member lower house for a total of 44.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 25, The 31st Booker
Prize in Literature was won by J.M. Coetzee of South Africa for his
novel "Disgrace." He became the 1st author to win the prize twice.
He won in 1983 for the novel "Live and Times of Michael K."
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.G2)
1999 Oct 25, Pres. Clinton
signed a $267.7 billion Pentagon spending bill.
(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 25, Republican
presidential candidate Pat Buchanan bolted the GOP to mount a bid
for the Reform Party nomination.
(AP, 10/25/00)
1999 Oct 25, Intel introduced
its code-named Coppermine chip as the new Pentium III with speeds up
to 500 megahertz. The internal circuitry was squeezed to .18 micron.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.B1)
1999 Oct 25, It was reported
that the chiru, a goat from the high Tibetan plateau, was seriously
endangered and down to some 75,000. The animal's hide is used to
make expensive shahtoosh shawls.
(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1,15)
1999 Oct 25, Payne Stewart
(42), a professional golfer, was killed with 2 agents and 2 pilots
when their Lear Jet crashed near Mina, South Dakota. The plane had
flown for hours on autopilot before it crashed.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 25, In Albania Prime
Minister Pandeli Majko planned to resign due to his loss to become
the Socialist Party leader earlier in the month.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, In Bosnia some
30,000 people streamed into Serajevo to protest for job protection
and an end to corruption.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, Mladen Vuksanovic,
author of "Pale, a Diary, April-July 1992," written during the first
100 days of Bosnia rule by Radowan Karadzic, died at age 57 in
Croatia.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 25, Iraq reported that
2 civilians were killed and 7 people wounded when US and British
jets attacked sites in the northern no-fly zone.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, Israel opened a
34-mile safe-passage corridor from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank
as Pres. Barak visited Turkey to boost military cooperation and
economic ties.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A10,B2)
1999 Oct 25, An Israeli soldier
shot and killed a Palestinian souvenir vendor, Mousa Abu Hilail,
near Rachel's tomb. Two days of rioting followed.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 25, In Kashmir Indian
troops killed 4 Pakistani soldiers with artillery and small arms in
the mountainous Uri sector.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 25, In Kyrgyzstan 4
Japanese geologists were freed after 2 months of captivity. A $2-5
million ransom was suspected.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 25, In Pakistan Gen.
Musharraf announced that he would head the formation of a 7-person
National Security Council to run the country until elections.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 25, In Tunisia Pres.
Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali won a 3rd term in office with over 99% of
the vote. It was the nation's first multiparty presidential vote.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, The UN Security
Council voted to send 8,950 peacekeepers, 1,640 police officers and
200 military observers to oversee the East Timor transition to
independence.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 26, The New York
Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-to-5, to take a
three-games-to-none lead in the World Series.
(AP, 10/26/00)
1999 Oct 26, The US CIA agreed
to give Germany copies of some 32,000 files that belonged to the
Stasi, the former East German intelligence service. The CIA acquired
the files in 1989.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 26, The WSJ replaced
Chevron, Good Year, Union Carbide and Sears with Intel, Microsoft,
Home Depot and SBC Communications in the Dow Jones Index effective
Nov 1.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 26, The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention released a study which said the
number of Americans considered obese soared from about one in eight
in 1991 to nearly one in five in 1998.
(AP, 10/26/00)
1999 Oct 26, Stanford Univ.
announced that James H. Clark, co-founder of Netscape, had donated
$150 million for biomedical engineering research.
(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 26, In Britain the
upper house of Parliament agreed to abolish the right of over 700
hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. By 2006 the
total number of Lords had fallen from 1,300 to 700.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A12)(Econ, 2/11/06, p.51)
1999 Oct 26, In China police
arrested Falun Gong protestors in Tiananmen Square during a 2nd day
of protests by the spiritual group.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 26, In the Netherlands
the Parliament overturned a 1912 ban on brothels.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 27, The New York
Yankees won their second straight World Series sweep, defeating the
Atlanta Braves in game four, 4-to-1.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, The Clinton
administration authorized the first direct military training for
opponents of Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 27, The US federal
budget surplus was put at $122.7 billion in 1998, marking the first
back-to-back surpluses since the 1950’s.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A6)(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, In the first
debate of the Democratic presidential race, Al Gore sought to stem
his decline in the polls by attacking rival Bill Bradley’s health
care and spending plans.
(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, In Afghanistan
opposition soldiers advanced on Mazar-e-Sharif following the
desertion of a Taliban commander and 500 men.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)
1999 Oct 27, In Armenia gunmen
burst into the parliament and killed Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian
and 7 other officials. They then took a number of hostages and
declared their intent to topple the government.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Chechnya
Russian warplanes and artillery closed in on Grozny and 100 people
were killed and some 200 wounded.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 27, In China members
of the Falun Gong continued to descend on Beijing in an effort to
press the government to reverse its condemnation.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 27, In Indonesia
Marzuki Darusman, the new attorney general, announced a new
corruption inquiry into former Pres. Suharto.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)
1999 Oct 27, In Kazakstan a
Proton-K booster rocket with a Russian communications satellite
crashed during takeoff at the Baikonur cosmodrome and all launches
were cancelled.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 27, In Pec, Kosovo,
Albanians attacked a convoy of Serbs trying to leave the province
and set vehicles afire. Several Serbs were missing.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Lithuania Prime
Minister Rolandas Paksas resigned in protest over the Cabinet’s 11-3
vote in favor of the sale of Mazeikiai Oil to US based Williams
Int'l. Williams spent $75 million for a 33% stake and operating
control of the gas refinery at Mazeikiai. Williams transferred its
interest to a Russian firm.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)(WSJ, 8/2/01, p.A10)(Econ,
1/17/04, p.57)
1999 Oct 27, Serb police seized
a large cache of forged dinars and claimed that a US sponsored
"monetary coup" was foiled.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, Five Republican
presidential hopefuls debated such issues as abortion, health care
and taxes in their second meeting in less than a week; once again,
front-runner George W. Bush was absent from the gathering in New
Hampshire.
(AP, 10/28/00)
1999 Oct 28, The House passed,
218-to-211, the last spending bill of the year, which President
Clinton said he would veto.
(AP, 10/28/00)
1999 Oct 28, A new $970 million
Harrah's casino opened in New Orleans with no hotel and just one
250-seat eatery. Some of the costs included funds for a failed
temporary operation. A $100 million annual tax payment to the state
was part of the operating deal. Bankruptcy threatened operations one
year later.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.B1)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.B12)
1999 Oct 28, Two Navy Blue
Angel aviators, Kieron O'Connor (35) and Kevin Colling (32), were
killed when their F/A-18 Hornet crashed during a training flight
near Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. 23 pilots have died at shows
or training since the group was formed in 1946.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, Harvard Medical
School reported that drug resistant TB had been found in 104
countries and required $1 billion for control. In Russia some
100,000 inmates had TB with 40% drug-resistant.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A9)
1999 Oct 28, In Armenia the
assassins of the prime minister surrendered following negotiations
with Pres. Robert Kocharian. Nairi Unanian, his younger brother
Karen, their uncle Vram Galstian were 3 of the 5 arrested.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 28, China Netcom Corp.
began operations. It was formed earlier in the year by several
government agencies as a competitor to the state-owned telecom
monopoly, China Telecom Corp. Jiang Mianheng, the son of Jiang
Zemin, was one of the 5-member board of directors.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A21)(WSJ, 11/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, In Kashmir
separatist militants fired 6 rocket-propelled grenades at the main
government building in the capital and 3 people were killed and 28
injured.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 28, Mauritania
established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 28, Russian soldiers
battled Chechen fighters for control of Yastrebinaya Hill, which
overlooked Grozny. Chechen Pres. Makhashev said that 223 civilians
had been killed in the last 2 days.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 28, In Yemen 3
Americans, Marta R. Colburn and her parents, were freed after being
held for 2 days by tribesmen, who demanded the release of 25
suspects held for an attack on an oil pipeline.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 29, In Cleveland,
Ohio, 4 white 9th grade students at South High, ages 14-15, were
arrested for planning a Columbine-styled racial massacre.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A3)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 29, Some 3,000 people
attended a memorial service in Orlando, Florida, for golfer Payne
Stewart, who was killed along with 5 other people in the crash of
their Learjet.
(AP, 10/29/00)
1999 Oct 29, In Upper Austria
police arrested 8 unidentified ringleaders of a neo-Nazi group that
planned a political coup.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 29, In eastern India
hundreds of people in Orissa state and the Bay of Bengal region were
feared dead from 05B, the 2nd cyclone in 2 weeks. The number of dead
was estimated to reach 3,000 and 1.5 million people were homeless.
The official dead toll reached 924 on Nov 4. At least 8,000 people
were killed around the port city of Paradeep, where the storm made
first landfall. The death toll was predicted to climb past 10,000.
9,813 death were recorded and the government stopped free rice
distribution after about 3 weeks.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/5/99, p.D4)(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/25/99, p.D6)
1999 Oct 29, In Chechnya
Russian warplanes and artillery launched fierce strikes and 25
refugees were killed while trying to flee the assaults.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A26)
1999 Oct 29, In Chile a court
charged 7 retired military officers, including Gen. Hugo Salas, for
the kidnapping and killing of 7 leftists of the Manuel Rodriguez
Patriotic Front during the rule of Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 29, In Colombia it was
reported that Luis Eduardo Garavito (42) had confessed to the
abduction and killing of some 140 children over a 5-year period. In
Dec. Garavito was convicted and sentenced to 52 years in prison for
the 1996 murder of one boy and raping another.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A20)
1999 Oct 29, An EU Commission
ruled that British beef was safe to eat despite French arguments for
a ban to guard against mad cow disease.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 29, In Lebanon Israeli
warplanes and artillery blasted the southern region after Guerrilla
attacks killed 2 Israeli-allied militiamen.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 30, In China the
government approved new laws against superstitious sects and secret
societies with prison terms of 7 years or more.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 30, In Kenya it was
reported that thousands of residents were feared to have been
exposed to radiation from a thorium compound used in roadway
construction materials in Msambweni.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 30, In Mexico police
reported that Juan Jose Quintero Payan (57), a Juarez Cartel boss,
was arrested in Guadalajara.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 30, In Inchon, South
Korea, a fire killed 54 young people, mostly teenagers, at a karaoke
bar. Another 75 were injured.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 31, Jesse Martin of
Australia became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe,
sailing solo, non-stop and unsupported. He sailed from Melbourne,
Australia, on December 8, 1998 aged 18 years 104 days and returned
on October 31 1999, taking 327 days 12 hours 52 minutes.
(AP, 8/27/09)
1999 Oct 31, The pagan Celts of
Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of
the season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness.
It was believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited
their homes. Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the
Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., their fall
harvest festival, Poloma Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain
to form a major fall festival at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
1999 Oct 31, An EgyptAir
jetliner, Flight 990, enroute from New York to Cairo crashed off
Nantucket Island and all 217 people aboard were killed. Captains
Ahmed al-Habashy and Raouf Noureldin were at the controls. Relief
pilot Gamil al-Batouti (59), the father of five, was suspected to
have caused the crash. In 2002 the National Transportation Safety
Board reported that el-Batouty was solely responsible for the crash.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A3)(SFC,
11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C5)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A3)
1999 Oct 31, In East Timor the
last 900 Indonesian soldiers departed. Indonesian forces had burned
about 80% of East Timor’s government buildings and infrastructure
following the vote for independence.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/10/04, p.A1)
1999 Oct 31, In Augsburg,
Germany, leaders of the Roman Catholic and modern Lutheran Churches
signed the Augsburg Accord, a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification," in a step toward reconciliation. The accord gave
weight to the Lutheran position on salvation through faith and
embraced the Catholic ethic of earthly service.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11,12)
1999 Oct 31, In Macedonia
elections Tito Petkovski, representing the former communist Social
Democratic Party, led with 38% of the vote vs. Boris Trajkovski
(VMRO) with 24.6%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 cOct 31, In Sudan 25
Sudanese fighters were massacred by rival militiamen when they
arrived for talks with Paulino Matep at Benitu.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 31, In Ukraine
elections were held and Pres. Kuchma was favored. Kuchma came in 1st
with 36.5% of the vote vs. Communist leader Petro Symonenko with
22.2%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)(SFC,
11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 31, In Uruguay Tabare
Vazquez, the former mayor of Montevideo, led the presidential vote
with 38% against 31% for Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party.
A runoff Nov 28 runoff was planned.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct, The plum pox virus
made its first appearance in North America in Pennsylvania orchards.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A20)
1999 Oct, In Iraq religious
vigilantes killed a college student as he chatted with his
girlfriend at a Tigris River promenade in northern Baghdad. Over the
next 3 months 18 more young men were killed with one bullet to the
head. In Jan police arrested 4 men for the slayings.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A14)
1999 Oct, In Nigeria hundreds
of civilians were killed by soldiers in Benue. In 2002 Pres.
Obasanjo acknowledged that he ordered the military operations.
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A4)
1999 Oct, Igor Sutyagin, a
Russian scholar, was arrested on charges that he sold information on
nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a British company,
that Russian investigators said was a CIA cover. Sutyagin was found
guilty of espionage in 2004.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A6)
1999 Oct, The policy manual for
South Africa’s national prosecuting authority was released. The
authority took over cases that left over from the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
(www.iss.co.za/Pubs/Monographs/No53/Chap4.html)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.41)
1999 Nov 1, Pres. Clinton met
with Middle East leaders in Oslo.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Nov 1, Coast Guard crews
searching for clues in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which
claimed 217 lives, found the first large piece of wreckage off the
New England coast.
(AP, 11/1/00)
1999 Nov 1, Former Chicago Bear
NFL star Walter Payton died at age 45 from a rare cancer of the bile
duct. He made the NFL Hall of Fame in 1993.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A1,15)
1999 Nov 1, Thomas Jukes
(b.1906), British-American biologist, died. His 1948 testing of
supplements in the diets of chickens found that chickens ingesting
antibiotic leftovers gained weight. This was the start of the use of
antibiotics to promote growth. At UC Davis, he helped determine the
relationships among the B complex vitamins through experiments on
chickens.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Jukes)(Econ, 9/23/17, p.28)
1999 Nov 1, A new Beijing
Int’l. Airport opened.
(Hem, 8/02, p.34)
1999 Nov 1, In China a 5.6
earthquake shook Shanxi and Hebei provinces and some 20,000 people
were left homeless.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.D8)
1999 Nov 1, In Bad Reichenhall,
Germany, a teenage gunman and his sister were found dead after
commandos stormed the house from which the boy had shot and killed 2
pedestrians and injured 8 others.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 1, In Hong Kong Disney
announced a new theme park. Hong Kong will put up $2.88 billion and
have a 57% stake.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 1, In Lebanon Israeli
warplanes fired some 2 dozen missiles at 6 Hezbollah targets in
Iqlim al-Tuffah.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 1, Mexico increased
its border deposit for US registered vehicles from $11 to as much as
$800 for new models for travel beyond the 15-mile border zone.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 1, In Panama the US
handed over Howard Air Force Base, Fort Kobbe and the Farfan
residential zone.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 2, Pres. Clinton met
with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in Oslo to revitalize the
Middle East peace process.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 2, Republicans pushed
the year’s last and biggest spending bill through Congress toward a
sure veto by President Clinton.
(AP, 11/2/00)
1999 Nov 2, Republicans took
control of the Virginia General Assembly for the first time with 52
of 100 seats.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 2, In San Francisco
elections Willie Brown led with 38.7% of the vote and Supervisor Tom
Ammiano came in 2nd with 25.4%. Terence Hallinan led over Bill
Fazio. A Dec 14 runoff was scheduled for both mayor and district
attorney. SF voters backed Proposition F, a ban on ATM surcharges,
and the banks quickly sued to keep the fees. The $299 million bond
measure to rebuild Laguna Honda passed and seismic retrofit for the
Central Freeway (Prop J) was undetermined as was the plan to tear
down the Central Freeway (Prop I). Voters approved an ordnance
making it harder for property owners to evict tenants (Prop G). In
2003 a judge weakened the Prop G ordnance. Voters passed a
proposition to keep the Transbay Terminal where it is and make sure
that Caltrain is extended into the terminal’s basement.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A1,21)(SFC,
11/5/99, p.A1,18)(SFC, 5/3/03, p.A17)(SFC, 8/7/07, p.A6)
1999 Nov 2, In Honolulu,
Hawaii, Xerox repairman Byran Uyesugi (40) killed 7 people at Xerox
company offices. There was no apparent motive. He was convicted of
1st degree murder in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A1,14)(SFC, 6/13/00, p.A11)(AP,
11/2/00)
1999 Nov 2, Spanish Judge
Baltasar Garzon named former Argentine Pres. Leopoldo Galtieri in an
indictment along with 95 other military officers, who presided over
the "Dirty War" from 1976-1983.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C3)
1999 Nov 2, In France the
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the finance minister, resigned in a
corruption scandal.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C3)
1999 Nov 2, In India the death
toll mounted from the cyclone in Orissa state with disease,
lawlessness and vandalism on the rise. There was no power in the
capital of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack was in ruins.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C2)
1999 Nov 2, In Indonesia some
10,000 people in Aceh province took to the streets in Meulaboh
calling for independence.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 2, In southeastern
Iraq a missile hit the Habib camp of the dissident Mujahedeen-e
Khalq (MEK) near the border. At least 5 people were killed and Iran
was blamed for the attack.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 2, Israel resumed
attacks against Lebanon with 5 missiles at mountain targets at Jabal
al-Daher.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 2, In Panama suspected
Colombian rebels hijacked 2 helicopters.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C2)
1999 Nov 2, In Romania dozens
of orphaned and homeless teenagers protested and urged the
government to provide jobs and housing.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 3, In Laramie,
Wyoming, Aaron McKinney (22) was convicted of murder in the October
6-7, 1998, beating of gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard
(21). Shepard died on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital in
Fort Collins, Colorado. McKinney and Russell Henderson, who pleaded
guilty to kidnapping and murder, were sentenced to life in prison.
McKinney had faced the possibility of being sentenced to death by
lethal injection. A deal was reached after Shepard’s parents agreed
to accept two life terms in prison for their son’s killer.
(AP,
11/3/00)(www.cnn.com/US/9911/03/gay.attack.verdict.01/)
1999 Nov 3, In Seattle a gunman
killed 2 men, wounded 2 others at the Northlake Shipyard building
and then escaped into a nearby residential area.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 3, In Guatemala 2
campaigners for Alfonso Portillo Cabrera were killed by gunmen.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 3, Kashmiri guerrillas
killed an army major and 5 others at Indian army headquarters in
Srinagar.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 3, In Vietnam storms
caused massive flooding in Quang Nam province and 150,000 homes were
under water. The Citadel at Hue was under 10 feet of water.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 3, In Zambia Wazi
Kaunda (47), the son of Kenneth Kaunda, was shot and killed by 4
gunmen at his front gate in Lusaka. Kaunda was a senior official in
the opposition National Independence Party.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 4, Aaron McKinney, who
beat gay college student Matthew Shepard and left him to die on the
Wyoming prairie, avoided the death penalty by agreeing to serve life
in prison without parole and promising never to appeal his
conviction.
(AP, 11/4/00)
1999 Nov 4, In Indonesia over
50,000 people demonstrated for independence in Aceh province. The
population in Aceh numbered 4.3 million.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 4, Some ten-thousand
Iranian students rallied outside the former US Embassy in Tehran to
mark the 20th anniversary of its seizure by Islamic militants.
(AP, 11/4/00)
1999 Nov 4, Russia allowed
thousands of refugees to flee Chechnya and the crossing at the
Sleptsovskaya border reached 500 people per hour.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 4, At Empangeni, South
Africa, rival minivan taxi operators waged a gunbattle that left at
least 10 people dead and 24 wounded.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 4, In Venezuela the
Constitutional Assembly approved a 6 year presidential term and
allowed reelection.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 4, The death toll from
flooding in Vietnam rose to 225.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 5, US District Judge
Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled in a finding of fact that Microsoft
Corp. is a monopoly and has wielded its power to stifle competition.
