Today in History - January 29
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1559 Jan 29,
Thomas Pope (~52), English politician, benefactor, died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1663 Jan 29, Robert Sanderson,
Bishop of Lincoln (1660-63), died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1700 Jan 29, Daniel Bernoulli,
mathematician (10 time French award), was born in Basel, Switzerland.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1728 Jan 29, The Beggar’s Opera by
John Gay (d.1732), with music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, had
its premier at the Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Gay intended it to
be a parody of Italian opera and a satirization of the Walpole
administration. He wrote new lyrics to popular tunes and his "ballad
opera" was a great success.
(LGC-HCS, p.45)(ON, 2/04, p.11)
1737 Jan 29, Thomas Paine,
political essayist, was born. He wrote "The Rights of Man" and "The Age
of Reason."
(HN, 1/29/99)
1802 Jan 29, John Beckley of
Virginia was appointed 1st Librarian of Congress.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1813 Jan 29, Jane Austin published
"Pride and Prejudice," a blend of instruction and moral entertainment.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1820 Jan 29, Britain's King George
III (b.1760) died insane at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending a
reign that saw both the American and French revolutions. He was
succeeded by his son George IV (1762-1830), who as Prince of Wales had
been regent for 9 years during his father’s insanity. In 2005
scientists reported high levels of arsenic in the hair of King George
III and said the deadly poison may be to blame for the bouts of
apparent madness he suffered. In 2006 Stella Tillyard authored “A Royal
Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings” and Jeremy Black
authored “George III: America’s Last King.”
(http://tinyurl.com/gsbuj)(AP, 1/29/98)(WSJ,
12/26/06, p.D8)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)
1834 Jan 29, President Jackson
ordered the 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute. Jackson
ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly" near
Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1839 Jan 29, Charles Darwin
married Emma Wedgwood.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1843 Jan 29, William McKinley, the
25th president of the United States (1897-1901), was born in Niles,
Ohio. McKinley was the last Civil War veteran to serve as President of
the United States. He had served with the 23rd Regiment, Ohio
Volunteers, eventually rising to the rank of brevet major. He saw
action at South Mountain, Antietam, Winchester and Cedar Creek. For a
time he served on Rutherford B. Hayes' staff. McKinley was elected the
25th president in 1896. He led the country in the Spanish-American War.
He died in Buffalo, New York, on September 14, 1901, after being shot
by an anarchist assassin on September 6.
(AP, 1/29/98)(HNQ, 11/13/98)
1845 Jan 29, Edgar Allan Poe's
poem "The Raven" was first published, in the New York Evening Mirror.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1850 Jan 29, Lawrence Hargrave,
inventor of the box kite, was born.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1850 Jan 29, Ebenezer Howard,
pioneer of garden cities, was born in London.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1850 Jan 29, Henry Clay introduced
in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission
of California into the Union as a free state.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1850 Jan 29, Luigi Sabatelli
(b.1772), Italian artist, died in Milan.
(www.artnet.com/library/07/0748/T074823.asp)
1861 Jan 29, Kansas was admitted
into the Union as the 34th state.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/29/98)(HN, 1/29/99)
1862 Jan 29, William Quantrill and
his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
(HN, 1/29/00)
1874 Jan 29, John David
Rockefeller Jr, philanthropist, was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1877 Jan 29, A highly partisan
Electoral Commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats,
was established by Congress to settle the issue of Democrat
Samuel Tilden for president against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.
Under the terms of the Tilden-Hayes Election Compromise, Hayes became
president and the Republicans agreed to remove the last Federal troops
from Southern territory, ending Reconstruction. On election night,
1776, it was clear that Tilden had won the popular vote, but it was
also clear that votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon
were fraudulent because of voter intimidation. Republicans knew that if
the electoral votes from these four states were thrown out, Hayes would
win. The country hovered near civil war as both Democrats and
Republicans claimed victory. Illustrator Thomas Nast drew his cartoon,
”Tilden or Blood," showing the Democrats threatening violence.
(HNPD, 1/29/99)(PCh, 1992, p.542)
1880 Jan 29, W.C. Fields, comedian
and actor, was born in Philadelphia as Claude William Dukinfield
[Dukenfield]. His films included “David Copperfield” and “My Little
Chickadee.” [see Apr 9 1879]
(HN, 1/29/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful
gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1900 Jan 29, The American League,
consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in Philadelphia with
teams from Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas
City, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. [see Feb 2]
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 1/29/98)
1904 Jan 29, The 1st athletic
letters were given to the Univ. of Chicago football team.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1912 Jan 29, "Professor" Irwin
Corey, comedian (Car Wash, Doc), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 29, 1st bombings of Paris
by German Zeppelins took place.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 29, Grigori Rasputin,
Russian mystic, shaman, grubby peasant, and influential favorite of the
Romanov court, survived a failed attempt to poison him. Prince Felix
Yussoupov, an effete, wealthy young aristocrat, shot and killed
Rasputin and in effect, brought down the Russian Empire. The prince
dined out on his story for many decades, becoming a jet-set celebrity.
He restored his old wealth, lost in the Soviet Revolution, by suing
anyone who wrote about Rasputin without his permission. [see Dec 16,
Dec 30, 1916]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1918 Jan 29, John Forsythe
(d.2010), actor (Bachelor Father, Charlie's Angels, Dynasty), was born
in NJ.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.C2)
1918 Jan 29, The Supreme Allied
Council met at Versailles.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1921 Jan 29, A hurricane hit
Washington and Oregon.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1924 Jan 29, An ice cream cone
rolling machine was patented by Carl Taylor in Cleveland.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1926 Jan 29, Violette Neatley
Anderson became the first African-American woman admitted to practice
before the U.S. Supreme Court.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1928 Jan 29, Lithuania and Germany
signed a boundary agreement that established the Nemunas River as a
border up to Klaipeda.
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.2)(LHC, 1/29/03)
1929 Jan 29, The first seeing-eye
Dog Guide School in the United States was begun. Seeing Eye, Inc., was
founded in 1929 in Morris Township, New Jersey, by Dorothy Harrison
Eustus.
(HNQ, 3/10/01)(MC, 1/29/02)
1930 Jan 29, North American Co.
was again removed from the Dow Jones and Johns Manville was added.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1931 Jan 29, Winston Churchill
resigned as Stanley Baldwin's aide.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1934 Jan 29, Fritz Haber (65),
German chemist (Nobel 1918), died. In the 1920s Haber exhaustively
searched for a method to extract gold from sea water, and published a
number of scientific papers on the subject. However, after years of
research, he concluded that the concentration of gold dissolved in sea
water was much lower than those concentrations reported by earlier
researchers, and that gold extraction from sea water was uneconomic. In
2005 Daniel Charles authored “Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz
Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber)(SSFC,
8/7/05, p.C6)
1936 Jan 29, The first members of
baseball's Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy
Mathewson & Walter Johnson were named in Cooperstown, N.Y.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1939 Jan 29, Germaine Greer,
feminist, author (Female Eunuch), was born in Melbourne, Australia.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1950 Jan 29, Ann Jillian, actress
(Mr. Mom, Jennifer Slept Here), was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1942 Jan 29, German and Italian
troops took Benghazi in North Africa.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1944 Jan 29, The world's greatest
warship, the Missouri, was launched.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1950 Jan 29, Ann Jillian, actress
(Mr. Mom, Jennifer Slept Here), was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0422713/)
1950 Jan 29, Riots broke out in
Johannesburg, South Africa, over Apartheid.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1950 Jan 29, The French National
Assembly approved legislation granting autonomy to Bao Dai's State of
Vietnam.
(www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent1.html)
1951 Jan 29, Liz Taylor's 1st
divorce was from Conrad Hilton Jr.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1954 Jan 29, Oprah Winfrey,
actress, TV host (Color Purple, Oprah), was born in Mississippi.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1958 Jan 29, Actors Paul Newman
and Joanne Woodward were married in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/29/08)
1959 Jan 29, Walt Disney's
"Sleeping Beauty" was released.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1963 Jan 29, The first members of
football's Hall of Fame were named in Canton, Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/98)(www.profootballhof.com/hof/years.jsp)
1963 Jan 29, Poet Robert Frost
(b.1874) died in Boston at age 88. In 1999 Jay Parini published "Robert
Frost: A Life." Lawrance Thompson authored a 3-volume biography
(1966-1976).
(AP, 1/29/98)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1966 Jan 29, "Sweet Charity"
opened on Broadway for 608 performances. Cy Coleman composed the music.
(www.prigsbee.com/Musicals/shows/sweetcharity.htm)(SFC, 11/20/04, p.B6)
1966 Jan 29, A snow storm in north
east US killed 165.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1967 Jan 29, Thirty-seven
civilians were killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in Vietnam.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in
Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by
Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later
dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on
the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District
Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was
dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Jan 29, Leonard Tsuguharu
Foujita (b.1886), painter and engraver born in Tokyo, Japan, died in
Zurich, Switz. He applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style
paintings. In 2006 Phyllis Birnbaum authored “Glory in a Line: A Life
of Foujita – The Artist Caught Between East and West.”
(SSFC, 11/26/06,
p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita)
1969 Jan 29, An undersea oil well
off Santa Barbara, Ca., suffered a blowout and over the next 11 days
released some 200,000 gallons of oil that spread over 800 square miles
of ocean and soiled 35 miles of coastline.