He said the software giant’s aggressive actions were "stifling
innovation" and hurting consumers.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A1)(AP, 11/5/00)
1999 Nov 5, The US Office of
the Comptroller of the Currency filed a friend-of-the-court brief
that supported the argument that local governments cannot bar ATM
fees levied by nationally chartered banks.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 5, Astronomers
detected a gas planet near the star called HD 209458, near 51
Pegasi, 153 light-years away. In 2001 scientists said the atmosphere
was loaded with sodium.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A2)(SFC, 11/28/01, p.A2)
1999 Nov 5, In New Delhi Pope
John Paul II began a 3 day visit to India, his first visit there in
13 years.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.A1)(AP,
11/5/00)
1999 Nov 5, In Kosovo a rail
bridge was bombed in Kosovska Mitrovica just hours before a Serbian
passenger train was to pass across.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A22)
1999 Nov 6, In Australia
elections to decide on severance of ties with the royal family were
scheduled. 54.5% voted against a republic in which the head of state
would be elected by Parliament.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A21)
1999 Nov 6, During his visit to
India, Pope John Paul the Second praised Christian missionaries and
exhorted his bishops to spread the Christian message across Asia.
(AP, 11/6/00)
1999 Nov 6, In Pakistan a
10-member civilian cabinet, named by Gen. Musharraf, formally took
office.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A24)
1999 Nov 6, Rwanda suspended
cooperation with a UN tribunal following a decision (Nov 3) by the
Int'l. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to release Jean-Bosco
Barayagwiza, a former Foreign Ministry official, who was held in
Tanzania.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A30)
1999 Nov 6, In Tajikistan
secular Pres. Emomali Rakhmonov a faced Muslim challenger.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A29)
1999 Nov 7, Tiger Woods became
the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win four straight
tournaments.
(AP, 11/7/00)
1999 Nov 7, Joseph Chebet of
Kenya won the NY Marathon in 2 hrs, 9 min. and 14 sec. Adriana
Fernandez of Mexico won for the women in 2:25:06.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 7, Relatives of the
victims of EgyptAir Flight 990 gathered in Newport, Rhode Island, to
bid them a wrenching farewell, a week after the plane crashed into
the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 11/7/00)
1999 Nov 7, In Chechnya Russian
soldiers dislodged rebels in Bamut. 38 civilians were reported
killed along with 28 Chechen fighters.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C14)
1999 Nov 7, In Athens, Greece,
a bomb exploded outside a Levi's jeans store. This was the 5th
recent attack and was thought to be linked to an upcoming Nov 13
visit by Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C14)
1999 Nov 7, In Guatemala
Alfonso Portillo of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) was in a
close race for the presidency with Oscar Berger of the governing
National Advancement (PAN). With 97.5% counted Portillo had 47.8% of
the vote vs. 30.3% for Berger. The FRG won 61 0f the 110-seat
Congress.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A10)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A13)(SFC,
11/11/99, p.A22)
1999 Nov 7, In Aceh,
Indonesia, 500,000 people marched for independence.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 7, In Netanya, Israel,
3 pipe bombs exploded and 33 people were wounded on the eve of
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 7, In Mexico Francisco
Labastida, the PRI candidate, led the presidential primary elections
far ahead of Roberto Madrazo. Labastida (57) won 272 of the 300
districts.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 7, In Sri Lanka the
military command was shuffled after Tamil Tigers overran 10
strategic camps earlier in the week. Hundreds of soldiers were dead
or missing.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C14)
1999 Nov 7, Continued heavy
rain in central Vietnam caused more flooding and the death toll rose
to over 450.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 8, President Clinton
participated in a "virtual town hall meeting" on the Internet,
answering questions from pre-screened online users.
(AP, 11/8/00)
1999 Nov 8, Former President
Bush was honored in Germany for his role in the fall of the Berlin
Wall ten years earlier.
(AP, 11/8/00)
1999 Nov 8, MIT received a $100
million gift from software billionaire Kenan Sahin.
(WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 8, Lester Bowie (58),
jazz trumpeter and founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, died of
liver cancer.
(WSJ, 11/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 8, In Canada employers
in BC locked out 2,000 waterfront workers and disrupted trade valued
at $60 million per day.
(WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 8, It was reported
that 2 Congo rebel leaders were resuming their war on Kabila.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 8, In Georgia Pope
John Paul II stopped to "build new bridges" with the Orthodox Church
and Patriarch Ilia II.
(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 8, Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators launched landmark talks, giving themselves
an ambitious 100-day deadline to craft the broad outlines of a peace
agreement.
(AP, 11/8/00)
1999 Nov 9, The flight data
recorder from EgyptAir Flight 990 was recovered from the Atlantic
Ocean and shipped to a National Transportation Safety Board
laboratory in Washington.
(AP, 11/9/00)
1999 Nov 9, In Congo government
forces bombed Nkembe. Rebel spokesman Kien-Kiey Mulumba said he
would no longer honor the peace accord after the government killed
100 civilians in 4 days of fighting.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 9, With fireworks,
concerts and a huge party at the landmark Brandenburg Gate, Germany
celebrated the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
(AP, 11/9/00)
1999 Nov 9, In northern
Malaysia Carolyn Janice Ahmad (35) was allegedly killed as a
sacrifice to obtain lottery tips from the Hindu goddess Kali. Her
skeletal remains were discovered in a shallow grave at an oil palm
plantation in June 2001. In 2004 a court acquitted 3 Malaysians
charged with killing the American woman.
(AP, 8/16/04)
1999 Nov 9, In Mexico a TAESA
DC-9 jet exploded in flight near Uruapan and all 18 people onboard
were killed.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 9, Russia’s PM
Vladimir Putin named Dmitry Medvedev first deputy chief of staff to
prime minister.
(WSJ, 2/28/08, p.A14)
1999 Nov 9, In Sri Lanka Pres.
Chandrika Kumaratunga said 4,000 people were driven from their homes
by the rebels and that the military had suffered 101 dead and 743
wounded.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 9, In Tanzania Mikaeli
Muhimana, an ex-Rwandan official in Kibuye, was arrested in Dar es
Salaam for his role in the 1994 slaughter of Tutsis.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A13)
1999 Nov 10, President Clinton
decided to delay and shorten a trip to Greece in reaction to growing
security concerns and the prospect of violent anti-American
demonstrations.
(AP, 11/10/00)
1999 Nov 10, The California
Budget Project reported that raising a family in the Bay Area cost
$53,736. The Bay Area per-capita income was $38,300 and the federal
poverty level was $16,700.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 10, In Flint,
Michigan, a boiler exploded at the Clara Barton Convalescence
Center. 5 people were killed and over 20 injured.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.A9)
1999 Nov 10, Communism ended in
Bulgaria and the country began its transition to democracy.
(AP, 11/10/13)
1999 Nov 10, Investigators said
the flight data recorder from EgyptAir Flight 990 showed things were
normal until the autopilot mysteriously disconnected and the Boeing
767 began what appeared to be a controlled descent.
(AP, 11/10/00)
1999 Nov 10, In Morocco King
Mohammed VI dismissed Driss Basri, the minister of interior and
communications.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.B3)
1999 Nov 10, In Serbia allies
of Pres. Milosevic passed new laws aimed at curbing the authority of
local governments.
(SFC, 11/11/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 10, The World
Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, to
thwart drug users in all sports.
(www.wada-ama.org/en/About-WADA/History/WADA-History/)
1999 Nov 11, The computer virus
dubbed Bubbleboy was reported to spread through electronic mail
without attachments.
(WSJ, 11/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 11, Argentine
journalist Jacobo Timerman died in Buenos Aires at age 76.
(AP, 11/11/00)
1999 Nov 11, A car bomb ripped
through a Bogota commercial district, killing at least eight people,
but President Andres Pastrana defiantly signed extradition orders
for three suspected drug traffickers.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A1)(AP,
11/11/00)
1999 Nov 11, In Britain the
House of Lords voted to strip hereditary peers of their 700-year-old
right to sit in Parliament's Upper House. 92 peers still kept seats
under a compromise.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 11, In India a bomb
exploded on a passenger train traveling from Jammu to New Delhi and
14 people were killed with 50 injured.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 11, In Foggia, Italy,
a 6-story apartment building collapsed from structural flaws and
over 50 people were feared dead. An investigation blamed the
collapse on cheap materials and slipshod construction.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.A16)(AP, 11/11/00)
1999 Nov 11, In Malaysia Prime
Minister Mahathir dissolved parliament and planned early elections.
(SFC, 11/11/99, p.A24)
1999 Nov 11, Javed Iqbal (40)
killed his 87th victim, Mohammad Imran (15). Iqbal dissolved the
bodies in vats of chemicals and left photos and notes that described
his victims. The story became public in Dec. when his killings
reached 100 and he made his story public. Iqbal surrendered in
Lahore, Pakistan, on Dec 30. He was found strangled with bed sheets
in his cell on Oct 7, 2001.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B2)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/10/01, p.A1)
1999 Nov 12, Pres. Clinton
signed a measure knocking down Depression-era barriers and allowing
banks, investment firms and insurance companies to sell each other’s
products. Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which
repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and strengthened the separation of
commerce and financial services.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.D1)(Econ, 9/3/05, p.65)
1999 Nov 12, In Chechnya
Russian forces took control of Gudermes and proposed to move the
capital there from Grozny.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 12, In Pakistan
several explosions near American structures struck in downtown
Islamabad and injured 6 people. It was speculated that Taliban
supporters were linked to the blasts.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D2)(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 12, In Serbia a World
Food Program flight from Rome crashed in northern Kosovo and all 24
aboard were killed. The plane was a propeller-driven ATR-42.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 12, In Turkey a 7.2
[7.1] earthquake was centered at Duzce. At least 834 people were
killed and 3000 injured. Damage from the last 2 quakes was later
estimated at $10-25 billion.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/15/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D6)(AP,
11/12/00)
1999 Nov 13, Lennox Lewis
became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, winning a
unanimous decision over Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas.
(AP, 11/13/00)
1999 Nov 13, The Navy recovered
the cockpit voice recorder from EgyptAir Flight 990, which crashed
into the Atlantic Ocean October 31st with the loss of all 217 people
aboard.
(AP, 11/13/00)
1999 Nov 13, Donald Mills, last
surviving member of the singing Mills Brothers, died in Los Angeles
at age 84.
(AP, 11/13/00)
1999 Nov 13, Heavy rains in
southeastern France caused mudslides that left at least 22 people
dead in the Tarn Aude, Eastern Pyranees and Herault regions.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A15)
1999 Nov 13, In Athens, Greece,
thousands protested an upcoming visit by Pres. Clinton whose planned
visit was shortened to 1 day.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)
1999 Nov 13, Peru and Chile
signed an agreement to end a 120-year territorial dispute. Peru was
granted the exclusive use of a pier in the Chilean port of Arica.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)
1999 Nov 14, Democrat Bill
Bradley took center court at New York’s Madison Square Garden for a
$1.5 million presidential campaign fund-raiser that featured his old
Knick teammates and former basketball rivals.
(AP, 11/14/00)
1999 Nov 14, Pres. Clinton flew
to Turkey for talks on Cyprus.
(SFC, 11/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 14, UN sanctions
against Afghanistan went into effect following the Taliban refusal
to turn over Osama bin Laden. Int'l. flights were banned and
overseas assets were frozen.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 14, In Columbia the
3rd bomb blast in a week injured a worker at El Tiempo newspaper in
Cali.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 14, In Macedonia Boris
Trajkovsky (43) of the right centrist VMRO DPMNE party was the
winner in a runoff election with 53% of the vote. Some 35,000 people
later protested the results.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 14, Pakistan was
suspended from the Commonwealth of former British-ruled nations over
the military regime's refusal to set a timeline for elections.
(WSJ, 11/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 14, In the Philippines
Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels clashed with soldiers on
Mindanao and 2 people were killed in Tibao.
(SFC, 11/15/99, p.A19)
1999 cNov 14, In Sri Lanka a
bomb injured 34 people at an opposition rally for Ranil
Wickremesinghe.
(WSJ, 11/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 14, In Ukraine Pres.
Kuchma won a 2nd term by a 56% margin over Petro Symonenko with 97%
of the ballots counted.
(SFC, 11/15/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 15, The Clinton
administration claimed victory in a seven-year struggle to persuade
Congress to pay nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United
Nations, saying restrictions in the deal on backing for
international family planning would have no practical effect.
(AP, 11/15/00)
1999 Nov 15, A federal judge
blocked the San Francisco voter approved ATM initiative to prohibit
banks from charging fees to non-customers.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 15, In Afghanistan
protestors burned a UN office to the ground in anger over sanctions.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 15, In Angola the
armed forces reported that Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA forces were
dislodged from their highland strongholds.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 15, In Beijing, China,
US and Chinese trade negotiators agreed to a pact for China to join
the WTO. Charlene Barshefsky and Shi Guangsheng reached a deal that
was similar to the one the US rejected in April. Details of the plan
were made public Mar 14, 2000.
(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A1,2)(SFC, 3/15/00, p.A3)
1999 Nov 15, In India at least
18 people were reported killed in Panchabatin village in the state
of Tripura by separatist guerrillas.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 15, In Japan a $95
million MTSAT satellite on an H-2 rocket was aborted after takeoff
from the Tanegashima Space Center. A launch in Feb. had also failed.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 15, In Nigeria
fighting began in the city of Warri in a dispute over the
distribution of pipes donated by Dutch Oil. At least 40 people were
killed.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 15, In Russia the
finance minister announced that he would request the Western
commercial banks to cancel $12 billion in Soviet-era debt and
reschedule another $18 billion in exchange.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 15, In Turkey Pres.
Clinton addressed the parliament and stressed his support for
candidate membership status to the EU.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 16, The US Federal
Reserve raised interest rates by .25%.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 16, California sued
the federal government to block extensions on 36 undeveloped
offshore oil leases signed by the Clinton administration Nov 12.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 16, Nathaniel Abraham,
at 13 one of the youngest murder defendants in US history, was
convicted in Pontiac, Michigan, of second-degree murder for shooting
a stranger outside a convenience store with a rifle when he was
eleven. Nathaniel was sentenced to juvenile detention. He will be
released Jan. 13, 2007, when he turns 21.
(AP, 11/16/04)
1999 Nov 16, Genentech agreed
to settle a 10-year patent infringement dispute with the University
of California for $200 million. $150 million was to be in cash and
$50 million for the construction of a research campus in SF.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.C1)
1999 Nov 16, WSJ ran an article
on the nightmare of recycling plastic. PET and HDPE plastics were
discussed.
(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.B1)
1999 Nov 16, UN Sec. Gen'l.
Kofi Annan, in China for a 4-day visit, said he had a "better
understanding" of the government crackdown on the Falun Gong.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 16, A 2-day
Ibero-American summit for heads of state from Latin America, Spain
and Portugal met in Havana. Int'l. finance and the effects of
economic globalization on developing countries was the central
theme. The 18 heads of state signed a Havana Declaration.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 17, Ha Jin, a former
member of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, won the US National
Book Award for fiction for his novel "Waiting." John W. Dower won
the nonfiction category for "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of
World War II."
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.E3)
1999 Nov 17, Officials close to
the investigation into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 said a
relief co-pilot alone in the cockpit had said, in Arabic: "I made my
decision now; I put my faith in God’s hands" just before the
jetliner began its fatal plunge. In Egypt, relatives angrily
rejected any notion that relief co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty had
deliberately crashed the plane.
(AP, 11/17/00)
1999 Nov 17, Hurricane Lenny
hit the Virgin Islands with 150 mph winds with most of the force
over St. Croix.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 17, Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Turkey agreed to a US-backed plan for a Caspian oil
pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan to be completed in 2004. The 1st
shipment was made in 2006.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C6)(AFP, 6/4/06)
1999 Nov 17, In Greece over
10,000 people protested against the arrival of Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 17, In Northern
Ireland the IRA said that it would back the peace agreement and
agreed to appoint a go-between to the commission charged with
disarming the paramilitaries.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 17, In Pakistan over
20 of the country's wealthiest and most powerful people were
arrested for corruption. A law was drawn up at 2 a.m. to give the
government the right to prosecute any former official for suspected
corruption back to 1985.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 18, Pres. Clinton at a
conference in Turkey of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) urged Pres. Yeltsin to stop the bombing
and rocket attacks in Chechnya.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 18, US Congress
approved a $385 billion compromise spending bill. It included funds
to pay UN dues and restored $12 billion worth of cuts in the
Medicare program.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 18, A jury in Jasper,
Texas, convicted Shawn Allen Berry of murder for his role in the
dragging death of James Byrd Junior, but spared him the death
penalty.
(AP, 11/18/00)
1999 Nov 18, The US Sacagawea
"Golden Dollar" coin went into full production.
(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.C15)
1999 Nov 18, In College
Station, Texas, a pyramid of logs for a traditional football bonfire
collapsed and killed 11 students of Texas A&M University. One of
28 injured died the next day.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 18, Paul Bowles,
author and composer, died in Tangiers at age 88. His written work
included the novel "The Sheltering Sky," which was made into a 1990
film. He also wrote "Let It Come Down," "The Spider's House" and "Up
Above the World." His music included a "Sonata for Oboe and
Clarinet."
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.D8)(WSJ, 11/23/99, p.A22)
1999 Nov 18, In Afghanistan
Taliban fighter planes bombed the opposition held Panjshir Valley
and at least 13 people were killed and 64 wounded.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 18, In Brazil
assailants broke into a house in Sao Vicente and shot 8 people to
death, 2 men, 3 boys and 3 women.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A21)
1999 Nov 18, The UN high
commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, visited Chechen refugee
camps in Ingushetia. Some 215,000 refugees had fled Russian attacks.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 18, In the southern
Philippines fighting between government troops and separatist rebels
left at least 32 dead.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 19, In Greece some
10,000 people demonstrated as Pres. Clinton rode through Athens
under tight security and proclaimed a "profound and enduring
friendship." The Greek government ran into a storm of opposition and
media criticism for failing to prevent a rampage through Athens by
leftists hostile to visiting President Clinton.
(SFC, 11/20/99, p.A1)(Excite, 11/20/99)(AP,
11/19/00)
1999 Nov 19, In Bolivia a 5-day
Conference of American Armies ended. Discussions centered on new
roles for the Latin armies such as defending democracy, fighting
poverty and eradicating drug smuggling.
(SFC, 11/20/99, p.C1)
1999 Nov 19, In Germany
officials announced an amnesty program for some 20,000 foreigners
seeking asylum. A cut off date of Jul 1, 1993 was set for eligible
families.
(SFC, 11/20/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 19, In Ramallah, West
Bank (Reuters), Israeli security forces fired tear gas and
rubber-coated metal bullets at stone-throwing Palestinians demanding
the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israel's jails.
(Excite, 11/20/99)
1999 Nov 19, In Hyderabad,
India, health officials said an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis
has killed 133 people, all of them children, in the southern Indian
state of Andhra Pradesh.
(Reuters, 11/20/99)
1999 Nov 19, In Lahore,
Pakistan, an explosion ripped through a market in Lahore, the
capital of Punjab province, killing at least three people and
injuring 12.
(Reuters, 11/20/99)
1999 Nov 19, In Turkey the
54-nation summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) closed with a treaty that restricted the number of
tanks, planes and artillery of every army across Europe.
(SFC, 11/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 19, It was reported
that the work week was being cut from 48 to 40 hours per week in
Vietnam.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A19)
1999 Nov 20, A day after
violent anti-American protests in Greece, President Clinton sought
to heal old wounds by acknowledging the United States had failed its
"obligation to support democracy" when it backed Greek’s harsh
military junta during the Cold War.
(AP, 11/20/00)
1999 Nov 20, In Algeria some 20
people were killed in a clash between guerrillas and security forces
south of Algiers.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A15)
1999 Nov 20, China completed
its first unmanned test of a spacecraft. The Shenzhou 1, or "Divine
Vessel," was launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in
Gansu province.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 21, President Clinton,
speaking at a conference in Florence, Italy, called on prosperous
nations to spread global wealth by helping poor countries with
Internet hookups, cell phones, debt relief and small loans.
(AP, 11/21/00)
1999 Nov 21, The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $26 million donation to UNICEF
for the elimination of tetanus.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A2)
1999 Nov 21, Some 3,000 of
8,000 demonstrators crossed onto the Fort Benning army base in
Georgia to protest against the School of the Americas and the 10
year anniversary of Jesuit priests killed in El Salvador by soldiers
trained at the school.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A2)
1999 Nov 21, Quentin Crisp
(born as Denis Pratt), writer, performer and raconteur, died in
Manchester, England, at age 90. His books included "The Naked Civil
Servant," "How to Become a Virgin" and "New York Diaries."
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.C4)
1999 Nov 21, Afghanistan and
Iran resumed trade following recently imposed UN restrictions on
Afghanistan.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 21, In Chechnya some
5,000 rebels barricaded themselves in Grozny in preparation for a
Russian offensive.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 21, In Colombia Jaime
Orlando Lara (30) was extradited to the US for smuggling heroine to
the US. He was the first drug offender to be extradited since 1990.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 21, In Jordan King
Abdullah pardoned 25 Hamas members and expelled 4 of them to Qatar.
Jordanian authorities expelled Khalid Mishal, Ibrahim Ghawsha, and
two other members to Qatar; released the remaining detainees; and
announced that the HAMAS offices would remain closed permanently.
Charges against the HAMAS officials included possession of weapons
and explosives for use in illegal acts.
(www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_99/mideast.html)(SFC, 11/22/99,
p.A13)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.50)
1999 Nov 21, In South Korea
thousands of workers gathered in Seoul and demanded a reduction of
the workweek from 44 to 40 hours. They also protested government
plans to privatize state-run power, gas and financial firms.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A13)
1999 Nov 22, During a visit to
the former communist country of Bulgaria, President Clinton promised
tens of thousands of cheering Bulgarians in Sofia that "you too
shall overcome" in their difficult struggle for democracy and
prosperity.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A14)(AP,
11/22/00)
1999 Nov 22, Raymond Edward
Wong called Pinole, Ca., police to report that Alice Sin (21) of
Pinole, Ca., had not come home. Sin’s decomposed and bullet-riddled
body was found Jan 25, 2000, in Churchill County, Nevada. In 2011
police in Pinole, citing new evidence, arrested Raymond Wong, the
father of her child. Wong’s 2nd girlfriend, Jessica Tang, later
testified that all three had driven into the desert and she and Wong
shot and killed Alice Sin, who was reportedly pregnant at the time.
On June 27, 2015, Wong was convicted of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A1)(SFC, 12/31/11, p.C2)(SFC,
1/4/13, p.A1)(SSFC, 6/28/15, p.C3)
1999 Nov 22, In Algeria
Abdelkader Hachani (43), a leader of the Islamic Salvation Front who
spoke for peace and reconciliation, was assassinated in Algiers.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A15)
1999 Nov 22, In Japan a T-33
jet crashed and killed 2 crewmen. The crash severed a 275,000-volt
power line and some 800,000 homes lost power in the Tokyo area.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 22, In Kazakstan
authorities reported that they had detained 22 people, all members
of a Russian nationalist group called Rus, on suspicion of planning
a secessionist uprising.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 22, In Nigeria
officials reported that 43 people had been killed in the Niger Delta
including 8 soldiers after some 2,000 soldiers were sent to restore
order in Odi village in southern Bayelsa state. In 2002 Pres.
Obasanjo acknowledged that he ordered the military operations in Odi
that killed an estimated 1000 people.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A4)
1999 Nov 22, In Tanzania it was
reported that some 500 people per day were fleeing into the country
from Burundi as fighting in Burundi intensified.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 23, Bill Gates
announced his charitable foundation will give $750 million over the
next 5 years to improve the health of young children in
underdeveloped nations. Thereafter the Global Alliance for Vaccines
and Immunization was launched with major funding from the Gates
foundation.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.A1)
1999 Nov 23, In a plea met with
scant applause and silent stares, President Clinton told ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo that "you must try" to forgive Serb neighbors
and stop punishing them for the terror campaign of Slobodan
Milosevic.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 11/24/99, p.A1)(AP,
11/23/00)
1999 Nov 23, Defense Secretary
William Cohen called for a military-wide review of conduct after a
Pentagon study said up to 75 percent of blacks and other ethnic
minorities reported experiencing racially offensive behavior.
(AP, 11/23/00)
1999 Nov 23, In Congo Mayi-Mayi
tribal fighters, armed mostly with bows and arrows, attacked Ugandan
soldiers near Butembo and some 200 fighters were killed including
about 100 Mayi-Mayi.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.D6)
1999 Nov 23, An agreement
between Georgia and Russia was announced to cut the number of
Russian forces over the next few years.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 23, In Nazareth,
Israel, a cornerstone for a mosque was laid next to the Basilica of
the Annunciation. Shihab el-Din, a 12th-century anti-Crusader
cleric, was believed to be buried there.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 23, In Kuwait the
Parliament rejected a decree giving women the right to vote. Sheik
Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah had issued the decree in May. Nearly
identical legislation filed by lawmakers was pending.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C2)
1999 Nov 23, Mexico suspended
the operations of Taesa Airline.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 23, In Romania some
5,000 workers of the CNSLR-Fratia trade union gathered in Bucharest
to protest plummeting living standards.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 24, American Indian
farmers filed a $19 billion class-action lawsuit against the
Agriculture Department for an alleged 20-year history of
loan-granting discrimination.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.A4)
1999 Nov 24, It was reported
that US married couples with children comprised 26% of the
population as opposed to 45% in 1972.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 24, In Britain
authorities intercepted Scud missile components labeled as auto
parts originating in Taiwan and destined for Libya.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A10)
1999 Nov 24-1999 Nov 25, The
Chinese ferry, Dashun, with 312 passengers caught fire and sank in
stormy seas on the Bohai Strait near Yantai in Shandong province.
Only 22 passengers were rescued.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/27/99, p.A14)(AP, 11/24/00)
1999 Nov 24, In Croatia the
parliament passed a constitutional amendment that declared Pres.
Tudjman (77) to be temporarily disabled and acted to pass power to
Vlatko Pavletic, speaker of parliament.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 24, In Indonesia
security forces deployed hundreds of reinforcements to Aceh province
where 6 people were killed over the past week.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 24, Mexico and the EU
agreed on terms for a free trade treaty.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 25, Britain and France
called for a 50-60 thousand European Union rapid reaction force.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Nov 25, In Chechnya
Russian forces fired hundreds of rockets into Grozny in its fiercest
assault in the 3-month offensive.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 25, A 5-year-old boy,
one of 14 escapees from Cuba, was saved by sport fisherman off
Florida while 9 people drowned. The fate of Elian Gonzalez was in
question after his father called for his return to Cuba. This set
off an international custody battle between relatives in Miami and
Elian's father in Cuba.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A7)(AP,
11/25/06)
1999 Nov 25, In Nigeria at
least 27 people were killed at a food market in Kedu when Yoruba
traders, backed by members of the militant Odua People's Congress,
clashed with Hausa counterparts.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Nov 25, In Zurich
fireworks caused light damage to 3 US-related buildings.
Responsibility was taken by a group called Freedom for Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Nov 26, In New Jersey a
small plane crashed in Newark. Pilot Itzhak Jacoby (56), his wife
Gail and daughter Atira (13) were killed. 22 people were injured on
the ground.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 26, Ashley Montegu,
British-born anthropologist and author, died in New Jersey at age
95. His over 60 books included "Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The
Fallacy of Race" and "The Natural Superiority of Women."
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A26)
1999 Nov 26, Leaders of 71
developing countries demanded that the world's poorest countries be
allowed to export goods duty-free to wealthy economies. The ACP
group was meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 26, In the first
speech ever by a British prime minister to an Irish parliament, Tony
Blair predicted that Northern Ireland’s troubled peace accord would
ultimately work because of a strengthened cooperative spirit uniting
Britain and Ireland.
(AP, 11/26/00)
1999 Nov 26, In Germany the
parliament approved $16 billion in spending cuts for next year that
included cuts in pensions and jobless benefits.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 26, In India, at least
211 people died when two trains collided in the northern state of
Punjab.
(AP, 11/26/00)
1999 Nov 26, A Norwegian
passenger ferry, the catamaran Sleipner, sank at the mouth of the
Boemla Fjord. There were 16 people killed.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A14)(AP, 11/26/02)
1999 Nov 26, Russian commanders
announced that they would begin pursuing Chechen guerrilla forces
into their mountain hideouts.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 26, Sudan signed a
peace agreement with the opposition Umma Party in Djibouti to end
the 16-year old civil war.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A15)
1999 Nov 26, In Ukraine Reactor
No. 3, the functioning power plant at Chernobyl and site of the 1986
accident, reopened.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A22)(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 27, In Chechnya
residents reported 260 civilian deaths in Grozny since the beginning
of Russian assaults 2 days earlier.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A19)
1999 Nov 27, In Iran Muslim
reform cleric Abdollah Nouri was sentenced to 5 years in jail and 5
years banishment from political activity due to his demands for an
end to authoritarian rule by the religious hierarchy. His Khordad
newspaper was also ordered closed.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A21)
1999 Nov 27, In New Zealand
Helen Clark, candidate for the Labor Party, claimed victory in
general elections.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A21)
1999 Nov 27, In Northern
Ireland the Ulster Unionist Party approved its leader-centering
government with rivals from Sinn Fein. The Ulster Unionists cleared
the way for the speedy formation of an unprecedented
Protestant-Catholic administration.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A1)(AP, 11/27/04)
1999 Nov 27, In the Philippines
the 10-nation ASEAN summit opened.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 27, In Vanuatu a
tsunami generated by a 7.1 earthquake killed 8 people on Pentecost
Island. 2 people were missing and thousands feared injured and
homeless. The quake was centered 54 miles north of the capital Port
Vila.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 27, Yemeni military
sources reported that 2 Yemeni soldiers had been killed over the
last few days in border clashes with Saudi Arabia.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A26)
1999 Nov 28, Hsing-Hsing, the
popular giant panda who arrived in America in 1972 as a symbol of
US-China detente, was euthanized at age 28. Officials at
Washington’s National Zoo decided to end the panda’s life because of
his deteriorating health.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A2)(AP,
11/28/00)
1999 Nov 28 In Britain a naked
man, Eden Strang (26), with a sword maimed 10 people in St. Andrew's
church at Thornton Heath, a suburb of London, before he was subdued.
Strang was charged with attempted murder.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A12)(SFC, 11/30/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 28, Iraqi media
reported that US warplanes bombed a school in northern Iraq and
injured 8 people.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 28, ASEAN leaders in
the Philippines agreed to increase cooperation with Japan, China and
South Korea in an "East Asia Forum" known as ASEAN+3 and to move
toward a common market.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 28, In Palestine
security forces arrested a group of professionals and intellectuals
who signed a petition that accused Yasser Arafat of tyranny,
corruption and injustice.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 28, In South Africa a
pipe bomb injured at least 43 people at St. Elmo's pizza restaurant
in Camps Bay, just south of Cape Town.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 28, In Spain the
Basque ETA announced that it would end a 14-month cease-fire due to
inaction over their call for independence.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 28, In Sri Lanka the
rebels offered talks to end the 16-year civil war as presidential
elections approached.
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 28, Turkey reported
that some 70 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq had been killed over
the last 5 days by Turkish forces in 15 operations.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 28, In Uruguay Jorge
Batlle, candidate for the Colorado Party, won the presidency with a
52% vote over socialist Tabare Vazquez.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 29, Pres. Clinton
signed the Satellite Television Home Viewers Act which allowed
satellite companies to compete with cable TV. It was part of a $391
billion spending bill.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.A1)
19999 Nov 29, The US National
Labor Relations Board ruled that medical interns can unionize and
negotiate wages and hours. This overturned a 1976 precedent.
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 29, In Seattle as many
as 50,000 protestors gathered to oppose "the march of corporate
globalization."
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 29, Astronomers
reported finding 6 planets orbiting sun-like stars as close as 65
light years from Earth.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 29, John Berry (b.1917
as Jak Szold), American film director, died at age 82.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berry_(film_director))
1999 Nov 29, Gene Rayburn (81),
game show host, died in Gloucester, Mass.
(AP, 11/29/04)
1999 Nov 29, In Kosovo ethnic
Albanians killed Dragoslav Basic (62) and attacked his wife and
mother-in-law during a night of festivities celebrating Kosovo's
first Flag Day since the ouster of Serbian forces. An ethnic
Albanian (27) was arrested in Dec. for the murder.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 29, In Malaysia PM
Mahathir Mohamad and his ruling National Front coalition won over a
two-thirds majority in Parliament. Wan Azizah Ismail, wife of Anwar
Ibrahim, led the newly formed National Justice Party (Keadilan) and
won her husband’s former seat. The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party
(Pas), whose leaders favor strict Islamic law, won control of
Trengganu state and kept control of Kelantan state.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 29, Authorities worked
with a US FBI team to unearth as many as 100 bodies of disappeared
Mexicans and Americans near Ciudad Juarez. Drug traffickers were
believed responsible. By Dec 7 eight bodies were recovered. Nine
bodies were discovered after 3 weeks and initial estimates were
deemed in error. In 2000 Vicente Carillo Fuentes, believed to be in
charge of all drug trafficking in Ciudad Juarez, was charged with
killing 10 people in the area.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A16)(SFC,
12/18/99, p.A16)(SFC, 9/15/00, p.A18)
1999 Nov 29, Protestant and
Catholic adversaries formed an extraordinary Northern Ireland
government to bring together every branch of opinion within the
bitterly divided society.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.A1)(AP,
11/29/00)
1999 Nov 29, In Sudan the rebel
Sudan People's Liberation Army rejected the Djibouti reconciliation
between the government and an exiled opposition group.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 30, The FTC approved
the $81 billion merger of Exxon and Mobil Oil Corps. begun in Dec
1997.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 30, In Seattle riot
police struggled with at least 40,000 protestors who forced the
World Trade Organization to cancel the opening session of a 3-day
135-nation trade summit meeting. Mayor Paul Schell declared a state
of emergency and a night curfew and Gov. Gary Locke called in some
200 unarmed National Guard.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 11/30/00)
1999 Nov 30, It was reported
that the EU passed the Electronic Signature Directive, a law that
gave legal status to digital signatures.
(WSJ, 12/1/99, p.A24B15)
1999 Nov 30, In Kuwait the
Parliament rejected a bill that would have allowed women to vote by
a vote of 32-30. Only men over 21, who had held Kuwaiti nationality
for 20 years, were allowed to vote or run for office.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov, The US FDA started
allowing manufacturers to claim that soy products might cut the risk
of heart disease. In 2006 long term studies cast doubts on the
health benefits of soy-based foods.
(SFC, 1/23/06, p.A2)(SSCM, 8/13/06, p.7)
1999 Nov, In Kansas Tom Bledsoe
(25) confessed to the rape and murder of a sister-in-law (14). Days
later he recanted and pinned the crime on his younger brother,
Floyd. In 2015 Floyd was freed after serving more than 15 years of a
life sentence after his brother confessed in suicide notes that he
was the actual killer.
(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A10)(Econ, 2/25/17, p.25)
1999 Nov, Ecuador’s Pres.
Mahuad agreed to a 10-year deal with the US for a $62 million
upgrade of the Air Force base at Manta as an advance post for
combating narco traffic. In 2006 president-elect Rafael Correa said
he would not renew the lease.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B2)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.52)
1999 Nov, Drug trafficker Jose
Figueroa Agosto walked out of that Puerto Rican prison after
presenting guards with a forged release order. He had served only
four years of a 209-year sentence for killing a man suspected of
stealing a cocaine shipment. Within a month, he moved to the
Dominican Republic, where he was detained as part of a drug
investigation in 2001. He was released after two weeks; he used an
alias and authorities didn't know his true identity.
(AP, 3/17/10)
1999 Nov, In Spain Ekin, a
civic support organization for the Basque separatist group ETA, was
formed with the aim of "impelling independence, nation-building and
socialism at street level." On Oct 1, 2011, the Gara newspaper's
website said two unidentified spokesmen told it that "Ekin members
have ended their endeavors as an organization."
(AP, 10/1/11)
1999 Dec 1, The WTO met in
Seattle for global trade talks to be known as the Seattle Round. A
massive "mobilization against globalization" was also planned by
activists. The 134-nation WTO began meeting in Seattle for a round
of global trade talks under the proposed names "Millennium Round" or
"Clinton Round." The purpose of the talks was to reduce tariffs and
subsidies and to open markets. The last Uruguay Round lasted for
nearly 8 years. Pres. Clinton spoke and urged the WTO to listen to
the demands of protestors. Clinton defended his administration’s
policies in the face of sometimes violent street demonstrations.
Thousands demonstrated on labor and environmental issues and
hundreds were arrested.
(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/2/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/1/00)
1999 Dec 1, The US NIH
announced that it would again fund research with controlled
safeguards on stem cells from human embryos.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.A4)
1999 Dec 1, An international
team of scientists announced that they had virtually mapped all 34
million chemical letters of the number 22 human chromosome, the 2nd
smallest of the 23 pairs.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.A3)(AP, 12/1/00)
1999 Dec 1, On World AIDS Days,
United Nations officials released a report estimating that eleven
million children worldwide had been orphaned by the pandemic.
(AP, 12/1/00)
1999 Dec 1, African leaders
chose Nelson Mandela as the new mediator for talks on ending the
6-year civil war in Burundi.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 1, Queen Elizabeth
approved a law that granted semi-autonomy to Northern Ireland and a
midnight power passed formally from London to Belfast.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.A24)
1999 Dec 1, It was reported
that the French government had decided to make morning-after
contraception pills available to teenage girls through school
nurses. 10,000 girls under 18 were becoming pregnant each year and
6,000 were having abortions.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A15)
1999 Dec 1, Ireland joined
NATO's Partnership for Peace program.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 1, Prime Minister
Massimo D'Alema of Italy began a 2-day visit to Libya that involved
a $5.5 billion oil and gas project involving ENI, an Italian oil
company. It was the 1st visit by a Western head of government since
sanctions in 1992.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 1, In Japan Tatsuko
Muraoka, acting leader of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult, took
responsibility for the 1995 gassing of Tokyo subways, led by former
guru Shoko Asahara, and promised some compensation to the victims.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 1, In Russia the Duma
passed a bill that vastly increased the powers of security services
to combat terrorism and civil disturbances.
(WSJ, 12/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 2, All six Republican
presidential hopefuls, including Texas Governor George W. Bush,
debated in Manchester, New Hampshire.
(AP, 12/2/00)
1999 Dec 2, Relative calm took
over in Seattle, where a meeting of the World Trade Organization was
greeted earlier with sometimes violent demonstrations.
(AP, 12/2/00)
1999 Dec 2, Joey Adams, borscht
belt comedian, died at age 88 in Manhattan. He wrote over 40 books
which included "The Joey Adams Encyclopedia of Humor."
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 2, Charlie Byrd, jazz
guitarist, died at age 74.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D7)
1999 Dec 2, Tim Cole (b.1960),
an army veteran convicted of a 1985 rape, died in a Texas prison
from complications of asthma. In 2008 Cole was cleared by DNA
evidence. In 2010 Texas Gov. Rick Perry pardoned Cole in the state’s
first posthumous pardon.