(www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/sb_69oilspill/69oilspill_articles2.html)
1971 Jan 29, "My Sweet Lord" by
George Harrison hit #1 on UK pop chart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_No.1_Hits_of_1971)
1973 Jan 29, Emily Howell Warner
(b.1939) became the 1st woman pilot permanently employed by a
commercial airline. Her first flight as co-pilot was on the Frontier
Airlines DHC-6 Twin Otter August 1, 1974.
(SSFC, 12/14/03,
p.D2)(http://members.tripod.com/~LAMKINS/Emily_Howell_Warner.txt)
1977 Jan 29, Freddie Prinze
(b.1954), American comedian and TV actor, shot himself and died. His
work included the TV show “Chico & the Man” (1974-1977).
(http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0697905/)
1979 Jan 29, President Jimmy
Carter commuted the sentence of Patty Hearst (24) from 7 to 2 years.
She had served 23 months in prison.
(HN, 1/29/99)(SFC, 1/23/04, p.E2)
1979 Jan 29, President Carter
formally welcomed Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping to the White
House, following the establishment of diplomatic relations.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1979 Jan 29, The 9-part TV
miniseries "Backstairs" premiered. It was based on the 1961 book "My
Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House" by Lillian Rogers Parks
(d.1997 at 100).
(SFC,11/12/97, p.A22)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0078565/)
1979 Jan 29, Brenda Spencer
(b.1962), a teenager in San Diego, shot up an elementary school,
killing 2 people and wounding 9. She told police she did it because, "I
don’t like Mondays."
(SFC, 3/6/01,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer)
1980 Jan 29, Jimmy Durante
(b.1893), ‘Schnozzel,’ actor and comedian, died in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Durante)
1981 Jan 29, Pres. Reagan’s
executive order 12288 terminated wage and price controls.
(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/12981c.htm)
1984 Jan 29, President Ronald
Reagan announced that he would run for a second term.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1984 Jan 29, It was reported that
SF Muni administrators were rushing to implement a $1.9 million
security plan due to major losses from lax security at its maintenance
yards.
(SSFC, 1/25/09, DB p.50)
1984 Jan 29, The Soviets issued a
formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1985 Jan 29, In SF the US Army
trucked the historic Goldie Shack from 485 34th Ave. to the Presidio,
where it will be stored and eventually reopened to the public. It was
one of 5,610 shacks built in 1906-1907 to house earthquake refugees.
The 34th Ave site will be used for a shopping mall.
(SSFC, 1/24/10, DB p.42)
1988 Jan 29, A Boston-bound Amtrak
train derailed in Chester, Penn., injuring 25 people.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1988 Jan 29, Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega received a coolly polite reception from Pope John Paul II
at the Vatican.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1989 Jan 29, West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union suffered a major
setback in West Berlin municipal elections.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1990 Jan 29, Former Exxon Valdez
skipper Joseph Hazelwood went on trial in Anchorage, Alaska, on charges
stemming from the nation's worst oil spill; Hazelwood later was
acquitted of the major charges and convicted of a misdemeanor.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1991 Jan 29, In his State of the
Union address, President Bush assured Americans that the war against
Iraq would be won and that the recession at home would end in short
order. Extraordinary security measures were in effect for the first
wartime State of the Union address since the Vietnam era.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1991 Jan 29, Iraqi forces attacked
into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but were turned back by Coalition
forces.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1992 Jan 29, President Bush
presented a $1.2 trillion budget plan.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1992 Jan 29, Willie Dixon (76),
blues composer (Backdoor Man), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0229006/)
1992 Jan 29, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin unveiled an ambitious plan to cut nuclear weapons
spending and said his republic's weapons would no longer be aimed at
any U.S. targets.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1992 Jan 29, A multinational
Middle East peace conference ended in Moscow with participants sounding
upbeat.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1993 Jan 29, President Clinton
announced that he was ordering the draft of a formal directive by July
15 to end the longstanding ban on homosexuals in the U.S. military.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1994 Jan 29, Japan's Parliament
approved watershed measures to stem political corruption.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1994 Jan 29, In South Africa,
Nelson Mandela kicked off his party's campaign for the country's first
multiracial elections.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1995 Jan 29, The San Francisco
49ers became the first team in NFL history to win five Super Bowl
titles, beating the San Diego Chargers, 49-26.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1996 Jan 29, The FDA was about to
approve Redux, a drug to help reduce obesity. It was to be marketed by
American Home Products. It is chemically known as dexfenfluramine, a
close cousin of Prozax. This class of drugs raise the levels of
serotonin in the brain, which provides a feeling of fullness and
satisfaction.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. C-1)
1996 Jan 29, A Navy F-14 fighter
jet crashed in Nashville, Tennessee, demolishing three houses and
killing five people.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, French President
Jacques Chirac ordered an early end to underground nuclear tests in the
South Pacific.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, In Venice, Italy, the
204-year-old La Felice opera house burned down. It was scheduled to be
reconstructed and finished by Sep 27, 1999. It was later determined by
experts to have been caused by arson. In 2003 Italy's top criminal
court upheld convictions on arson charges for Enrico Carella and fellow
electrician Massimiliano Marchetti, sentencing them to seven and six
years in jail respectively. In 2005 John Berendt authored “The City of
Falling Angels,” which centered on the burning of La Fenice. In 2007
Carella was arrested in Mexico.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.D3)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.E4)(AP,
1/29/01)(WSJ, 9/24/05, p.P12)(AP, 3/3/07)
1997 Jan 29, Threatened with
lawsuits across the country, America Online agreed to give refunds to
frustrated customers unable to log on after AOL offered a flat
$19.95-a-month rate.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1997 Jan 29, Thomas Daniel Young,
professor of English at Vanderbilt and leading authority on literature
of the American South, died. His work included: “The Literature of the
South,” “Conversations With Malcolm Cowley,” “Tennessee Writers,” and
“Gentleman in a Dustcoat: A Biography of John Crowe Ransom.”