(SFC, 3/2/10,
p.A4)(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100249923)
1999 Dec 2, The Euro fell below
$1 for the first time to 99.95 cents.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 2, In Algeria 16
alleged Islamic militants were killed by government soldiers near
Chlef, 148 miles west of Algiers.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 2, In Australian a
rail collision outside Sidney killed 7 passengers and injured over
50. A commuter train with 450 people slammed into the back of the
transcontinental Indian Pacific with 159 passengers.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D4)
1999 Dec 2, In Austria an
explosion leveled a 3-story apartment building in Wilhelmsberg and 9
people were killed.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D5)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 2, In Brazil riot
police killed one person and wounded 9 others during a worker
protest at the Bandeirantes television station in Brasilia.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D5)
1999 Dec 2, Congolese rebels
lost Bokungu as Zimbabwean soldiers broke through to save surrounded
comrades at Ikela airport.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 2-4, In Indonesia
3-days of violence in the Maluku Islands (Moluccas) left 31 people
dead. Violence that began a year ago had left 700 dead.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 2, In Mexico Pres.
Zedillo suspended the controversial border car-deposit program under
angry opposition.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D5)
1999 Dec 2, In Northern
Ireland, a power-sharing Cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat
down together for the first time. Martin McGuinness (1950-2017)
began serving as minister of education in the first unionist
republican power-sharing executive.
(AP, 12/2/00)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGuinness)(Econ, 3/25/17,
p.82)
1999 Dec 3, Pres. Clinton
offered to reduce bombing practice on Vieques in the spring and use
only dummy bombs plus $40 million in economic incentives with phase
out in 5 years. Puerto Rico rejected the offer.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 3, The WTO
negotiations in Seattle collapsed with no agreement reached on an
agenda for talks.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 3, Regular but
restricted passenger service from NY to Havana was resumed for the
1st time in nearly 4 decades with a flight by Marazul Charters.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A6)
1999 Dec 3, Tori Murden (36) of
the United States became the 1st woman to complete a rowboat
crossing of the Atlantic. Her 81-day, 7 hr. and 31 min. trip began
in the Canary Islands and finished at Fort-du-Bas in Guadeloupe.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 3, The Mars Polar
Lander touched down at the Martian South Pole. 2 probes burrowed
into the polar surface to test for water and carbon dioxide. NASA
failed to make contact with the $165 million lander following
setdown.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A2)(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A3)(SFC,
12/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 3, Ice in Arctic
waters was reported to be shrinking by about 14,000 square miles
annually. Global warming from human activity was suspected.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A6)
1999 Dec 3, In Worcester,
Mass., 6 firefighters died after 4 tried to rescue 2 who were in
trouble in a burning warehouse. A homeless couple who allegedly
knocked over a candle were later charged with involuntary
manslaughter.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A2)(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 3, Oscar-nominated
actress Madeline Kahn died at age 57.
(AP, 12/3/00)
1999 Dec 3, A 129 country
environmental conference in China agreed to provide poor countries
an additional $440 million over 3 years to stop using chemicals that
harm the ozone layer.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 3, In Chechnya some
250 Russian soldiers were reported killed by rebels south of Grozny.
Separately as many as 40 Chechen civilians were killed when Russian
troops fired on a refugee convoy.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A27)
1999 Dec 3, In the Maldives a
helicopter crashed enroute to Male and killed all 10 people onboard.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 3, In Monaco
billionaire banker Edmund Safra (67), founder of the Republic
National Bank of New York, was suffocated to death in a fire set by
intruders at his home in Monte Carlo. His American nurse, Ted Maher
(41), was jealous of other servants and later admitted that he had
set the fire and fabricated the intruder story to gain attention.
Maher was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Maher escaped but was soon captured.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/2/02, p.A1)(SSFC,
9/11/05, Par p.2)
1999 Dec 4, NASA scientists
continued to wait in vain for a signal from the Mars Polar Lander,
raising questions about the whereabouts of NASA’s $165 million
probe. It’s believed the spacecraft was destroyed after it plunged
toward the Red Planet.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1999 Dec 4, In New Mexico 13
people were killed when a van carrying 17 crashed into a
tractor-trailer on an icy stretch of I-40 35 miles east of
Albuquerque. The victims were undocumented workers from Mexico.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 4, In Utah 8 teenagers
taking part in a wilderness program for troubled youths beat one
counselor and tied another to a tree and fled into the desert. They
were all rounded up within days and 7 of 8 accepted plea bargains.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, Rose Bird (b.1936),
25th Chief Justice of the California’s highest court, died of
cancer. She had taught criminal and consumer law at Stanford Law
School (1972-1974). In 1977 she was appointed as chief justice by
Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. She left office in January 1987. As
Chief Justice she was chair of the Judicial Council of California,
the constitutional body responsible for improving state court
administration.
(SFEC, 12/5/99,
p.A1)(www.law.stanford.edu/library/wlhbp/articles/RoseBird120699.htm)
1999 Dec 4, In Austria 5 people
died and 25 injured when a barrier gave way in a stampede at
snow-boarding event in Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 4, In Belgium Prince
Philippe married Mathilde d'Udekem.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Dec 4, In Chechnya Russian
troops pillaged the Alkhan-Yurt village 10 miles southwest of Grozny
and killed 17 civilians.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, In Indonesia
soldiers shot and wounded at least 12 protestors in Aceh province on
the 23rd anniversary of an independence movement. In Irian Jaya
province an estimated 20,000 people protested for independence in
Nabire, 400 miles west of the capital Jayapura.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 5, AFL-CIO chief John
Sweeney welcomed the collapse of World Trade Organization talks in
Seattle and the failure to agree on a new round of negotiations,
telling CBS’ "Face the Nation," "No deal is better than a bad deal."
(AP, 12/5/00)
1999 Dec 5, Cuban President
Fidel Castro demanded that the United States return five-year-old
Elian Gonzalez, who was rescued at sea, to his father in Cuba within
72 hours.
(AP, 12/5/00)
1999 Dec 5, In France Michele
Alliot-Marie (53) was elected as the 1st female leader of the
conservative Rally for the Republic.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 5, In Vietnam 4 days
of rain caused flooding that left over 109 people dead.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 6, The US Supreme
Court, reconsidering its landmark Miranda ruling, agreed to decide
whether police still must warn criminal suspects that they have a
“right to remain silent." The justices upheld that right the
following June.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an
aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the
oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996
ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the
nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, AT&T agreed in
principle to give competing Internet providers access to its
high-speed cable lines.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Oklahoma a boy
(13) opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and injured 4
classmates at Fort Gibson Middle School.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Chechnya Russian
planes dropped leaflets warning civilians in Grozny to leave or face
heavy air and artillery strikes on Dec 11.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 6, In Tanzania a UN
court convicted Georges Rutaganda on 3 of 8 charges of genocide
against Tutsis committed when he was vice president of the
Interhamwe death squads in Rwanda in 1994.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 7, Daniel S. Goldin,
NASA administrator, acknowledged the failure of the Mars Polar
Lander and planned to appoint an independent committee of experts to
examine the Mars program. In 2000 it was determined that a computer
signal was misread and caused breaking to stop at 130 feet above the
surface.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/29/00, p.A1)
1999 Dec 7, The Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed suit against Napster
for being a haven for music piracy.
(WSJ, 9/9/03, p.B1)
1999 Dec 7, In Germany
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won re-election as leader of the Social
Democrats.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 7, In Holland a
student (17) in Veghel shot and wounded a teacher and 4 fellow
students in the 1st school shooting in Dutch history. The student
was reported to have been upset over a romance. The student's father
(35) and sister (15) were arrested 2 days later as accessories.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A15)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1999 Dec 8, US federal
investigators arrested 8 alleged terrorist who they plotted attacks
in Northern California and Nevada on public utilities, an abortion
clinic and a synagogue.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 8, In Washington DC
the FBI arrested Stanislav Borisovich Gusevm, a Russian diplomat,
for collecting information transmitted from a bug in the State
Department headquarters.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 8, A civil trial jury
in Memphis ruled that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King
was a conspiracy. The jury concluded that Loyd Jowers, a former café
owner, had conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the
federal government and organized crime to kill King.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1) (SFC, 12/10/99, p.A15)
1999 Dec 8, In Chechnya Russian
forces ousted rebels from Urus-Martan.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 8, In France a court
ruled that Seita, the maker of Gauloise and Gitane cigarettes, was
partly responsible for the death of a Richard Gourlain, a
3-pack-a-day smoker.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C8)
1999 Dec 8, Israel and Syria
agreed to resume peace negotiations following a visit by Madeleine
Albright to Damascus.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 8, In Montenegro
Serbian troops occupied the main airport for one day. Montenegro had
planned to assume control of the airport Dec 9.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A18)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1999 Dec 8, In Morocco a
shoddily constructed building collapsed in Fez and at least 47
people were killed.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 8, In Northern Ireland
Gerry Adams accused British spies of eavesdropping on secret
discussions with IRA commanders using hidden surveillance gear in
one of his party's cars.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 8, Russia and Belarus
signed a 3rd union agreement. It proposed combining currencies by
2005 and the introduction of a joint tax system in 2001.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 8, Sudan and Uganda
signed a peace agreement in a deal brokered by former Pres. Jimmy
Carter.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C8)
1999 Dec 9, The US federal CDC
issued guidelines that called for states and local public health
departments to report all HIV cases either by name or code.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 9, In San Francisco
Kameron Sengthavy, a former Univ. of Nevada swimmer, was found
stabbed to death in his residential hotel at 447 Bush St. In 2018
police served an arrest warrant for the murder on Roy Donovan Lacy
(38), a former SF Bay Area resident serving time for bank robbery in
a Florida prison.
(SSFC, 5/20/18, p.C3)
1999 Dec 9, Seven Marines were
killed after a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed while ferrying
troops between ships 14 miles off Point Loma, Ca.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 9, Xiana La-Shay (7),
Xiana Fairchild, was last seen at a school bus stop in Vallejo, Ca.
Her skull was found Jan. 19, 2001, in the Los Gatos hills and police
focused on Curtis Dean Anderson as the primary suspect. Anderson
(1961-2007), while serving a 251-year sentence for another
kidnapping, was arrested in 2004 for Xiana’s murder. In 2005
Anderson pleaded guilty to kidnapping, molesting and murdering
Xiana.
(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.C1)(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.A1)(SFC,
5/12/04, p.A6)(SFC, 12/15/05, p.B1)
1999 Dec 9, In Worcester,
Massachusetts, six firefighters who had died in a warehouse blaze
were honored as fallen heroes by thousands of their brethren from
around the world.
(AP, 12/9/00)
1999 Dec 9, In Missouri a
twin-engine Cessna crashed near Branson and all 6 people aboard were
killed.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A17)
1999 Dec 9, Scientists reported
that nearly complete human cornea cells were grown in a laboratory
petri dish.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A6)
1999 Dec 9, European leaders
gathered in Helsinki for an EU summit. On the agenda was the
creation of a defense force, expansion to 28 members and clearing
the path for Turkey to join.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D4)
1999 Dec 9, The first day of
Ramadan. In Saudi Arabia a young man was scheduled to be beheaded by
this day unless the family of a man he killed, while performing the
mizmar dance, was paid some $1.3 million in blood money.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 10, Wen Ho Lee,
nuclear physicist, was charged with 59 counts of mishandling
classified information at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After
three years under suspicion as a spy for China, computer scientist
Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged with removing secrets from
secure computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee was later freed
after pleading guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to
tape; 58 other counts were dropped.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/10/00)
1999 Dec 10, Death claimed rock
singer-musician Rick Danko at age 56.
(AP, 12/10/00)
1999 Dec 10, Death claimed
actress Shirley Hemphill at age 52.
(AP, 12/10/00)
1999 Dec 10, In Argentina Pres.
Fernando de la Rua was inaugurated. His campaign promised to revive
the economy.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A9)
1999 Dec 10, In China Pres.
Yeltsin of Russia and Pres. Jiang Zemin ended a 2-day summit and
swapped pledges of support for Chechnya and Taiwan.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 10, China signed a
deal to advance Belgrade some $300 million in cash and credits for
reconstruction.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 10, More than two
million people marched in Cuba to demand the return of Elian
Gonzalez.
(AP, 12/10/00)
1999 Dec 10, In Croatia Pres.
Franjo Tudjman died at age 77. Vlatko Pavletic (1930-2007), speaker
of Croatia's parliament, began serving as acting president for two
months.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A16)(AP,
9/19/07)
1999 Dec 10, The EU accepted
Turkey as a candidate for membership. It also agreed to draft a
common defense policy with a deployment force of 60,000 peacekeepers
by 2003 to diffuse crises at its doorstep. Preliminary consideration
for membership was also granted to Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania,
Romania, Slovakia, and Malta.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 10, In Kuwait a US
airmen was instantly killed when an Air Force C-130 transport landed
short of the runway at Al Jaber Air Base. The plane regained
altitude, dumped fuel and made an emergency belly landing following
which 2 more airmen were killed. The pilot was charged with
involuntary manslaughter for killing three servicemen by crashing
the plane.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ahmed-al-jaber.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/2sebsu)
1999 Dec 10, In Mexico masked
men with guns attacked a prison in Chiapas and 44 of 239 inmates
fled and a 5-month old child, whose mother was visiting her husband,
was killed.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 10, In South Korea
nearly 20,000 people gathered for a labor rally in Seoul that turned
violent and left 160 people injured.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 10, The UN extended
Iraq's "oil-for-food" program for 6 months and set the stage for the
suspension of sanctions if UN weapon's inspectors are allowed back
into the country.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C1)
1999 Dec 11, Ron Dayne,
Wisconsin’s record-setting tailback, was a landslide winner in the
Heisman Trophy balloting.
(AP, 12/11/00)
1999 Dec 11, Agreeing with his
wife, President Clinton told CBS Radio his 1993 "don’t ask, don’t
tell" policy on gays in the military wasn’t working, and he pledged
to work with the Pentagon to find a way to fix it.
(AP, 12/11/00)
1999 Dec 11, In Algeria 15
people were massacred outside Blida. Many of the victims were burned
alive in a van.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 11, In the Azores a
SATA airline ATP turboprop crashed on Sao Jorge island and all 35
people aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.D1)
1999 Dec 11, In Chechnya
Russian forces halted attacks on Grozny to give an estimated
10-40,000 civilians a chance to leave. An estimated 4,000 rebel
fighters were holed up there.
(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 11, In Chile
presidential elections were held. Ricardo Lagos, a leftist moderate,
was the candidate for the governing Concertacion. Joaquin Lagos, a
right-wing populist, was a member of Opus Dei, a conservative
Catholic organization.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 11, In Sri Lanka
rebels led by Villupillai Prabhakaran pushed toward Jaffna with an
attack at Elephant Pass. The Defense Ministry claimed that 261
rebels were killed as opposed to 12 soldiers and 4 civilians. Rebels
put their losses at 38.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A17)
1999 Dec 11, In Uganda
anti-government rebels killed at least 21 people in 2 attacks. In
one the Congo-based Allied Democratic Forces raided police
headquarters in Bundibugyo and killed 9 people.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 12, Joseph Heller,
author of "Catch-22," died at age 76 in East Hampton, N.Y. His 1998
memoir was titled "Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here." Other
novels included "God Knows" (1984) and "Closing Time" (1994). His
final work was "Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man." In 2011 Tracy
Dougherty authored “Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller."
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W9)(SSFC,
8/21/11, p.F1)
1999 Dec 12, The Int'l. Olympic
Committee enacted sweeping reforms that included a ban on visits by
members to bid cities.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 12, On Guam a
referendum was scheduled to choose independence, US statehood or
free association status.
(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A14)
1999 Dec 12, The Erika, a
Maltese registered oil tanker, broke in two during a storm off the
coast of Brest, France, with 8 million gallons of diesel oil. Half
the ship was towed to deeper waters and 3 million gallons were
spilled. In 2008 a French court found Total SA guilty of maritime
pollution and fined it the maximum penalty of $560,000. It also
ordered Total and three other defendants to pay total damages of
$285 million.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/13/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/20/02, p.A14)(AP, 1/16/08)
1999 Dec 12, In Chile Ricardo
Lagos and Joaquin Lavin stood at a virtual tie in presidential
elections. A runoff was set for Jan 16.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 12-1999 Dec 17, A 6.8
earthquake hit the Philippines at Luzon and at least 5 people were
killed. A 4.8 earthquake struck Leyte province. In Manila a power
outage was caused by jellyfish sucked into water intakes of power
plants. The jelly fish pulled from cooling pumps filled 50 dump
trucks.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A28)
1999 Dec 12, Sudan's Pres. Omar
el-Bashir dissolved parliament, headed by Hassan Turabi, under a
3-month state of emergency. He cited internal and foreign threats.
Parliament had been due to enact new constitutional amendments that
would have taken away the president’s say in the appointment of
provincial governors.
(WSJ, 12/13/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A12)(Econ,
6/28/03, p.48)
1999 Dec 13, In a spirited
presidential campaign debate, Texas Governor George W. Bush and
Senator John McCain fought over tax policy and farm subsidies, while
McCain was pushed to defend his centerpiece campaign finance
proposals.
(AP, 12/13/00)
1999 Dec 13, In Louisiana 8
Cuban nationals at the St. Matin Parish jail in St. Martinville took
as hostage Warden Todd Louvierre, 2 deputies, and 5 inmates. They
demanded either freedom or deportation. 2 Cubans surrendered on Dec
17 and freed 3 female hostages. An agreement was reached Dec 18 for
the Cubans to return to Cuba.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A3)(SFEC,
12/19/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 13, Mayfield Fund and
@Ventures, the affiliated venture capital arm of CMGI, announced
that they have completed the initial $7.50 million round of venture
capital funding for a photography Internet startup. Snapfish.com,
formerly code-named 'Project SkyTalk,' will offer a revolutionary
new business model in the photography market. In 2005 the company
was acquired by Hewlett-Packard.
(www.snapfish.com/release12132000)(SFC, 4/10/10,
p.D1)
1999 Dec 13, In Algeria
militants attacked and killed 11 nomads in the desert town of
Taghit, 620 miles southwest of Algiers.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 13, In Colombia
leftist rebels attacked a naval base at Jurado near Panama and 23
marines were killed and dozens wounded.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 13, In his first major
test on the road to peace with Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak won parliamentary backing for opening negotiations with
Damascus.
(AP, 12/13/00)
1999 Dec 13, Israeli troops
killed 2 men in Beit Awa in the West Bank and captured 3 others
during a search for Hamas activists.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 13, Ireland and
Northern Ireland began cross-border cooperation with a meeting in
Armagh. Twice yearly summits called the North-South Ministerial
Summit represented the first political link since partition in 1920.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 13, In Lesotho Val
Pringle (63), American entertainer, was stabbed to death while
confronting burglars at his home outside Maseru. Police later
arrested 2 men suspected in the murder.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.C8)
1999 Dec 14, In Seattle Ahmed
Ressam (32), an Algerian, was arrested after crossing the border at
Port Angeles from Canada with a car trunk with over 150 pounds of
bomb-making materials that included 200 pounds of urea, timing
devices and a bottle of RDX, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine.
Canadian authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Abdelmajed
Dahoumane for possessing or making explosives. Dahoumane was
arrested in Algeria In Oct, 2000. In 2001 Ressam admitted that he
planned to detonate a bomb at the LA Int’l. Airport. Mokhtar Haouari
provided fake ID and $3,000 to Ressam. Haouari was sentenced to 24
years in prison in 2002. In 2005 Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in
prison.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/99, p.D3)(SFC,
12/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A5)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)(SFC,
5/30/01, p.A5)(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, The New York City
Board of Education identified nine employees, four regular teachers,
two substitute teachers and three teachers' aides who were dismissed
last week for helping students cheat on standardized tests.