(SFC, 2/10/97, p.A20)
1997 Jan 29, In China the Supreme
People’s Court upheld the death sentence for businesswoman Han Yuji,
the former president of the Jilin province Yuquan Industrial and Trade
Co., for fraud that involved as much as $43 million. She was
immediately executed.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 29, In Japan Tatsuo
Tomobe, member of the upper house of parliament, was arrested and
accused of fraud. He had raised $75 million by offering high yields on
deposits and using it to finance political ambitions.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A17)
1997 Jan 29, Mongolia joined the
World Trade Organization (WTO).
(www.wto.org/English/thewto_e/countries_e/mongolia_e.htm)
1997 Jan 29, In Pakistan the
Supreme Court upheld Bhutto’s dismissal and ordered new elections to
proceed.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 29, In Sierra Leone the
UN World Food Program announced a 6-month $19.4 million food aid
operation.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 29, In South Africa
Wouter Basson, retired brigadier general, was arrested for selling
1,000 tablets of the drug Ecstasy to undercover police.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.C1)
1998 Jan 29, The judge in the
Paula Jones case ruled that allegations in the current Clinton-Lewinsky
scandal will not be admitted in the Jones case.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 29, In Birmingham, Ala.,
the New Woman, All Woman Health Care [abortion] Clinic was bombed.
Robert Sanderson (35), a moonlighting police officer, was killed and
Emily Lyons, a nurse, was critically injured. A note was later received
claiming the "Army of God" was responsible. Suspect Eric Robert Rudolph
(31) of North Carolina was arrested May 31,2003. Rudolph was convicted
and sentenced to life in prison in 2005.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SSFC,
6/1/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A9)
1998 Jan 29, The US, Russia and 13
other nations of the European Space Agency agreed to cooperate on
building an int’l. space station.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A7)
1998 Jan 29, The 3-day Muslim Eid
al-Fitr festival began celebrating the closing of the holy month of
Ramadan.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, In Japan Finance Vice
Minister Takeshi Komura stepped down in the bribery scandal and said
“the responsibility is all mine.”
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, A gas explosion on a
Russian nuclear sub killed the captain and injured at least 4 sailors.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A14)
1999 Jan 29, The Senate delivered
subpoenas for Monica Lewinsky and two presidential advisers for
private, videotaped testimony in the impeachment trial.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1999 Jan 29, Attorney General
Janet Reno rejected a special prosecutor investigation of Harold Ickes,
saying there was clear and convincing evidence that the former White
House aide did not intend to lie to a Senate committee looking into
campaign finances.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1999 Jan 29, In Virginia Paul
Warner Powell (20) stabbed and killed Stacie Reed (16). He also raped
and attempted to kill her sister (14). Powell was executed on March 18,
2010.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A8)
1999 Jan 29, The US and major
European allies set Feb 19 as a deadline for Serbia to accept a peace
plan in Kosovo or face NATO bombing.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 29, From China it was
reported that police were ordered to arrest people posting
anti-government remarks on computer networks.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 29, Amnesty Int'l.
reported that Ethiopia had forcefully deported 52,000 Eritreans since
the eruption of war in 1998.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 29, In Kosovo Serbian
police killed 24 ethnic Albanians following the death of one Serbian
officer.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 30, The UN Security
Council agreed to establish panels to assess Iraqi disarmament and
adherence to other UN resolutions.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A17)
2000 Jan 29, Joe Montana and
Ronnie Lott, architects of San Francisco’s Super Bowl dynasty, were
among five individuals elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
(AP, 1/29/01)
2000 Jan 29, In Arris, Algeria, 11
community guards were killed by Islamic militants of the Salafist Group
for Preaching and Combat led by Hassan Hattab.
(SFC, 2/1/00, p.B2)
2000 Jan 29, In Montreal, Canada,
the first int'l. agreement on genetically modified agricultural
products was produced. The UN-sponsored "Cartagena Protocol on
Biosafety" required exporters to label modified products with the label
"May contain living modified organisms."