(http://tinyurl.com/yz8ucj)
1999 Dec 14, Charles Schultz,
creator of the Peanuts cartoon, announced that he would retire and
that the last Peanuts cartoon would appear Feb 13, 2000.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, In Mission Viejo,
Ca., a main water pipeline ruptured and cut supplies to 14
communities in south Orange County.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, In Germany US,
German and industry officials negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2
billion fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/00)
1999 Dec 14, It was reported
that Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa had recently announced
a $3.75 billion environmental crusade in an effort to reduce
pollution. An 80% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2005 was
planned. Hong Kong's yearly emissions for sulfur dioxide was 80,000
tons. Guangdong Province on the Chinese mainland put out 630,000
tons.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A,12,14)
1999 Dec 14, In Jammu-Kashmir,
India, at least 6 people were killed in clashes between secessionist
guerrillas and security forces.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Mexico a
passenger bus collided head-on with a gas truck and at least 26
people were killed near Salvatierra in Guanajuato.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Panama former
US Pres. Jimmy Carter symbolically turned over the Panama Canal. The
official ownership transfer date was Dec 31.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 14, In Romania Pres.
Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile, though the
constitution did not grant him that power. Alexandru Athanasiu, the
Labor and Social Welfare minister, was named to replace Vasile. The
average monthly salary was down to $89.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 14, In South Africa
Clarence Mlokoti (69), co-founder of the Kaizer Chiefs soccer team,
was killed during an attempted car-jacking in Soweto.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 15, With President
Clinton’s close mediation, Syria reopened peace talks with Israel in
Washington.
(AP, 12/15/00)
1999 Dec 15, The US and China
agreed to a $28 million compensation package for damage to the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7. China agreed to pay $2.87
million for damage to the US Embassy and consular offices.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 15, In Virginia a rule
took effect for prison inmates to either cut their hair no longer
than their collars and shave their beards, or be placed in
administrative segregation. Kendall Gibson (21), a Rastafarian by
faith and sentenced to 47 years on robbery, abduction and gun
charges, refused to have his hair cut and was placed in
administrative segregation where he still remained as of 2010.
(AP, 5/8/10)
1999 Dec 15, In Algeria
suspected Islamic militants killed 11 government soldiers and
wounded 22 others near Chlef, 148 miles west of Algiers.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 15, In Chechnya at
least 115 Russian soldiers were killed by rocket propelled grenades
fired by Chechen guerrillas in Grozny.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/17/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 15, In North Korea a
US led consortium signed a $4.6 billion deal to build 2 nuclear
reactors in Kumho.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 15, In Sri Lanka Brig.
Sunil Tennakoon said 480 rebels had been killed in the attack at
Elephant Pass, as opposed to 28 soldiers and that the mass assault
was blocked. Guerrillas said 38 fighters were killed as opposed to
over 100 soldiers.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 15, In Venezuela a
vote for the approval of the 26th new constitution was scheduled.
The new document contained 368 articles and included the possibility
of recall referendums. Voters approved the new constitution which
included changing the name of the country to the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela.
(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.A11)(SFC, 12/16/99,
p.A16)(Econ, 2/28/04, p.36)(Econ, 3/15/14, p.15)
1999 Dec 16, Israel and Syria
ended two days of inconclusive peace talks and scheduled a
resumption for Jan 3.
(SFC, 12/17/99, p.A12)(AP, 12/16/00)
1999 Dec 16, In Lebanon
shelling by the Israeli allied South Lebanon Army his an elementary
school and 20 children were wounded.
(SFC, 12/17/99, p.D8)
1999 Dec 16, In Venezuela
torrential rains flooded 9 northern states and Caracas and forced
some 120,000 people to flee their homes. Over 1000 people were
killed in Vargas state and 25,000 were described missing.
(SFC, 12/17/99, p.D6)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A14)(SFC,
12/20/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 17, President Clinton
signed a law letting millions of disabled Americans retain their
government-funded health coverage when they take a job.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1999 Dec 17, Grover Washington
Jr., jazz saxophonist, died at age 56 during a TV taping session in
NYC.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.C5)
1999 Dec 17, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 1284) ended a yearlong deadlock and voted to
create a new inspection team (UNMOVIC) to complete the disarmament
of Iraq.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/00)(SFC, 9/24/02,
p.A12)
1999 Dec 18, In St.
Martinville, Louisiana, Cuban inmates who’d held a jail warden and
six others hostage for almost a week surrendered.
(AP, 12/18/00)
1999 Dec 18, After living
atop an ancient redwood in Humboldt County, California, for two
years, environmental activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill came down to
Earth, ending her anti-logging protest.
(AP, 12/18/00)
1999 Dec 18, French film
director Robert Bresson died in Paris at age 98.
(AP, 12/18/00)
1999 Dec 18, Iraq rejected the
UN proposal for an inspection plan that would lead to suspension of
sanctions.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.A24)
1999 Dec 18, In Italy Prime
Minister Massimo D'Alema resigned and brought an end to the 56th
government since WW II.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 18, In Serbia Zoran
Vukicevic (38) was killed and 9 others wounded when gunmen opened
fired on the only Serb café in Orahovac. Vukicevic was at least the
146th Serb killed since NATO peacekeepers entered Kosovo.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.A29)
1999 Dec 18, In Colombo, Sri
Lanka, a suicide bomb attack wounded Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga and
killed 26 people. Another bomb at a rally of the United National
Party killed at least 11 people and injured 40 others. Tamil rebels
were blamed. In 2010 Sakthivel Ilankesvaran, an ethnic Tamil man
employed as a driver, was sentenced to 30 years of hard labor.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.A21)(WSJ, 12/20/99, p.A1)(AP,
10/27/10)
1999 Dec 18, In Zimbabwe Pres.
Mugabe announced at a convention of the ruling party that land would
be seized from whites and that the constitutional clause
guaranteeing compensation would be scrapped.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 19, The shuttle
Discovery was launched following 9 delays from Cape Canaveral with 7
astronauts on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 19, Actor Desmond
Llewelyn (85), who’d starred as the eccentric gadget expert Q in a
string of James Bond films, was killed in a car crash in East
Sussex, England.
(AP, 12/19/00)
1999 Dec 19, Macau spent its
last day under Portuguese control before being handed back to China,
ending 442 years of colonial rule.
(AP, 12/19/00)
1999 Dec 19, In Maluku
province, Indonesia, a least 5 people were killed in a clash between
Christians and Muslims in Ambon. In Aceh province at least 3
paramilitary police were killed by separatist guerrillas.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.C8)
1999 Dec 19, In Russia
parliamentary elections were held. The Communist Party led with
over24% of the vote. 4 of the next 5 parties were centrist groups
with Unity at 23.2%.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C9)
1999 Dec 20, A federal judge
ruled that a school voucher program in Cleveland violates the
Constitution's separation of church and state.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 20, The Vermont
Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the
same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/20/00)
1999 Dec 20, The near Earth
Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft was scheduled to begin its orbit of
the Eros asteroid, a rock about 24 miles by 8 in size.
(SFC, 10/13/98, p.A5)
1999 Dec 20, Country music
legend Hank Snow died in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 85.
(AP, 12/20/00)
1999 Dec 20, In Burundi Gabriel
Gisabwamana, a Hutu member of parliament, was shot and killed by
soldiers at a checkpoint after the 10 p.m. curfew.
(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C11)
1999 Dec 20, In Colombia the
biggest rebel group called a holiday truce through Jan 9. The last
week of fighting killed some 220 soldiers and guerrillas.
(WSJ, 12/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 20, Macao, an enclave
of 430,000 under Portugal, reverted to Chinese control. Edmond Ho,
local banker, took over to head the new government. Local autonomy
was to be had for at least 50 years.
(WSJ, 10/26/95, p.A-18)(SFEC, 12/19/99,
p.A28)(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Dec 20, Singapore Airlines
agreed to buy a 49% stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.
(www.iht.com/articles/1999/12/21/virgin.2.t.php)
1999 Dec 21, Amid heightened
concerns about the possibility of a holiday terrorist attack,
security was ordered tightened at American airports and the Pentagon
said it was taking "appropriate action" to protect US forces
overseas.
(AP, 12/21/00)
1999 Dec 21, The US blocked
$498 million in loan guarantees to the Russian Tyumen Oil Co.
following charges of illegal control of a bankruptcy proceeding.
(SFC, 12/22/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 21, In Guatemala City
a Cubana de Aviacion DC-10 skidded and crashed on landing. At least
26 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C9)
1999 Dec 21, In Sri Lanka
presidential elections were held. At least 7 people were killed in
poll violence. Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga won 51% of the vote.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, the nearest rival, won 43%.
(WSJ, 11/24/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/22/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/23/99, p.C10)
1999 Dec 22, President Clinton
urged Americans not to panic despite enhanced security measures
prompted by fears of terrorism.
(AP, 12/22/00)
1999 Dec 22, In Atlanta,
Georgia, federal drug police seized $72 million worth of cocaine in
"Operation Juno," a 3 year sting operation that also netted $10-26
million laundered through a fake brokerage firm. 5 people were
arrested in Tucker and another 47 nationwide.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 12/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 22, An Algerian
accused of trying to smuggle nitroglycerin and other bomb-making
materials into the United States from Canada pleaded innocent in
Seattle to all five counts of a federal indictment. Ahmed Ressam was
convicted in April 2001 of terrorist conspiracy and eight other
charges.
(AP, 12/22/04)
1999 Dec 22, In Chicago Louis
Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, preached a new line and
called for an end to "the cycle of violence and the cycle of
hatred."
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 22, Two astronauts
from the shuttle "Discovery" went on a spacewalk to replace broken
instruments in the Hubble Space Telescope.
(AP, 12/22/00)
1999 Dec 22, In Algeria a 5.8
earthquake struck near Oran and at least 20 people were killed and
75 injured.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C7)
1999 Dec 22, In Britain a
Korean Air 747 cargo plane crashed near London and all 4 people
aboard were killed.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C7)
1999 Dec 22, In Italy Premier
Massimo D'Alema won a vote of confidence for a new cabinet.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C7)
1999 Dec 22, In Mozambique
Pres. Joaquim Chissano was declared the winner of elections that
were held earlier in the month. He won 52% as opposed to 48% for
Afonso Dhlakama of the Mozambique Resistance Movement, known as
Renamo. In parliament Frelimo won 133 seats vs. 117 for Renamo.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C7)
1999 Dec 22, In the Philippines
the MV Asia South Korea ferry with 606 passengers sank southeast of
Manila near Bantayan Island and at least 9 people were killed. 58
people were missing.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C7)(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A11)
1999 Dec 22, In Spain police
found a 2nd van loaded with 1,650 pounds of explosives in Alhama de
Aragon. Two days earlier a van, bound for Madrid, was stopped with
1,980 pounds of explosives.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A20)
1999 Dec 22, In Venezuela 2
helicopters crashed on aid missions and at least 4 people were
killed.
(WSJ, 12/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 23, President Clinton
pardoned Freddie Meeks, a black sailor court-martialed for mutiny
during World War II when he and other sailors refused to load live
ammunition following a deadly explosion at the Port Chicago Naval
Magazine near San Francisco that had claimed more than 300 lives.
(AP, 12/23/00)
1999 Dec 23, The Nasdaq
composite index briefly crossed 4,000 and closed at a record high
for the 58th time in 1999.
(AP, 12/23/00)
1999 Dec 23, In Keokuk, Iowa, a
house fire left 3 children and 3 firemen dead. Dave McNally (48),
Jason Bitting (29) and Nate Tuck (39) were caught in a flashover.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A5)
1999 Dec 23, In Greece Avraam
Lesperoglou, was arrested in Athens. He was the country's most
wanted terrorist and suspected to be a member of the Anti-State
Struggle, which killed a public prosecutor in 1985.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 23, In Ivory Coast
soldiers went on a rampage in Abidjan with gunshots and looting in
protest over money and perks.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 23, In Haiti violence
began when a customer was killed trying to cash in a winning lottery
ticket. 50 tin-roofed shacks were torched in Cite Soleil.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A20)
1999 Dec 23, Italian Premier
Massimo D'Alema won parliamentary approval for the 57th government.
The Cabinet included 5 new members and 20 holdovers.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A20)
1999 Dec 23, In Sri Lanka
fighting broke out at Iyakachchi and at least 101 guerrillas and
soldiers were later reported killed.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 24, Most of
California’s citrus crop was considered ruined after three straight
nights of freezing cold.
(AP, 12/24/00)
1999 Dec 24, The Catholic
Jubilee Holy Year began Christmas eve and was scheduled to last to
Jan 6, 2001. The Church was expected to ask for forgiveness for past
errors. The bronze door to St. Peter's was opened and symbolized the
passage from sin to grace.
(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A18)(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 24, In Algeria Islamic
militants killed 29 people at a roadblock near Khemis Miliana, some
50 miles west of Algiers.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 24, In Ivory Coast
Gen. Robert Guei declared a military coup and an end to the rule by
Pres. Henri Konan Bedie.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 24, In Nepal 5 Sikh
men, members of the Kashmir Harakut ul-Mujahedeen, hijacked an
Indian Airlines A-300 Airbus with 189 people onboard. After 3 stops
for refueling it landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where it was
surrounded by Taliban militia. 26 passengers were released in Dubai.
They called for the release of Maulana Massood Azhar, a Pakistani
religious leader and other Kashmiri militants. They later raised
their demands to $200 million, the release of 35 jailed guerrillas
and the exhumation of a dead comrade buried in India. [see Dec 29]
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/28/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/14/01, p.A5)
1999 Dec 24, Ignoring NATO
warnings, Serb tanks and troops struck an ethnic Albanian stronghold
in Kosovo.
(AP, 12/24/00)
1999 Dec 24, In South Africa 7
policemen were injured after responding to a bomb threat in Cape
Town.
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 25, Space shuttle
"Discovery’s" astronauts finished their repair job on the Hubble
Space Telescope.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.A17)(AP, 12/25/00)
1999 Dec 25, Erik de Mul, the
UN Afghan coordinator reached Kandahar, Afghanistan, and began
negotiations with Sikh hijackers.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 25, A Cuban airplane,
Russian-made YAK-42, crashed just before landing in the northern
Venezuelan state of Carabobo and all 22 people onboard were killed.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.D6)(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 25, Russian forces
launched an attack on Grozny led by 700 pro-Moscow Chechen
volunteers.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 26, The crew of space
shuttle "Discovery" packed up its tools and prepared to return home
after an eight-day mission of repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope
that NASA declared a success.
(AP, 12/26/00)
1999 Dec 26, Time Magazine
named Albert Einstein (d.1955) as the Person of the Century.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 26, Curtis Mayfield,
soul singer and songwriter, died at age 57 in Roswell, Georgia. His
songs included "People Get Ready," "Superfly" (1972), Gypsy Woman,"
and "It's All Right."
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 26, In Angola
government forces with help from Namibian troops captured Jamba and
took control of the southern border with Namibia.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 26, In China 4 alleged
ringleaders of the Falun Gong were convicted and sentenced for 7-18
years for stealing "state secrets," organizing a cult to disrupt law
and order, and causing deaths.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 26, In Europe heavy
winds and rain killed 88 people in France, 17 dead in Germany and 13
dead in Switzerland. A 2nd storm hit a day later. Damages from the
storms were later estimated to be at least $4 billion. The storms
destroyed an estimated 400 million trees across France.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/28/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A11)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/25/09)
1999 Dec 26, Alfonso Portillo,
a populist lawyer, scored a resounding victory in Guatemala’s first
peacetime presidential elections in nearly 40 years.
(AP, 12/26/00)
1999 Dec 26, In Indonesia
Frenchman Michael Blanc was arrested with 3.8 kg (8.4 pounds) of
hash hidden in diving canisters. Blanc maintained his innocence,
insisting that he was given the diving canisters to transport by a
friend. In 2000 he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. On
Jan 20, 2014 he was freed on parole.
(AP, 1/20/14)
1999 Dec 26, In Iran members of
the opposition Mujahedeen Khalq crossed from Iraq and attacked
Republican Guard barracks in Khuzestan.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 26, In the Ivory Coast
Pres. Henri Konan Bedie fled with his family to Lome, Togo,
following the military coup.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 27, Six inmates,
including four convicted killers, escaped from Riverbend Maximum
Security Institution in Tennessee. All were recaptured by the end of
next day.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, A week after she
was born weighing just ten-point-three ounces, the smallest of the
Houston octuplets (Chijindu Chidera) died from heart and lung
failure.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, Leonard H.
Goldenson (94), former television executive, who’d built ABC into a
network powerhouse, died in Longboat Key, Fla.
(AP, 12/27/04)
1999 Dec 27, Space shuttle
Discovery landed at Cape Canaveral, Fla., following a successful
repair of the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 27, In Indonesia rival
mobs of Muslims and Christians clashed in Maluku province and at
least 39 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Dec 27, In northeast
Pakistan Salamat Shah, a Shiite Muslim, opened fire and killed 12
members of a rival Sunni Muslim group, Sipa-e-Sahaba, during a
funeral procession in Sikunder Pur.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Dec 28, Officials in
Seattle canceled a public New Year's Eve celebration due to security
concerns.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 28, The death toll
from storms across Western Europe reached 120.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 28, Clayton Moore, TV
star of the Lone Ranger series, died at age 85. His 169 [221]
episodes ran from 1949-1957, featured Jay Silverheels as Tonto and
Fred Foy as the announcer: "Return with us now to those thrilling
days of yesteryear…" His 1996 autobiography was titled "I Was That
Masked Man."
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A1,11)
1999 Dec 29, The Nasdaq
composite stock index closed over 4,000 for the first time
(4041.46). It had passed 3,000 only a few months earlier.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/29/00)
1999 Dec 29, In Afghanistan the
Indian Airlines hijackers dropped their demands for a $200 million
ransom and the body of a Kashmiri militant but haggled over the
number of militants to be released.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 29, In Austria an
avalanche killed 9 German tourists hiking near Galtuer. 13 people
were buried but 4 survived.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A20)
1999 Dec 29, In Indonesia 3
days of strife between Christians and Muslims on Halmahera Island in
North Maluka province left some 250 people dead.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A20)(SFC, 12/31/99, p.D6)
1999 Dec 29, Israel released 26
Palestinian security prisoners as part of the interim peace accord.
It was the first time Israel had released Palestinians who had
killed Israelis or tourists.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 29, A Russian oil
tanker broke up and sank near the mouth of the Bosporus and coated
the Turkish shore with some 4,800 tons of heavy fuel.
(WSJ, 12/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 29, In South Africa
police arrested 3 members of a Muslim vigilante gang and seized bomb
materials linked to recent bombings near Cape Town.
(WSJ, 12/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 30, In Tampa, Fla.,
Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva, an employee at the Radisson Bay Harbor Inn,
shot and killed 4 co-workers and a motorist as he tempted to steal a
car before police arrested him. Izquierdo-Leyva later pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to life.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/30/04)
1999 Dec 30, In Oregon an
80-foot power-line tower was toppled 26 miles east of Bend. It was
described as an isolated case of criminal mischief. 2 suspects were
arrested in 2005.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A6)
1999 Dec 30, Sarah "Sadie"
Clark Knauss, listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest
person with a verifiable date of birth, died in Allentown,
Pennsylvania, at age 119.
(AP, 12/30/00)
1999 Dec 30, In England former
Beatle George Harrison was stabbed in his home in Henley-on-Thames
after Michael Abram (33), a mentally ill former heroin addict, broke
in. Abram was later acquitted of attempted murder by reason of
insanity.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A1,18)(AP, 12/30/00)
1999 Dec 30, In Indonesia
strife between Christians and Muslims left some 74 people killed
after 4 days of violence.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.D6)
1999 Dec 30-31, A rubber raft
with some 59 refugees capsized while trying to cross the Adriatic
between Albania and Italy. One body was found in Jan.
(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Dec 31, The $500,000
Anheuser-Busch prize to the first person of team to circle the globe
in a balloon expires. An additional $500,000 goes to a charity of
the winner’s choice.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A6)
1999 Dec 31, The US was by a
1977 treaty required to give up control of the Panama Canal and
withdraw its forces by this date. The treaty also required the US to
pay for environmental cleanup.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C5)
1999 Dec 31, An arson attack of
the genetic research building at Michigan State University caused
$3.7 million in damages. Frank Ambrose of Detroit later admitted to
the arson and went undercover for investigations of eco-terrorism.
In 2008 Ambrose was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
(WSJ, 10/11/08,
p.A7)(www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=409)(SFC, 10/21/08,
p.A3)
1999 Dec 31, Elliot L.
Richardson (79), former Attorney General, died in Boston.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1999 Dec 31, In Afghanistan the
hijackers of an Indian airline Flight 814 (see Dec 24) released all
150 hostages after India released 3 jailed militants: Maulana Masood
Azhar, leader of the Harkat-ul-Ansar rebel group, Omar Sheikh and
Mushtaq Zargat, an Indian Kashmiri. 4 hijackers came off the plane
and left one dead hijacker behind. The Taliban gave them 10 hours to
leave the country.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A19)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A25)
1999 Dec 31, Burundian soldiers
killed at least 43 people including children in the Kabezi commune
in Bujumbura Rural province.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 31, In Congo
Jean-Pierre Bemba said his Congolese Liberation Movement forces had
ambushed and killed 80 government troops at Libanda.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, Europe’s leaders
proclaimed a new era as eleven nations merged currencies to create
the euro, a shared money they said would boost business, underpin
unity and strengthen their role in world affairs.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1999 Dec 31, In Indonesia
thousands of residents fled clashes between the Christians and
Muslims in the Spice Islands. 350 people had died in 5 days of
violence. 5 people were killed at Makariki on Seram Island and
security forces imposed a curfew.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Iran Supreme
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel during
demonstrations for "Al-Quds Day." Al-Quds is the Arabic name for
Jerusalem.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Lebanon Muslim
militants ambushed an army patrol and killed 4 soldiers with 3
wounded in Diniyah. A kidnapped soldier was found dead the next day
and a kidnapped Lt. Col. Was missing.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A27)
1999 Dec 31, Russia’s Pres.
Yeltsin (68) announced his resignation and handed power over to PM
Putin. Yeltsin approved a law just before resigning that required
presidential candidates to collect 1 million registered signatures
to win a place on the next ballet. Putin flew to Chechnya and vowed
to pursue terrorists everywhere.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)(Econ,
3/1/08, p.54)
1999 Dec, In New York City
off-duty police Officer Vincent Ling was shot following an
interaction with Lester Pearson in the Bronx. Ling soon died of his
injuries. In 2019 police in Florida arrested Pearson (43).
(SFC, 3/19/19, p.A8)
1999 Dec, The 1858 Covent
Garden Royal Opera House in London was scheduled in 1997 for a $361
million refurbishment and slated to reopen in Dec, 1999.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E3)
1999 Dec, In China Li Lusong, a
villager from Lan county in Shanxi province, had half of his tongue
cut off by police for cursing police during detention for writing
anti-corruption slogans.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A14)
1999 James Barsness (b.1954)
painted "Ship of Fools."
(SFC, 5/6/00,
p.D1)(www.artnet.com/artist/2030/james-barsness.html)
1999 In Iowa artist Ray (Bubba)
Sorensen II began painting a Memorial Day tribute to US servicemen
and servicewomen with a stirring tableau painted on a large granite
boulder which stands next to Highway 25. He created new murals
annually on the rock.
(www.ticz.com/homes/users/bob/On-A-Rock/On-A-Rock.htm)
1999 Kwame Anthony Appiah and
Henry Louis Gates Jr. edited the 2095-page book: "Africana: The
Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience." Gates
also began the web site: Africana.com, which he later proposed as a
vehicle to unify blacks worldwide.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.W10)(WSJ, 2/16/00, p.A1)
1999 Robert Creeley (72) and
Archie Rand published "Drawn and Quartered," a collection of 54
prints by Mr. Rand embellished with quatrains by Mr. Creeley.
(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A21)
1999 Kanatjan Alibekov (Ken
Alibek), the former director of Soviet anthrax production in
Kazakstan, published "Biohazard."
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A11)
1999 Christopher Andrew and
Vasili Mitrokhin published "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin
Archive and the Secret History of the KGB."
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)
1999 Thomas A. Bass published
"The Predictors," a work on commodities, currency and derivatives
trading and a group of New Mexican physicists who worked to use
chaos theory to program computers to beat the financial markets.
Bass had previously authored "The Eudaemonic Pie," an account of the
Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard attempt to triumph at roulette using
computers in their shoes.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, BR p.9)
1999 Tim Berners-Lee, inventor
of the World Wide Web, authored "Weaving the Web."
(WSJ, 10/1/99, p. W6)
1999 Paul Bracken published
"Fire in the East," a historical look at the spread of weapons of
mass destruction across the Middle East and Asia.
(WSJ, 6/16/99, p.A24)
1999 H.W. Brands published
"Masters of Enterprise," 25 sketches of giants in American business.
(WSJ, 6/14/99, p.A18)
1999 Mark Caldwell published "A
Short History of Rudeness," a collection of anecdotes and historical
apercus.
(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.A20)
1999 Mark C. Carnes and John A.
Garraty edited the new "American National Biography," a 24-volume,
$2,500 work descended from "The Dictionary of American Biography."
(WSJ, 5/5/99, p.A20)
1999 T.J. Clark published
"Farewell To an Idea: Episodes From a History of Modernism."
(SFEC, 3/21/99, BR p.5)
1999 Robert Conquest authored
"Reflections on a Ravaged Century." He supported the "democratic
peace theory" which held that "democracies do not fight democracies
and that non-democracies are troublemakers."
(SFEC, 11/28/99, BR p.3)
1999 Peter Conrad, an
Australian literary scholar teaching at Oxford, published "Modern
Times, Modern Places," an overview of the extreme tendencies of 20th
century culture.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, BR p.7)
1999 Abu Daoud first
acknowledged having a role in the 1972 Munich operation in the book:
"Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich."
(AP, 2/24/06)
1999 Alan Davidson completed
"The Oxford Companion to Food," after 20 years of work.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.W13)
1999 L.J. Davis authored "The
Billionaire Shell Game," a look at John Malone, head of
Tele-Communications Inc.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.9)
1999 Historian Alison Des
Forges (1942-2009), prominent human rights advocate, documented the
1994 genocide in Rwanda in her book “Leave None to Tell the Story:
Genocide in Rwanda."
(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Des_Forges)
1999 Tom Diaz authored "Making
a Killing: The Business of Guns in America."
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A10)
1999 Jared Diamond authored
“Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies."
(www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552)
1999 David Duke published his
book "My Awakening," a plan for revolution to preserve the Aryan way
of life. The book asserted that blacks are inferior to whites and
included a supporting foreword by FSU Prof. Glayde Whitney (d.2002
at 62).
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A10)
1999 Umberto Eco, Italian
semiotician, authored "Kant and the Platypus" Essays on Language and
Cognition."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.11)
1999 Jonathan Fenby, English
journalist, published "France on the Brink," a diagnosis of what
ails French society.
(WSJ, 8/4/99, p.A20)
1999 Niall Ferguson published
his 2nd volume on "The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker
1849-1999."
(WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A24)
1999 David Fromkin published
"Kosovo Crossing: American Ideals Meet Reality on the Balkan
Battlefields."
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A20)
1999 Francis Fukuyama,
published "The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution
of Social Order," a follow up on his work "The End of History." He
contends that not only is individualism ending, but that it must end
and that humans will seek new rules to replace the ones that have
been undercut.
(WSJ, 6/3/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)
1999 Bill Gertz, a reporter for
the Washington Times, published "Betrayal," a critical account of
the Clinton administration, which reportedly divulged a wealth of
secrets from classified US documents.
(SFC, 5/21/99, p.A6)
1999 Martin Gilbert published
Volume II of his "A History of the Twentieth Century."
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.4)
1999 James Glassman and Kevin
A. Hassett published "Dow 36,000" shortly before the dotcom bubble
burst.
(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.A10)(Econ, 12/13/14, p.73)
1999 James Gleick authored
"Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything."
(WSJ, 8/25/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 10/10/99, BR p.5)
1999 E.H. Gombrich (90)
published his 10th collection of essays and lectures: "The Use of
Images: Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual
Communication."
(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.4)
1999 Jason Goodwin authored
"Lords of the Horizon," a history of the Ottoman Empire.
(WSJ, 4/29/99, p.A24)
1999 Stephen J. Gould published
"Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."
(WSJ, 3/29/99, p.A24)
1999 Brian Greene published
"The Elegant Universe." It is an explanation of the universe using
string theory.
(SFC, 2/13/99, p.B6)
1999 Germaine Greer published
"The Whole Woman." It was a follow-up to her 1970 work, "The Female
Eunuch." Christine Wallace published the biography: "Germaine Greer:
Untamed Shrew."
(SFEC, 7/4/99, BR p.5)
1999 Grace Halsell authored
"Forcing God’s Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture – and
Destruction of Planet Earth."
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D8)
1999 Paul Hawken and Amory
Lovins authored "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial
Revolution."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.12)
1999 Mark Hertsgaard published
"Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental
Future."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.D5)
1999 Michael Hiltzik authored
“Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC in the Dwan of the Computer Age."
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.C5)
1999 Adolf Holl, Austrian
theologian, published "The Left hand of God: A Biography of the Holy
Spirit."
(SFEC, 1/10/99, BR p.9)
1999 Edward Hooper authored
"The River," a detailed hypothesis for the origin of AIDS in Africa.
He suspected that the Wister polio vaccine, which was given to some
300,000 people in the Belgian Congo between 1957-1960, was produced
from monkey kidney cells that contained SIV virus.
(SSFC, 1/14/01,
p.A1,14)(www.avert.org/origins.htm)
1999 Freeman House authored
“Totem Salmon," an account of efforts to restore the Mattole River
in Northern California.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.A2)
1999 Michael Isikoff, former
investigative reporter with the Washington Post, published:
"Uncovering Clinton," a report on the 4 years he spent probing Pres.
Clinton's dark side.
(WSJ, 4/1/99, p.A20)
1999 Kay Redfield Jamison
authored "Night Falls Fast," a look at suicide with a tour of its
biological and evolutionary dimensions.
(WSJ, 10/13/99, p.A28)
1999 Michael Kammen, Cornell
professor, authored "American Culture, American Tastes: Social
Change and the 20th Century."
(WSJ, 8/18/99, p.A17)
1999 Robert Kaplan published
"The Nothing That Is: The Natural History of Zero."
(WSJ, 11/10/99, p.A20)
1999 Alan Kaufman, SF poet,
published his anthology of poetry: "The Outlaw Bible of American
Poetry."
(SFC, 2/22/00, p.C1)
1999 Rick Kennedy and Randy
McNutt published "Little Labels - Big Sound: Small Record Companies
and the Rise of American Music."
(SFEC, 7/25/99, BR p.5)
1999 Henry Kissinger published
the 3rd and last volume of his "Years of Upheaval," which covered
the 2 ˝ years of the Ford administration.
(WSJ, 3/18/99, p.A21)
1999 Karen Kozlowski and Meg
Cohen Ragas authored "Read My Lips: A Cultural History of Lipstick."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.5)
1999 Mark Kurlansky authored
"The Basque History of the World."
(SFEC, 10/17/99, Par p.20)
1999 Barry M. Leiner (d.2003 at
57) authored a technical history of the Internet. In the 1980s he
worked as a manager at DARPA and helped establish the Internet
Activities Board (IAB), which set technical standards for the
Internet.
(SFC, 4/19/03, p.A17)
1999 James Loewen published
"Life Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong."
(USAT, 11/11/99, p.8D)
1999 Martin Malia published
"Russia Under Western Eyes," a historical look at the destiny of
Russia.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A16)
1999 Michael S. Malone authored
"Infinite Loop: How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Computer
Company Went Insane."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.9)
1999 Rachel P. Maimes authored
"The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's
Sexual Gratification."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.5)
1999 James Mann published
"About Face," a look at diplomatic relations with China since the
Nixon administration.
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.A21)
1999 Jaime Manrique authored
"Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me," a homage to gay
Latino writers.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.4)
1999 Lou Marinoff authored
"Plato, Not Prozax!: Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.D7)
1999 Robert W. McChesney
authored "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communications Politics in
Dubious Times." He proposed that the media had become a significant
anti-democratic force in the US and to varying degrees worldwide.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, BR p.4)
1999 Joyce Milton published her
unauthorized biography of Hillary Clinton: "The First Partner."
(WSJ, 5/17/99, p.A24)
1999 Ted Morgan published "A
Covert Life: Jay Lovestone - Communist, Anti-Communist, and
Spymaster." Lovestone played a crucial role in US
counter-intelligence during the Cold War.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, Par p.11)
1999 John Nathan authored
"Sony: The Private Life," a history of the 53-year-old Sony
Corporation.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.A24)
1999 Leonard Nathan
(1924-2007), poet and professor at UC Berkeley, earned critical
acclaim after publishing “The Potato Eaters."
(SFC, 6/9/07, p.B6)
1999 Walter Nugent authored
"Into the West: The Story of Its People."
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1999 P.J. O'Rourke published
"Eat The Rich, A Treatisse on Economics."
(SFEC, 1/17/99, BR p.9)
1999 Theodore Osmundson (d.2009
at 88), SF architect, authored “Roof Gardens: History, Design and
Construction." It became widely considered as the bible of roof
gardening.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.B5)
1999 Richard and Joan Ostling
authored “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise."
(www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/charles/mormonsyl.htm)
1999 Mark Pendergrast published
"Uncommon Grounds," a history of coffee.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.W9)
1999 Thomas J. Petzinger Jr.
published "The New Pioneers: The Men and Women Who Are Transforming
the Workplace and Marketplace."
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.B1)
1999 Peter Phillips and Project
Censored of Sonoma State Univ. published: "Censored 1999: The News
That Didn't Make the News - The Year's Top 25 Censored Stories."
(SFEC, 6/6/99, BR p.5)
1999 Norman Podhoretz, editor
of Commentary, authored "Ex-Friends: Falling Out With Allen
Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt,
and Norman Mailer" the 3rd volume of a 3 part series of his memoirs.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, BR p.8)
1999 Malcolm Potts and Roger
Short published "Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human
Sexuality."
(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.5)
1999 Scott Ritter, former UN
weapons inspector, published "Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem -
Once and for All."
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A16)
1999 J.M. Roberts, British
historian, authored "The Twentieth Century."
(WSJ, 12/28/99, p.A16)
1999 Randy Shaw authored
"Reclaiming America: Nike, Clean Air, and the New National
Activism."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.1)
1999 Bill Shore authored “The
Cathedral Within." Social entrepreneur Bill Shore profiles leaders
across America who are tapping the vast resources of the private
sector to improve community life and the future for our children.
(www.strength.org/learn/cathedral/cathedral.htm)
1999 Simon Singh authored "The
Code Book," a documentation of the classic battle between codemakers
and codebreakers.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A24)
1999 Barbara Smuts authored
"Sex and Friendship in Baboons."
(MT, Fall 02, p.12)
1999 Robert Sobel, economic
historian, published "When Giants Stumble," 15 stories of why bad
things happen to good businessmen.
(WSJ, 6/14/99, p.A18)
1999 Lewis Sorley published his
book: "A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of
America's Last Years in Vietnam" in which he argues that the US won
the war but failed to support South Vietnam after the Paris Peace
Accords.
(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A24)
1999 Elizabeth Sparrow authored
“Secret Service: British Agents in France: 1792-1815."
(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)
1999 George Stephanopoulos,
former Clinton advisor, published "All Too Human: A Political
Education."
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.A5)
1999 Neal Stephenson authored
his sci-fi novel “Cryptonomicon."
(Econ, 10/25/08, SR
p.17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon)
1999 Popcorn Sutton
(1946-2009), Tennessee moonshiner, authored his autobigraphy “Me and
My Likker."
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A12)
1999 Ann Taves authored "Fits,
Trances and Visions." It was a history of religious experience in
the evangelical tradition and covered from 1740-1910. It also
provided a history of the psychology of religion.
(WSJ, 1/4/00, p.A20)
1999 John B. Taylor and Michael
Woodford edited the “Handbook of Macroeconomics".
(http://tinyurl.com/zsy4zs6)
1999 Colin Thubron authored "In
Siberia."
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.93)
1999 Edward Timperlake and
William C. Triplett II authored "Year of the Rat," in which they
explore Pres. Clinton's relations with Chinese officials and their
Washington agents.
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.A21)
1999 Donald Trump published
"The America We Deserve."
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A3)
1999 Cameron Tuttle authored
"Bad Girl’s Guide to the Open Road."
(SSFC, 9/29/02, p.E1)
1999 John Updike and Katrina
Kenison edited "The Best American Short Stories of the Century."
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)
1999 Peter Warburton authored
“Debt and Delusion: Central Bank Folies That Threaten Economic
Disaster," in which he argued that excessive levels of consumer debt
could trigger a crisis.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.80)
1999 Gary Webb (1955-2004), San
Jose news reported, authored “Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras,
and the Crack Cocaine Explosion."
(SFC, 12/13/04, p.B3)
1999 Jonathan Weiner authored
“Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins
of Behavior," a biography of Caltech biologist Seymour Benzer
(1921-2007). Benzer’s work paved the way for scientists to uncover
links between genes and human behavior.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.C7)
1999 Esther Williams (77),
former swimming champion and film star, published her autobiography
"The Million Dollar Mermaid."
(SFC, 9/6/99, p.B1)
1999 A.N. Wilson published
"God's Farewell," an intellectual speculation on the issue of God
and 19th century doubters and disbelievers.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A16)
1999 Bob Woodward published
"Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate."
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.A2)
1999 David Wurmser published
"Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein."
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Bob Zelnick authored
"Gore," a political biography of Vice-Pres. Al Gore.
(WSJ, 4/21/99, A20)
1999 "The Art of the Essay: The
Best of 1999" was published in 2000 and edited by Phillip Lopate.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, BR p.6)
1999 "The Best American Essays
of 1999" was published in 2000 and edited by Edward Hoagland.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, BR p.6)
1999 "The Best American Short
Stories of 1999" was published in 2000 and edited by Amy Tan.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, BR p.7)
1999 Phaidon published the
photographic record "Century: One Hundred Years of Human Progress,
Regression, Suffering and Hope, 1899-1999."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.1)
1999 The Cluetrain Manifesto
was written by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David
Weinberger. It is a set of 95 theses organized and put forward as a
call to action for all businesses operating within what is suggested
to be a newly-connected marketplace. The ideas put forward within
the manifesto aim to examine the impact of the Internet on both
markets (consumers) and organizations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluetrain_Manifesto)(www.cluetrain.com/)
1999 The musical "Mamma Mia!"
opened in London based on the music by the Swedish pop group Abba.
The songs were written by founders Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A20)
1999 The show "Spirit: A
Journey in Dance, Drums and Song" was composed by Peter Buffett. It
was largely based on American Indian dance tradition.
(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.W9)
1999 Rhino Entertainment
released a 5-CD box set titled "R-E-S-P-E-C-T: A Century of Women in
Music."
(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.A16)
1999 The film "Genghis Blues"
premiered at Sundance. It won the audience award for best
documentary. It was directed by Roko and Adrian Belic and was about
Paul Pena (1950-2005), a blind bluesman, who journeyed to Tuva in
1995 to compete in a throat-singing competition.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.35)(SFC, 10/4/05, p.B5)
1999 The TV Mob show "The
Sopranos" began on HBO. It was a big hit and continued a 2nd season
in 2000.
(WSJ, 1/117/00, p.A16)
1999 The TV public affairs show
"Firing Line," hosted for over 3 decades by conservative William F.
Buckley, made its final broadcast. In 2001 Stanford’s Hoover
Institute acquired the show’s archives.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.A14)
1999 The Int’l. Federation of
Spirits Providers was founded. The industry group started testing
programs and anti-counterfeiting measures. It encouraged the use of
markers in liquor and tests to prevent substituting cheap booze for
good stuff, i.e. "tipping."