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/01)
2000 Jan 29, In Switzerland Pres.
Clinton addressed the World Economic Forum at Davos and urged corporate
leaders to help lift the burden of debt from developing countries and
to examine environmental concerns. Some 1000 protestors demonstrated
outside.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A16)
2001 Jan 29, President Bush
promised to “act boldly and swiftly” to address the nation's energy
problems, and directed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a task force
to develop an energy strategy.
(AP, 1/29/02)
2001 Jan 29, Pres. Bush signed an
executive order creating a new white House Office of Faith-based and
Community Initiatives.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 29, Al DeGuzman (19) was
arrested in San Jose after a photo lab clerk reported pictures of him
in front of an arsenal of weapons. A 158-page diary was found labeled
“Plan X2” for a Jan 30 attack at De Anza College in Cupertino. DeGuzman
was found guilty in 2002 of 108 felony accounts. He was sentenced to 7
years in prison.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/2/02, p.A17)
2001 Jan 29, DaimlerChrysler
announced it was eliminating 26,000 jobs at its money-losing Chrysler
division.
(AP, 1/29/02)
2001 Jan 29, At least 110 Afghan
refugees froze to death in camps near Herat.
(WSJ, 2/1/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/2/01, p.D4)
2001 Jan 29, In Chile Judge Guzman
reinstated his case against Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 29, In Indonesia some
10,000 protesters marched in Jakarta over corruption scandals that
allegedly involved Pres. Wahid.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 29, In Israel an Israeli
motorist was killed in the West Bank as Yasser Arafat reversed earlier
rhetoric and sent a message for peace.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 29, Demonstrators in
Turin clashed with police following an agreement between France and
Italy to establish a high-speed rail line between Turin and Lyon.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 29, Serb thrown hand
grenades hit an ethnic Albanian home in Kosovo. 1 person was killed, 2
injured and NATO peacekeepers broke up an ensuing riot.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 29, Tanzanian police
regained control in Zanzibar following weekend street battles that left
40 people dead.
(WSJ, 1/30/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 29, Pres. Bush made his
1st State of the Union address and declared that the "war against
terror is only beginning." Bush singled out Iran, Iraq and North Korea
as an "axis of evil." He also appealed to Americans to volunteer for
community services. The “axis of evil” phrase was co-coined by Bush’s
speechwriter David Frum.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A1)(SFC,
2/1/02, p.A3)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.36)
2002 Jan 29, Actor Harold Russell
(88), who received two Oscars for his sensitive portrayal of a disabled
veteran in "The Best Years of Our Lives," died in Needham, Mass.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2002 Jan 29, In Albania PM Ilir
Meta (32) resigned following months of disputes with party leaders.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 29, In China historian Xu
Zerong (David Tsui) was sentenced to 13 years in prison for providing
classified historical documents, pertaining to Chinese operations
during the Korean war, to unspecified overseas parties.
(SSFC, 2/3/02, p.A17)
2002 Jan 29, In Japan PM Koizumi
fired foreign minister Makiko Tanaka. Yoriko Kawaguchi was soon chosen
to replace her.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A8)(SFC, 2/1/02, p.A15)
2002 Jan 29, Israeli troops raided
the Palestinian village of Artas and arrested Mohammed Eyosh (31), a
local Jihad leader. 4 others were wounded in gunfire.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 29, In South Africa
Doctors Without Borders defied patent law and imported a generic AIDS
drug from Brazil.
(WSJ, 1/30/02, p.A1)
2003 Jan 29, The Congressional
Budget Office predicted the current year's federal deficit would soar
to $199 billion even without President Bush's new tax cut plan or war
against Iraq.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2003 Jan 29, AOL Time Warner
posted a record $98.7 billion loss, the biggest in corporate history.
It included a $45.5 billion write down on the value of AOL.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2003 Jan 29, In Kinston, NC, 6
people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion at West
Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/04)
2003 Jan 29, Leslie Fiedler (85),
author and literary critic, died in Buffalo, NY. His 1960 "Love and
Death in the American Novel" analyzed the work of mark Twain, Ernest
Hemingway and others.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A26)
2003 Jan 29, Frank Moss (b.1911),
liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), died. His efforts included
the addition of Capitol Reef and Canyonlands to the national park
system.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
2003 Jan 29, Britain, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, signed
an open letter calling on the peace camp, implicitly Germany, France
and Russia, to rally to the U.S. standard against Iraq.
(WSJ, 1/30/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 29, The body of
Abdelmalek Benbara (41), a member of the Algerian prime minister's
party reported missing Jan 17, was found in a car in Paris.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, Belgium said oil
leaking from the sunken cargo ship Tricolor (Dec 14) is washing up on
the Belgian coastline, damaging wildlife and beaches.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, In Cambodia
protesters looted and set fire to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The
protest was against a Thai TV star who was quoted in the media as
saying Cambodia had stolen the famous Angkor Wat temple from Thailand.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 29, Iraq responded to
chief inspector Hans Blix's tough assessment of its disarmament,
accusing him of misrepresenting its record of compliance, offering some
new information and pledging continued cooperation.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, Montenegro lawmakers
voted to abolish Yugoslavia and replace it with a loose union of
semi-independent states called Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A8)
2003 Jan 29, Russia's Border Guard
Service said the US led anti-terror operation in Afghanistan has done
nothing to reduce the flow of illegal drugs from that country.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2004 Jan 29, The US freed 3
juvenile Afghan detainees (13-15) from Guantanamo, Cuba.
(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 29, In Afghanistan
an arms dump blast killed 8 American soldiers in a what was likely an
accident.
(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A3)(AP, 1/31/04)
2004 Jan 29, It was reported that
Angolan troops and police have driven at least 10,000 Congolese from
northern Angola's diamond zones in a bloody month-old campaign.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 29, M.M. Kaye (95),
British author, died in Lavenham, England.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2004 Jan 29, In Colombia gunmen
shot and killed Marta Lucia Hernandez, the director of one of
Colombia's most famous national parks. It was the second high-profile
attack in the coastal city of Santa Marta this week.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 29, Egypt expelled
American journalist Charles Levinson. He had written articles on
torture and deaths in Egyptian prisons. Levinson was allowed to return
in February.
(SFC, 2/19/04, p.A14)(SFC, 2/21/04, p.A2)
2004 Jan 29, In central Iraq a
roadside bomb exploded in Baqouba, wounding 11 Iraqis.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Israel released 435
prisoners in a swap, mediated by Germany, with the Lebanese guerrilla
group Hezbollah in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies
of 3 Israeli soldiers. The businessman was Elchanan Tannenbaum, a
colonel in Israel’s reserves, who was kidnapped in Dubai in 2000 and
had knowledge of an advanced Israeli weapons system.
(AP, 1/29/04)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.99)
2004 Jan 29, Janet Frame (b.1924),
author, died in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her books included “Faces in the
Water” (1961). Her 3-volume autobiography was dramatized in the 1990
film "An Angel at My Table."
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.81)
2004 Jan 29, A Palestinian suicide
bomber detonated a bag of explosives on a crowded Jerusalem bus outside
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence, killing 10 passengers and
wounding 50 bystanders.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, In Saudi Arabia some
2 million Muslims from around the world gathered at the start of the
annual Hajj.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Somalia's feuding
leaders signed an agreement to form a new government based along clan
lines, the first deal of its kind to include all armed groups that have
torn the country apart for the last 13 years.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Widespread drought
was reported across southern Africa. Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa and
Zimbabwe were all affected.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A16)
2005 Jan 29, Clint Eastwood won
the Directors Guild prize for his boxing saga “Million Dollar Baby.”
(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A2)
2005 Jan 29, Ashley McElhiney, the
first female coach of a men's pro basketball team, was fired after an
on-court dispute with Sally Anthony, co-owner of the Nashville Rhythm
of the ABA.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2005 Jan 29, Nine Afghan soldiers
died and another was seriously injured when a mine exploded near their
vehicle as they traveled close to the Pakistani border.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, Chinese jetliners
touched down in Taiwan, completing the first nonstop flights between
the rivals since a bloody civil war split the two sides 56 years ago.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Colombia
government troops discovered one of the biggest FARC rebel munitions
factories in the jungles of southern Guaviare state.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Jan 29, A UN spokesman said
militiamen armed with guns and machetes killed 16 people and kidnapped
at least 34 girls in attacks this week on a remote area of eastern
Congo.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In insurgency-hit
Indian Kashmir voters turned out in big numbers to cast ballots in the
first leg of municipal polls to be held in over a quarter of a century.
(AFP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In northern Kenya
fighting over the last 2 weeks between the Garre and Murule clans
forced 30,000 people to flee and left 30 people dead. Recent fighting
between Masai and Kikuyu left 10-30 people dead.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.46)
2005 Jan 29, A suicide bomber
attacked a police station in a Kurdish town, killing 8 people, and
insurgents blasted polling places in several cities on the eve of
landmark elections.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, Libya granted its
first oil exploration licenses in over four decades, awarding 15
permits to foreign companies, with US companies taking the lion's
share. PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya has opted for a policy of open
communication with total transparence."
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Russia the
fragmented opposition gathered pace as thousands of communists,
liberals and radical youth activists joined forces to protest against
the loss of Soviet-era benefits.
(Reuters, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Sudan police
clashed with rioting tribesmen in the Red Sea coastal city of Port
Sudan, leaving at least 17 people dead and 16 injured. A tribal
representative claimed 23 people were dead and 100 others were wounded.