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A7)
1999 Caroline Baron founded
Film Aid Int’l. as a one-time trial to show films to the refugees in
Macedonia. The project was later expanded Africa.
(WSJ, 10/23/02, p.B1)
1999 The Weston A. Price
Foundation was established in Washington DC to promote traditional
foods such as grass-fed beef and unpasteurized milk.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A1)
1999 Wisconsin dairy farmers
began a cow-sharing program in order to send owners unpasteurized
milk. Sale of unpasteurized milk was illegal in Wisconsin and 21
other states.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A1)
1999 The US planned to set up
exchange controls before the year 2000, to prevent capital from
moving out of the country to get higher investment returns.
(WSJ, 12/9/94, p.R-24)
1999 US authorities uncovered a
money laundering scheme that involved the Bank of New York and its
branch in Russia. In 2000 Lucy Edwards and her husband Peter Berlin
pleaded guilty to fraud charges. In 2005 the bank agreed to pay $14
million in fines directly related to the Russia scandal and to adopt
antifraud overhauls. In 2007 Russia sued the Bank of New York for
$22.5 billion for its role in the money laundering scheme.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A3)
1999 The US State Dept. took
over the export regulation of satellites. This was part of the
Int’l. Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) and had earlier been
handled by the US Dept. of Commerce.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.66)
1999 The US government launched
a funding program, Cops in Schools, in response to the massacre of
13 students at Colorado’s Columbine High School. By 2007 an
estimated 19,000 policemen, known as School Resource Officers,
plodded the halls of American schools.
(Econ, 1/9/16, p.25)
1999 Franklin D. Raines
(b.1949) was appointed chief executive officer at Fanny Mae,
becoming the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He was later
accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
(OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread
accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior
executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Raines)(SFC, 11/16/18, p.C3)
1999 The FBI helped launch the
1st Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL) to support
federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies. By 2005 there
were 6 such labs.
(Econ, 3/12/05, TQ p.32)
1999 John A. Gotti Jr. pleaded
guilty to racketeering and extortion and accepted a 6-year prison
sentence.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.5)
1999 Oussama Kassir, a
Lebanese-born Swede, plotted to help Al-Qaida recruit for a weapons
training post in Bly, Oregon. In 2009 Kassir was convicted in New
York for plotting to help Al-Qaida and for distributing terrorist
training manuals over the Internet.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)
1999 California’s Gov.
Gray Davis thanked the unions for their electoral support this year
by giving state workers pension increases of between 20% and 50%.
(Econ, 6/26/10, p.35)
1999 California lost $52
million on a computer system that was to have allowed county welfare
offices to communicate with each other.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, Z1 p.6)
1999 The California state Board
of Equalization adopted a policy to tax cell phones at full retail
price even if purchased at a discount under a bundled plan.
(SFC, 11/8/11, p.A10)
1999 Ron Burkle (46),
California businessman, sold his food chains, including Alpha Beta,
Ralph’s and Food 4 Less, to Kroger for $13 billion.
(SFC, 5/2/06, p.D1)
1999 San Francisco held its
first How Weird Street Faire. It grew out of community of artists in
the 1990s known as the Consortium of Collective Consciousness.
(SFC, 4/27/15, p.C3)
1999 The Japanese bubble snail
was first identified in the San Francisco Bay. It carried a
parasite, a microscopic flatworm, that caused swimmer’s itch, i.e.
cercarial dermatitis.
(SFC, 9/30/10,
p.A12)(www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/9/1357.htm)
1999 In San Mateo prosecutors
charged Judith A. Gladsysz, an administrative assistant, with
embezzling close to $130,000 over 4 years.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Matthew Lasar published
"Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network."
(SFC, 7/22/99, p.E1)
1999 The new $110 million
Science and Engineering Quad at Stanford Univ. was scheduled to be
completed.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A11)
1999 A new $60 million,
81,000-sq.-ft. science center was scheduled to open in the Oakland
Hills in Joaquin Miller Park. The complex was to include a theater
with a domed screen, classrooms, 3 telescopes and a planetarium.
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A14)
1999 The Japanese bubble snail
was first identified in the San Francisco Bay. It carried a
parasite, a microscopic flatworm, that caused swimmer’s itch, i.e.
cercarial dermatitis.
(SFC, 9/30/10,
p.A12)(www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/9/1357.htm)
1999 Norman Conard and his high
school students in rural Kansas began producing "Life in a Jar," a
play about Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved hundreds of
Jewish children during the Holocaust, as part of a history project.
On June 11, 2018, Poland's Culture Ministry and the San
Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies presented Conard with the 2018
Irena Sendler Memorial Award in Warsaw.
(AP, 6/11/18)
1999 North Dakota Gov. Edward
Schafer signed a law that allowed farmers to seek permits from the
FDA to grow hemp. In 2007 two North Dakota farmers filed a lawsuit
to force the DEA to issue permits to grow hemp.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A15)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.40)
1999 Au Bon Pain, a chain
selling coffee and cakes, sold its Au Bon Pain division to
Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co., which then sold it to Compass
Group in 2000. Co-founder Ron Saich sold the firm to concentrate on
the smaller sister company, Panera Bread. In 1984 the first Au Bon
Pain cafe outside of Boston opened in New York City. In 1991, the
company went public as Au Bon Pain Co. Inc.
(Econ, 10/9/10,
p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_Bon_Pain)
1999 Don Imus, national radio
show host, opened a 4,000-acre ranch in northern New Mexico to help
sick children experience cowboy life. In 2004 his charity spent $2.6
million to host 100 children. Tax inquiries in 2005 were dropped.
(WSJ, 3/24/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.B3)
1999 Charter Communications,
co-founded by Paul Allen of Microsoft, went public. In 2009 the
provider of cable-TV, broadband and phone services, faced bankruptcy
due to its heavy debt load.
(WSJ, 2/13/09, p.A10)
1999 Deutsche Bank AG acquired
Bankers Trust, an American Bank.
(Econ, 5/19/07, SR p.10)
1999 Fluidigm Corporation
(originally Mycometrix) was founded to commercialize integrated
fluidic circuits (IFC) technology developed in the laboratory of
biophysicist Stephen Quake, PhD, who invented a microscopic valve
while he was teaching at Caltech in 1998.
(www.fluidigm.com/company-overview.html)(SFC,
1/18/11, p.D2)
1999 Geico, the Government
Employees Insurance Co., used a green gecko for a single ad to help
consumers remember the company name. The ad was successful.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.B12)
1999 The Gemological Institute
of America unveiled a grading system specifically designed for
emeralds.
(WSJ, 2/7/07, p.A12)
1999 General Motors spun off
its parts supplier Delphi Automotive.
(Econ, 3/12/05, p.61)
1999 David Neeleman founded
JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline. In Dec, 2008, he
founded Azul (meaning blue), his Brazilian airline.
(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue)
1999 Netflix was founded in Los
Gatos, Ca., as an Internet based company for DVD rentals sent via
mail.
(WSJ, 10/17/05, p.A1)(www.netflix.com)
1999 Pyra software company
released Blogger for free. It allowed users to set up a Weblog, a
simple personal web site program. By 2002 some 500,000 weblogs were
on the Internet.
(NW, 8/26/02, p.42)
1999 The Stroh Brewing Company
of Detroit was sold to Pabst and Miller.
(SFC, 7/2/16, p.E3)
1999 Over 1000 World Wide Web
search engines were in operation.
(SFC, 2/2/08, p.C1)
1999 Experts see disk storage
capacity continuing to increase. We should see 40GB drives by 1999.
(New Media, 4/95, p.53)
1999 It was reported in 1997
that scientists had developed memory-retentive chips that preserve
data even with power shut off. The chips were expected to be
available about this time.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.B8)
1999 Hutchinson Whampoa of Hong
Kong sold Orange, its 2G telecoms operator to Germany’s Mannesmann
for some $20 billion. The company was controlled by Li Ka-shing,
Asia’s richest man. The money from the sale of Orange was put into
3G mobile-phone services.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.58)
1999 Intel planned make
available the IA-64, a 64-bit Intel architecture, microprocessor
chip. Code-named Merced, the chip was guessed to ran at speeds of
900 megahertz and would use about 40 million transistors.
(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.B1)
1999 Montgomery Ward was again
acquired by GE Capital and gave up $1 billion in claims. Operations
closed in 2001.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A12)
1999 Roy and Bertrand Sosa
founded NetSpend Corporation. By 2004 it had become a market leader
for the processing and marketing of prepaid debit cards. In 2006
NetSpend added a feature to allow customers to funnel money into an
interest-bearing savings account.
(www.greensheet.com/cprofiles/netspend.html)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.77)
1999 The Ford Motor Co. began
operating a small assembly plant near St Petersburg, Russia, while
GM set up a joint venture with Avtovaz (at the time a byword for
corruption and gangsterism).
(Econ, 11/1508, SR p.7)
1999 Renault threw a line to
floundering Nissan with Carlos Ghosn in charge. In 2003 David Magee
authored "Turnaround," a look Ghosn’s leadership of Nissan.
(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.W8)
1999 Wal-Mart agreed to pay
$10.6 billion for Asda, Britain's 3rd largest supermarket chain with
229 stores.
(WSJ, 10/6/99, p.A1)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.62)
1999 News broke that hundreds
of people had died from asbestos contaminated vermiculite mined by
the W.R. Grace &Co. in Libby, Montana. The mine was closed and
by 2017 some $600 million was spent on a cleanup program.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, Insight p.H5)(SFC, 1/21/17, p.A7)
1999 Sex change operations in
the US grew at a 10% annual rate to 5,000.
(WSJ, 7/7/00, p.A1)
1999 Houston, Texas, began
exchanging titles with Los Angeles, Ca., as having the most polluted
air in the United States defined by the number of days each city
violates federal smog standards.
(www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/everydaylife/archives/HP_ILP_Feature_03.html)
1999 An experiment over the
Indian Ocean (INDOEX) found a large cloud, the Asian Brown Cloud,
with high levels of soot that warmed the upper air by absorbing
sunlight and cooled the lower surface causing regional droughts.
(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.A6)
1999 Audrey Gordon’s family
founded the Progeria foundation, after her nephew was diagnosed with
the disease. In 2003 the Boston-based foundation was instrumental in
the discovery of the progeria gene.
(AP, 9/8/11)
1999 The PATH Malaria Vaccine
Initiative was founded with money from the from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.
(Econ, 10/22/11,
p.102)(www.malariavaccine.org/about-overview.php)
1999 Researchers began
introducing phorid species in Texas in 1999. As many as 23 phorid
species with pathogens attack fire ants to keep their population and
movements under control. Fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1
billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical
equipment.
(http://tinyurl.com/ob57v2)
1999 Hepatitis C virus was
believed to have infected some 170 million people worldwide.
(Econ, 11/1/03, p.75)
1999 Scientists announced that
Y-chromosome tests had turned up a genetic link between southern
Africa’s Lemba tribe (Zimbabwe) and the Jewish Cohanim, a priestly
clan going back to biblical times.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077146/)
1999 The UN estimated the
worldwide death toll from AIDS to reach 2.6 million for this year.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A1)
1999 The US prison population
grew 4.4% to a record 1.86 million.
(WSJ, 4/20/00, p.A1)
1999 Some 471 films were
released this year in the US.
(Econ, 11/28/09, p.79)
1999 Leo Cherne, American
humanitarian activist, died. He founded the Int’l. Rescue Committee
as well as the Research Institute of America, one of the 1st
companies to produce economic and tax analysis. In 2002 Andrew F.
Smith authored a biography of Cherne: "Rescuing the World."
(WSJ, 11/5/02, p.D8)
1999 Winthrop Kellogg Edey
(b.1937, clock collector, died. He was featured in the Andy Warhol
film "The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys of 1964." His 39 stellar
clocks and watches were donated to the Frick Museum.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A15)
1999 Afghanistan under the
Taliban produced a record 4,600 tons of opium.
(Econ, 11/20/04, p.46)
1999 A Taliban massacre took
place near Adreskan south of Herat following a short-lived revolt.
In 2002 a mass grave was found with 72 bodies.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A13)
1999 About 40% of Angola’s
budget was devoted to military expenditures. Less than 5% went
towards education.
(SFC, 11/22/01, p.E6)
1999 R. Allen Stanford, a Texas
developer and int’l. banker, became a citizen of Antigua. His
financial dealings included major loans to the government.
(WSJ, 3/5/02, p.A1)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.38)
1999 In Armenia a court in
Gyumri sentenced two soldiers from a Russian base to 14 and 15 years
in jail for killing two people and wounding several more in
indiscriminate firing in the city.
(Reuters, 1/19/15)
1999 Australia started pumping
from the Laminaria-Corallina oil field in the Timor Sea.
(Econ, 6/5/04, p.40)
1999 Australia withdrew from
the Int’l. Court of Justice’s jurisdiction on maritime boundary
questions shortly before East Timor’s independence.
(Econ, 6/5/04, p.40)
1999 A 2006 report by East
Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Australia
actively lobbied to delay East Timor's independence vote in 1999 and
prevent its separation from Indonesia.
(AFP, 2/2/06)
1999 The Guinness Book of
Records described Australia’s Palm Island as the most violent place
on Earth outside a combat zone.
(AFP, 1/26/07)
1999 Leslie Cunliffe, dubbed
the "Silence of the Lambs" rapist by Australian authorities, posed
as a policeman to abduct a 21-year-old woman at gunpoint from the
southern city of Geelong and locked her in a backyard shed with
padded walls. Cunliffe, a British man, served 12 years in prison for
torture and rape and in 2011 faced deportation.
(AFP, 6/18/11)
1999 The
Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation was
set up, mainly on China’s initiative. It aimed at greater
integration of trade and investment between the four countries.
(Econ, 5/25/13, SR p.9)
1999 In Bolivia the Vinto
tin smelter was privatized in a $27 million purchase by the British
firm Allied Deals. The deal included the nearby Huamuni mine. In
2002 a liquidator sold Vinto for $6 million to a consortium headed
by Comsur, a mining company owned by Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
(Goni), Bolivia’s former president (1993-1997). In 2005 Goni sold
Comsur’s Bolivian assets to Glencore, a mining company based in
Switzerland for some $220 million, of which $90 million was said to
be for the smelter.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.40)
1999 In Brazil police in the
northeastern city of Recife seized more than 70 pounds (30 kg) of
cocaine aboard a Hercules C-130 plane bound for Spain. Five people,
including a US citizen, who police said led the gang, and two Air
Force officers were arrested. In 2011 Jose Roberto Monteiro Zau, the
last suspect of the drug-trafficking ring, was arrested.
(AP, 5/11/11)
1999 Louise Bourgeois (87),
French-born English artist, created his nine meter (30 feet) high
and wide spider. It was made of bronze, stainless steel and marble
and named Maman in tribute to the artist's mother. It initially went
on display at the Tate Modern art gallery.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
1999 Martin Griffiths, a
British diplomat and former UN assistant secretary-general, founded
the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a non-governmental conflict
resolution organization.
(Econ, 7/2/11, p.50)
1999 The Greater London
Authority Act 1999 is the Act of Parliament that established the
Greater London Authority, the London Assembly and the Mayor of
London. Transport for London (TfL) as the authority behind London’s
networks.
(http://tinyurl.com/m8yt6w2)(Econ, 10/19/13,
p.61)
1999 Charles Kennedy took over
as leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.49)
1999 England introduced
antisocial social behaviour orders (ASBO) to counter “loutish and
unruly conduct." In October 2004 the government launched an
Antisocial Behavior Action Plan, vowing to tackle everyday
incivilities from “nuisance neighbors" to begging to graffiti.
(www.peace.ca/bigbrother2002.htm)(Econ, 2/5/05,
p.53)
1999 British Nuclear Fuels
(BNFL), a state-owned firm, bought Westinghouse, an American builder
of nuclear reactors. In 2006 BNFL announced the sale of Westinghouse
to Toshiba.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.54)
1999 British North Sea oil
production peaked at 4.5 million barrels per day with Britain as the
world’s 6th biggest producer of oil and gas. By 2007 Britain dropped
to 12th biggest.
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.59)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.65)
1999 Advanced RISC Machines
Ltd, a British chip manufacturer, changed its name to ARM Ltd. The
company was founded in 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines, ARM, a joint
venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and
VLSI Technology.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings)
1999 Bulgaria agreed with the
EU to close the two oldest reactors in the Kozlodui nuclear power
plant by the end of 2006 because of safety concerns. 2 newer
1,000-megawatt reactors were to stay running until the next decade.
(AP, 10/9/06)
1999 Bulgaria privatized the
troubled Kremikovtzi steel plant selling 71% to businessman Valentin
Zahariev for one dollar and a promise to rehabilitate the plant.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A8)
1999 In Canada a 9-floor
mausoleum condominium in Vancouver, with 4 of the floors
underground, was scheduled to be completed by builder Alvin
Mitchell. Theme floors for various religious groups would be
included along with a roof top pyre with room for viewers.
(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A1)
1999 Canada took charge of the
Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, after the owner
declared bankruptcy. The mine site contained some 237,000 tons of
arsenic trioxide, a lethal compound produced in the extraction of
gold.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.38)
1999 In Canada the Perimeter
Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) was set up at Waterloo,
Ontario, by Mark Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research In
Motion. Lazaridis' initial donation of $100 million was announced on
October 23, 2000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perimeter_Institute_for_Theoretical_Physics)
1999 The fungus Cryptococcus
gattii, normally found in Australia and other tropical zones, was
discovered on Vancouver Island, Canada. By 2007 at least 8 people
had died from infection and another 163 sickened.
(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.A11)
1999 Ange-Felix Patasse was
re-elected president of the CAR.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.52)
1999 China introduced the
system of "Golden Weeks," a vacation scheme which forced workers
across the country to take their three weeks of paid holiday at the
same time, in an effort to boost domestic consumption and tourism
revenue. The plan went under re-evaluation in 2006 as it spawned
major frustrations with overcrowded tourist sites and travel
problems.
(AFP, 9/29/06)
1999 China introduced 2 crucial
changes to its higher education policy. University places were
expanded and state-owned banks were ordered to lend money to
students to pay for fees and expenses. By 2004 some 800,000 students
had taken out subsidized loans.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.42)
1999 China passed a contract
law.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.42)
1999 In China Shanghai’s 2nd
airport with a passenger capacity of 60 million was scheduled to be
completed.
(Hem., 2/97, p.70)
1999 In China Lai Changxing,
head of the Yuanhua Group Inc., was accused of graft and running a
multibillion dollar smuggling ring. Changxing fled to Canada. His
Red Mansion opened as museum in 2001.
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.A6)(WSJ, 11/23/01, p.A1)
1999 In China Rebiya Kadeer, a
prominent Uighur businesswomen in Xinjiang, was detained and
sentenced to 8 years in prison on charges of endangering state
security. She was allowed to leave for the United States in 2005.
(AP, 4/17/07)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.26)
1999 In China Ji Qi founded
Ctrip, a new Internet firm, catering to the Chinese traveler. He
later followed up with Home Inns, a chain of basic hotels.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.64)
1999 In China Fang Binxing
began working on the “Great Wall," a system to guard the handful of
gateways through which all foreign content and communications enter
China, while at the National Computer Network and Information System
Security Administration Center.
(Econ, 4/6/13, SR p.9)
1999 Haier, under the
leadership of Zhang Ruimin, became China’s biggest maker of
refrigerators.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.73)
1999 Starbucks opened its first
China store in Beijing’s China World Trade Center and partnered with
Chinese firms to expand.