(AP, 1/29/05)(Econ, 10/1/05, p.43)
2006 Jan 29, Nam June Paik (74),
the avant-garde artist credited with inventing video art in the 1960s
by combining multiple TV screens with sculpture, music and live
performers, died in Miami, Fla. In a 1974 report commissioned by the
Rockefeller Foundation, Paik wrote of a telecommunications network of
the future he called the "Electronic Super Highway," predicting it
"will become our springboard for new and surprising human endeavors."
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, Heavy rains in Brazil
led to the deaths of 12 people in Rio de Janeiro, including six people
killed when an underground shopping mall garage filled with water.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, The Chinese New Year
ushered in the year of the Dog. As many as 10 million dogs were
slaughtered annually for food consumption in China. Fireworks
explosions killed 36 people and injured hundreds more in China as
traditional Lunar New Year celebrations led to much mayhem as well as
joy across the nation.
(SSFC, 1/29/06, p.A3)(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, In eastern Congo
rebels in Rutshuru forced a local radio station off the air after a
wave of fighting and looting in the troubled Central African nation.
(AP, 2/1/06)
2006 Jan 29, Denmark's PM said his
government could not act against satirical cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed after Libya closed its embassy in Copenhagen amid growing
Muslim anger over the dispute.
(Reuters, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Finland's first
female president said she was confident of re-election in a runoff
vote. Polls suggested a close race after a steady surge in support for
her conservative challenger. Pres. Tarja Halonen clinched a narrow
re-election victory over a rival with a pro-alliance agenda. She won a
new six-year term with 51.8 percent of the vote.
(AP, 1/29/06)(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, Avalanches swept away
skiers and at least one hiker in the French Alps, killing five people
over the weekend.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, In Iraq ABC news
anchor Bob Woodruff and camera operator Doug Vogt were seriously
injured in a roadside bombing near Taji.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Car bombs exploded in
a synchronized spree of attacks outside at least four churches in
Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least three Iraqis
and wounding 9. US troops killed three suspected insurgents wearing
Iraqi police uniforms in Kirkuk. A bomb killed 11 people in a shop
selling sweets in the town of Iskindiraya south of Baghdad overnight.
Violence killed at least 20 people, including 13 Iraqi policemen and
soldiers. A car bomb killed 4 Iraqi soldiers in Uja. Former Lt. Gen.
Mahmoud Idham was assassinated near Tikrit.
(AP, 1/29/06)(Reuters, 1/29/06)(SFC, 1/30/06, p.A7)
2006 Jan 29, Sheik Sabah IV Al
Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah was sworn in as the new emir of Kuwait.
(AP,
1/29/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah_Al-Ahmad_Al-Jaber_Al-Sabah)
2006 Jan 29, The Mexican
government said the US Border Patrol in New Mexico arrested Francisco
Javier Gutierrez, a Mexican immigration official, who was allegedly
trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the US.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, A Pakistani express
train with up to 600 passengers aboard derailed, killing at least three
people and injuring as many as 40.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Republic of Congo
President Denis Sassou-Nguesso launched his role as a top African peace
mediator, meeting with the prime minister of civil war-divided Ivory
Coast days after taking over as African Union head.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, In Bucharest,
Romania, a stray dog killed a Japanese businessman. The mayor called
for a crash program of canine sterilization and euthanasia to control
the city’s 60,000 stray dogs.
(www.inyourpocket.com/romania/bucharest/en/)(Econ,
2/4/06, p.48)
2006 Jan 29, Russia resumed
sending natural gas to Georgia after finishing repairs to a major
pipeline damaged by mysterious blasts a week earlier.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2007 Jan 29, Deeply distrustful of
Iran, President Bush said "we will respond firmly" if Tehran escalated
its military actions in Iraq and threatened American forces or Iraqi
citizens.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an
aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in a
row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Bayer said the US
Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use of Bayer Schering
Pharma AG's drug YAZ to allow it to be used to treat moderate acne in
women who also want to use an oral contraceptive for birth control.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Kentucky Derby winner
Barbaro was euthanized because of medical complications eight months
after his gruesome breakdown at the Preakness.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Australia’s
Queensland state planned to introduce recycled sewage to its drinking
water as a record drought threatens water supplies around the nation.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, An official said at
least 33,000 people have been arrested in Bangladesh by the army,
police and security forces since a state of emergency was imposed
earlier this month.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Paris City Hall
announced it has selected French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux SA
to operate a new free bicycle service in the capital.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, The African Union
chose Ghana to head the 53-member bloc, turning aside Sudan's bid for
the second year in a row because of the worsening bloodshed in Darfur.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, The International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled there was enough evidence against Thomas
Lubanga, a Congolese militiaman accused of recruiting child soldiers,
to launch the new court's first trial.