(WSJ, 11/29/06, p.A12)
1999 Chinese state executions
were reported to number 1,263 for this year.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.D1)
1999 The Plan Colombia program
began as the US under Pres. Clinton deployed a small air force to
Colombia to spray coca plants and help Colombia fight insurgents and
shut down processing plants for cocaine. At this time traffickers
had some 463,322 acres of coca plant cultivation and produced 90% of
the world’s cocaine. By 2009, despite 10 years of eradication
efforts, Colombia had some 575,750 acres under coca plant
cultivation and still produced 90% of the world’s cocaine.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, Insight
p.H8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia)
1999 In Egypt defendants
reported during the trial of 107 suspected terrorists that agents of
Osama bin Laden had purchased dangerous biological agents through
the mail for as little as $3,865."
(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.A20)
1999 Jill Campbell and her
husband, Gary, compiled evidence that helped convict the director of
an Ethiopian orphanage that the Swiss charity Terre Des
Hommes-Lausanne used to run. Their report on sexual abuse prompted
the charity to apologize and leave Ethiopia. In 2001 Jill Campbell
was convicted of defamation and ordered to apologize to Terre Des
Hommes-Lausanne (TdH) or face jail. In 2003, an Ethiopian court
sentenced orphanage director David Christie to nine years of hard
labor for abusing several young boys. In 2008 lawyers for the
charity said it had dropped the demand for an apology.
(AP, 3/7/08)
1999 Finland’s government began
issuing electronic ID cards.
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.60)
1999 Finland’s government
updated some laws on fines for traffic violations and based fines on
net income rather than gross income.
(WSJ, 1/02/00, p.A1)
1999 In France the Sangatte Red
Cross center, near the 33-mile Channel Tunnel, was set up to house
refugees.
(SFC, 12/27/01, p.A4)
1999 France finally called the
Algerian conflict a "war." Prior to this France referred only to
operations to "maintain order."
(AP, 11/29/05)
1999 France tried Manuel
Noriega, former dictator of Panama, in absentia on money laundering
charges. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39077)
1999 French retailer Carrefour
merged with Promodes, a French supermarket chain, to form the
world’s 2nd biggest retailer. This marked the beginning of problems
for Carrefour.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.71)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.72)
1999 Renault of France spent
$50 million to acquire a controlling stake in Dacia, a sickly
Romanian car maker formerly owned by the state. The first
Renault-Dacia Logan was produced in 2004. The millionth Logan was
produced in mid 2008.
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.14)
1999 French bank BNP bought
Paribas forming BNP Paribas. 60% of the bank’s activity was in
France. BNCI and CNEP were merged in 1966 to form BNP. BNP was
privatized in 1993. Originally the Compagnie Financičre de Paris et
des Pays-Bas (Finance Corporation of Paris and the Netherlands), the
Compagnie Financičre de Paribas became simply Paribas in 1998 after
acquiring the Compagnie Bancaire.
(Econ, 10/23/10,
p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNP_Paribas)
1999 Germany made it illegal to
bribe foreign officials. Up to this time Siemens claimed tax
deductions for such bribes as what it termed “useful expenditure."
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.82)
1999 On Guam a new strategy to
control the brown tree snakes used aspirin, toxic to the snakes,
inserted into frozen baby mice.
(WSJ, 7/1/99, p.B1)
1999 In Guatemala Candido
Noriega, a paramilitary from the Quiche region, was sentenced to 50
years in 1999 for dozens of killings while working for the army in
the 1980s. He was not tried for forced disappearances.
(AP, 9/2/09)
1999 Yosepha Alomang founded
the Foundation for Human Rights Anti-Violence (Hamak) in Irian Jaya,
Indonesia.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A14)
1999 The militant Islamic group
Laskar Jihad was founded on Java, Indonesia.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A16)
1999 Indonesia’s President BJ
Habibi adopted Law No. 45/1999 to divide the Papua province into
three: West Irian Jaya, Central Irian Jaya and Irian Jaya.
(www.achrweb.org/Review/2004/41-04.htm)
1999 The militant Islamic group
Laskar Jihad was founded on Java, Indonesia.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A16)
1999 Indonesia passed a law
that prohibited censorship of the press.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A11)
1999 A planned sale of US jets
to Indonesia was suspended when it became clear that the Suharto
regime was repressing the East Timorese.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.61)
1999 In Israel Boaz Wachtel
(40) established the Green Leaf Party. The party did not promote
drug use, only its decriminalization, like in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/11/06)
1999 Ljubica Gunj became the
first woman in Venice, Italy, permitted to wait on customers at
tables on St. Mark’s Square.
(SFC, 5/14/07, p.A11)
1999 The Bank of Japan
pioneered the tactic of forward guidance when it promised to leave
its interest rate at zero until deflationary concerns subside.
(Econ, 6/11/16, p.77)
1999 Japan enacted corporate
law that enabled the use of shares to buy firms.
(Econ, 12/1/07, SR p.7)
1999 Electronic trading
replaced the floor auction on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.C1)
1999 NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s top
mobile phone operator, pioneered internet access through its i-mode
service. In 2001 it pioneered 3G technology and in 2005 embedded a
credit card into a wireless chip enabling consumer financial
payments.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.71)
1999 Japan’s Sony Corp. began
selling the robotic dog AIBO. Production of the robot dog was
cancelled in 2006 as part of a restructure program.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.59)(SFC, 2/2/06, p.C3)
1999 Masayoshi Son, the boss of
Softbank, agreed for Softbank to buy a 30% stake in the
Hangzhou-based Alibaba website founded by Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai,
for $20 million. In 2017 Alibaba was valued at $270 billion and
Softbank still owned 28%.
(Econ, 4/1/17, p.58)
1999 The Japan National Large
Telescope (Subaru) and the Gemini Northern Telescope were scheduled
for completion on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. A twin of the latter was under
construction in Chile.
(Hem., 7/95, p.115)
1999 Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,
whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, was freed from
a prison in Jordan under a royal amnesty. He was doing jail time for
militant activities aimed at toppling the monarchy.
(AP, 11/21/05)
1999 Kenya's census found the
country's population at 28.7 million, but it did not make public the
figures about ethnicity.
(AP, 8/24/09)
1999 The US designated the
Somali Bantus in Kenya as persecuted and eligible for resettlement
in the US.
(NW, 9/2/02, p.35)
1999 Hashim Thaci, later prime
minister of Kosovo, led a group of guerrillas. In 2010 they were
accused of killing Serb and other prisoners in Albania for their
kidneys. Thaci was also accused of being involved in the region’s
heroin trade.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.100)
1999 NATO acknowledged in 2000
that depleted uranium rounds were used during the 1999 Kosovo war
whenever American A-10 ground attack aircraft engaged armored
vehicles.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A14)
1999 In 2008 Carla Del Ponte,
former chief prosecutor at The Hague, alleged in a book that some
100-300 Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped this year and taken to Albania
to have their organs harvested. UN investigators found no
substantial evidence to support claims that ethnic Albanian
guerrillas killed dozens of Serbs in Kosovo and sold their organs.
(WSJ, 4/12/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/14/08, p.A13)(AP,
4/16/08)
1999 The corn borer moth,
native to Central and North America, first appeared in Europe in
Kosovo. Since then it spread in concentric circles and by 2011 was
eating maize crops in Germany and Italy.
(Econ, 2/26/11, SR p.10)
1999 Pres. Nazarbayev grew
more self-protective after he came under suspicion of stowing funds
in Swiss bank accounts. The Swiss froze over a dozen Kazakhstan bank
accounts for alleged money laundering.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.A24)
1999 Macedonia’s 2 million
population included about 25% ethnic Albanians.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Malaysia began moving
government departments from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, its new
11,300-acre $5.3 billion administrative capital, 25 miles away.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D12)
1999 Malaysiakini, an
independent online newspaper in Malaysia, was founded as a free
site. In 2002 it was forced to start charging for use.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.52)
1999 Ricardo Salinas Pliego
used Mexico’s TV Azteca to fund cellphone start-up Unefon SA,
despite assuring shareholders that he would not use the company to
fund outside ventures.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
1999 In the Netherlands a
leftist coalition toppled the long-ruling Christian Democrats.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A16)
1999 Nicaragua filed the border
case against Honduras, saying international law gave it the right to
"explore and exploit" natural resources, including possible oil
reserves and fish stocks within a zone 200 miles from its coast.
Honduras claimed that a ruling by the Spanish king in 1906 set a
boundary projecting eastward along the 15th parallel from the mouth
of the Coco River. The UN resolved the dispute in 2007.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1999 A World Bank report said
close to 100% of Miskito lobster divers in Nicaragua showed symptoms
of neurological damage due to inadequate decompression.
(SSFC, 9/29/02, p.A3)
1999 The Nigerian film
“Saworoide" was released. It was seen as a commentary on the regime
of Sani Abacha.
(Econ, 5/28/11, p.26)
1999 Nigeria’s Kano state
introduced Islamic sharia law.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.50)
1999 Some 23,000 people
lived on the Orkney Islands.
(SFEM, 10/10/99, p.22)
1999 Sir Michael Morauta began
serving as prime minister of Papua New Guinea. He held office to
2002.
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.44)
1999 In Paraguay the EPP rebel
group began to operate as the armed wing of the leftist Patria Libre
party. It focused at first on bank robberies and ransom kidnappings,
and later attacked small police and military posts, making off with
weapons. It resurfaced in 2008 and 2009, kidnapping two ranchers and
receiving a total of $645,000 in ransom.
(AP, 1/17/11)
1999 American explorer Gene
Savoy discovered a pre-Incan metropolis in Peru, naming it Gran
Saposoa, and concluded it was one of the cities of the Chachapoyas
kingdom.
(AP, 9/5/05)
1999 In the Philippines
residents were scheduled to move into the Smoky Mountain housing
project, built over the accumulation of 50 years of Manila's waste.
R-II Builders constructed an elaborate ventilation system to divert
methane from the project. The project was built for the 10,000
scavengers who once lived and worked in the area.
(WSJ, 8/5/99, p.A1)
1999 In the Philippines Pres.
Estrada suspended an air-rights pact with Taiwan. The deal helped
his friend Mr. Tan, the majority owner of Philippine Airlines. The
rest of the country suffered due to indirect routes to Taiwan.
(WSJ, 9/20/00, p.A6)
1999 In the Philippines Pres.
Estrada pocketed a $3.7 million commission from a state pension
investment brokered by Jaime Dichaves.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A7)
1999 The Philippines enacted
the Visiting Forces Agreement to let American soldiers back into the
country following the closures at Subic Bay and Clark Field.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A13)
1999 The Philippines scuttled
the Sierra Madre, a ship built by America during WWII, in the Second
Thomas shoal, an area know in the Philippines as Ayungin and in
China as Ren’ai.
(Econ, 3/22/14, p.46)
1999 Poland set up a two-tier
pension system. Workers made mandatory contributions into a state
system (ZUS) and into funds run by private fund managers (OFES).
(Econ, 9/21/13, p.80)
1999 Qatari women were allowed
to vote and stand as candidates for municipal councils for the 1st
time.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A21)(WSJ, 10/24/02, p.A12)
1999 Romania passed legislation
to allow the opening of files in the archive of Securitate,
Ceausescu’s hated security police. Disclosures began in 2006.
(SSFC, 8/20/06, p.A20)
1999 Russia passed legislation
that created SORM-2, a Russian acronym for the system of Operative
and Investigative procedures. It required every Internet service
provider to install monitoring equipment that allowed access by
Russian security agencies.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A1)
1999 Sakhalin Energy, a
Shell-led enterprise, began pumping oil off the coast of Russia’s
Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk. Sakhalin Energy at this time
did not involve Russian firms.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.74)
1999 Some 63,092 Russians died
of lung or throat cancer, and 90% was blamed on smoking. 2,355,658
people died of cardiac disease and 25% was blamed on smoking.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D3)
1999 Russia’s number of normal
births declined to 30% from 45.3 in 1992.
(SFC, 10/6/00, p.D6)
1999 Rwanda got its first
dial-up connection to the Internet. It relied on expensive satellite
links.
(WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)
1999 Yair Klein, a former
lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army, began a prison term in
Sierra Leone. He spent 16 months in prison on charges that he was
smuggling arms to rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Klein, through his private mercenary company, Spearhead Ltd., had
provided arms and training to armed forces in South America,
Lebanon, and Sierra Leone.
(AP,
11/20/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yair_Klein)
1999 Singapore launched Channel
NewsAsia. The state-owned firm was intended to challenge Western
dominance of the air waves.
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.63)
1999 The Singapore film "That's
the Way I Like It" starred Anna Belle Francis and Adrian Pang. It
was directed by Glen Goei. It was a comedy spin off on the impact of
John Travolta and "Saturday Night Fever" on young people in
Singapore in 1977.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.B1,4)
1999 In Somalia Hassan Sheikh
Mohamud helped found the Somali Institute of Management and
Administration Development to train administrators and technicians
to help rebuild Somalia.
(AP, 9/10/12)
1999 Breyten Breytenbach,
Afrikaner writer, authored "Dog Heart: A Memoir," a look at South
Africa since the 1994 elections.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A40)
1999 Nadine Gordimer, South
Africa writer, authored "Living in Hope and History: Notes from Our
Century."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.5)
1999 South Africa’s Pres. Thabo
Mbeki created Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), better known
as the Scorpions. It was a crime-fighting unit of the National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) set up to fight corruption and organized
crime. In 2008 the government planned to disband the unit and merge
it into the police force.
(Econ, 10/15/05, p.48)(Econ, 5/10/08, p.56)
1999 South Africa signed a deal
with Saab for 26 JAS Gripen fighter jets for 1.6 billion euros. The
deal was later trimmed to 26 planes. Allegations of fraud later
arose after Saab disclosed that bribes had been paid in the form of
bonuses and salaries between 2003 and 2005 by its South African
subsidiary Sanip, which was then controlled by BAE Systems.
(AP, 7/31/11)
1999 Mark Shuttleworth of South
Africa sold Thawte, a company that made digital certificates and
security software to support internet commerce, to VeriSign for over
$500 million.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.33)
1999 Taddy Blecher and 3
partners founded CIDA City Campus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The
university charged only $21 per month for tuition. The official
inauguration was held on Nov 8, 2002.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.63)
1999 In South Africa a wine
buyer suggested the vinification of a Rhone-style blend called Goats
do Roam owned by Charles Back.
(SFC, 10/31/08, p.F2)
1999 South Korea signed an
extradition treaty with the US.
(AP, 3/19/08)
1999 South Korea received a
record $15.5 billion in foreign investment.
(WSJ, 7/24/00, p.A1)
1999 South Korea initiated OPEN
(Online Procedures Enhancement for Civil Applications), an
Internet-based anti-graft program.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.D6)
1999 Sweden established its
so-called "Sex Purchase Law," where paying for sex is punished by
fines or up to six months in prison, plus the humiliation of public
exposure. Sweden became the first country to criminalize the
purchase of sex.
(AP, 3/16/08)(Econ, 8/9/14, p.9)
1999 Desi Bouterse, former coup
leader in Suriname, was convicted of drug trafficking in absentia in
the Netherlands. Prosecutors said he was the leader of the "Suri
Cartel," and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He avoided that
punishment because Suriname doesn't have an extradition treaty with
its former colonial ruler.
(AP, 8/12/10)
1999 At Davos, Switzerland,
during the World Economic Forum, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
announced a Global compact to give a human face to the global
market. He also called on business leaders to set global labor and
environmental standards.
(WSJ, 1/23/08, p.A8)
1999 The Swiss-based Center for
Humanitarian Dialogue (CHD) was founded by 4 people. By 2008 it had
a staff of over 70 and had helped resolve major conflicts in
Indonesia and Kenya.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.71)
1999 The Thai film "Nang Nak"
was a stylish ghost story.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E6)
1999 The Thai historical film
"Suriyothai" was directed by Chatri Chalerm Yukol. It was about the
16th century Queen Suriyothai who saved her husband King Thianracha
during a war with invaders from Myanmar.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E6)
1999 Thailand’s Siam Winery
launched its first label, Chatemp. In 2003 the "Monsoon Valley"
range was introduced abroad by Chalerm Yoovidhya, whose father
Chaleo gave the world the "Red Bull" energy drink.
(AFP, 1/24/07)
1999 Trinidad and Tobago
suffered 93 killings this year. 10 men were hanged in the country, 9
of them were members of the Dole Chadee drug mob.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.46)
1999 In Turkey Guler Sabanci
launched Sabanci University.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.64)
1999 In Turkey Guler Sabanci
launched her wine label “G."
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.64)
1999 Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish
Muslim preacher, left Turkey for America. Soon thereafter he was
charged in absentia with subverting Turkey’s secular order.
(Econ, 9/10/16, p.42)
1999 The IMF put $4 billion
into Turkey.
(WSJ, 4/2/03, p.A14)
1999 In Uganda the Kiira Dam
was built alongside the 1954 Owen Falls Dam at the source of the
Nile River. They used Lake Victoria’s waters to generate power for
Ugandan residents and export to neighboring nations.
(SFC, 6/24/08, p.A14)
1999 Victor Yuschenko became
Ukraine’s prime minister and served to 2001. He managed to reverse
the country’s economic decline.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.27)
1999 The UN Security Council
set up a terrorist watch list. It was greatly expanded after the
September 2001 terrorist attacks.
(Econ, 2/2/08,
p.66)(www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/consolist.shtml)
1999 A UN peacekeeping force
(MONUC) was deployed to Congo, but failed to keep anyone safe. In
2004 the UN Security Council ordered an expansion of forces from
10,000 to 16,000.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.45)
1999 Jets began landing on the
main island of the archipelago of Socotra, ruled by Yemen. Some
50,000 native Socotris spoke 4 dialects of an ancient language
unintelligible to other Yemenis. It has been described as the most
alien-looking place on Earth.
(Econ, 4/24/10,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra)
1999 In Zimbabwe the Movement
for Democratic Change was created to defend democratic principles in
contrast to the ruling ZANU-PF.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.50)
1999 Zimbabwe experienced its
first defaults on its IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank
debts in addition to debts taken out with Western lenders.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe)
1999 The IMF suspended aid to
Zimbabwe after disputes over unbudgeted expenditures, the value of
its currency and the cost of its participation in the war in Congo.
Within a year the World Bank and the African Development Bank
followed.
(AP, 9/10/05)
1999-2000 In Ecuador some 750,000 people migrated
after bank collapses triggered a slump.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.42)
1999-2001 Gambian rats first began showing up on
Florida’s Grassy Key after a local exotic animal breeder released
eight of the rats into the wild. The rodents, officially known as
the Gambian pouched rat, are the largest known breed of rats in the
world. They can grow up to three feet in length and weigh as much as
nine pounds.
(http://tinyurl.com/c9rn3q6)
1999-2003 American consumption of goat meat rose
64% during this period.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.53)
1999-2003 The US Volcker report of 2005 said that
Australia's wheat exporter, AWB Ltd., paid over $221 million during
this period to the Jordanian company, Alia, and that some of the
money was for the benefit of the Iraqi government. During this
period AWB sold over $2.3 billion in wheat to Iraq. In 2006 11
former executives faced prosecution for illegal kickbacks from Iraq.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.41)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.46)
1999-2005 England imposed some 6,500 ASBOs
(Anti-Social Behavior Orders) during this period.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.57)
1999-2005 Alitalia, Italy’s national airline,
accumulated net losses of some 2.6 billion euros.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.53)
1999-2005 It was estimated that 3,000 to 5,000
people disappeared in Chechnya over this period. A third due to
masked Russian forces and the rest from Chechen “security."
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.53)
1999-2007 Jeb Bush, the son of former US Pres.
H.W. Bush, served as governor of Florida. During this period he cut
billions of dollars from state tax receipts and passed a welter of
pro-gun laws.
(Econ, 12/20/14, p.38)
1999-2008 India grew at an average annual rate of
7.3%.
(Econ, 12/13/08, SR p.8)
1999-2008 Indonesia cut its public debt during
this period from about 80% of GDP to just over 30%.
(Econ, 9/12/09, SR p.9)
1999-2011 In the US almost 6 million manufacturing
jobs were lost during this period mainly due to Chinese competition.
(Econ, 4/2/15, p.10)