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, In Iraq a prominent
Shiite leader said that setting up federal regions in Iraq would solve
the country's problems, adding that Shiites are being subjected to mass
killings but they should not retaliate by using violence. Bombings and
mortar attacks targeting Shiites killed at least 15 people. A parked
car bomb struck a bus carrying Shiites to a holy shrine in northern
Baghdad, killing at least four people. Mortar rounds rained down on a
Shiite neighborhood in the Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar. 10
people were killed, including three children and four women, and five
other people were wounded. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar
province and an American soldier died in an accident northwest of
Nasiriyah.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Libya will not
execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to
death last month, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a
newspaper interview, calling their trial "unfair."
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, A truck crashed in
northern Nigeria's Yobe state killing at least 35 people and seriously
injuring another 37. A burst tire caused the truck loaded with cement
as well as 72 people to veer off the road.
(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 rockets exploded near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the city of
Bannu, wounding 11 people, two seriously. A suicide bomber killed a
police officer protecting a Shiite Muslim procession. In eastern
Pakistan 2 brothers beat to death their sister and her lover with
bricks for bringing shame upon the family with their out-of-wedlock
affair. The woman had lived with her brothers in the village of Donga
Bonga, Punjab province.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 29, A Palestinian suicide
bomber attacked a bakery in Eilat, a southern Israeli resort town,
killing three people and himself. The Palestinian who blew himself up
was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby daughter and
driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli troops. Hamas and
Fatah gunmen battled each other across the Gaza Strip, attacking
security compounds, knocking out an electrical transformer and
kidnapping several local commanders in some of the most extensive
factional fighting in recent weeks.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said it
would begin a 158,000 barrel-a-day cut in oil production effective Feb
1.
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 29, Turkish police
arrested 46 suspected Islamic militants in operations in five provinces
across the country.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2008 Jan 29, Pres. Bush signed an
executive order for federal agencies to ignore “earmarks” that aren’t
explicitly enacted into law.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A6)
2008 Jan 29, In Florida Sen. John
McCain won the Republican primary with 36% of the vote. Mitt Romney was
2nd with 31% and Rudi Giuliani 3rd with 15%.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 29, Federal fishery
regulators said the number of chinook salmon returning to California's
Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an
"unprecedented collapse" that could lead to severe restrictions on West
Coast salmon fishing this year.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Robert M. Ball (93),
considered to be the father of the US Medicare system, died.
(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 29, Margaret Truman
Daniel (b.1924), the only daughter of former Pres. Harry Truman, died
in Chicago. From 1980 to 1996 Daniel wrote 13 murder mysteries
beginning with “Murder in the White House,” which became a best seller.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A2)
2008 Jan 29, In southern
Afghanistan roadside bombings killed three civilians.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, In northern Algeria a
car loaded with explosives and headed for a police station exploded
after officers stopped the attack with bullets. At least two people
were killed and 23 wounded.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Gold prices hit a
record high 933.33 dollars in London as the market was driven higher by
production problems in key producer South Africa and the weak US dollar.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In China deadly
winter storms, the worst in five decades, showed no signs of letting
up, where cities were blacked out, transport systems were paralyzed and
a bus crash on an icy road killed at least 25 people during the
nation's busiest travel season.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Congolese Tutsi
rebels and a rival Mai Mai militia group pledged to respect a
recently-signed peace accord, a day after clashes between their
fighters broke the ceasefire.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, A Cairo court ruled
to allow Egyptian Bahais to leave their religion blank on official
documents, in effect restoring their access to jobs, schools and
medical and financial services.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Cars and trucks
traveled freely across the border from Gaza to Egypt for a seventh day.
Egyptians living near the breached border with Gaza warned that chaos
was brewing and demanded the crisis be resolved.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Iran’s state media
reported that more than 50 followers of the minority Baha'i faith were
convicted of distributing propaganda against the country's Islamic
regime. The faith was banned after the 1979 Islamic revolution, and it
is not recognized in the Iranian constitution as a religious minority.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, A suicide car bomber
targeted a US patrol in Mosul, killing at least one Iraqi and wounding
as many as 15. Iraqi police north of Baghdad found 19 bullet-riddled
bodies near the former insurgent stronghold of Muqdadiyah. In Baghdad a
bombing at a checkpoint wounded five American soldiers and three
civilians. Iraqi officials claimed it was a suicide bombing and said
two people were killed. An Iraqi television cameraman and his driver
were killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad. The female
correspondent and camera assistant traveling with them were wounded.
(AP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, Japan's coast guard
said it has sent a team of officers to protect its whaling fleet
against intensifying protests by environmentalists.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Japan said it was
setting up a fund to help African countries enhance protection of
intellectual property rights, calling it key to boosting the
continent's economic potential.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Kenya former UN
chief Kofi Annan launched formal mediation efforts to end the
post-election crisis, where the killing of an opposition legislator
stoked bloody protests. Gunmen killed Mugabe Were, an opposition
lawmaker in Nairobi, triggering a new flare-up of the ethnic fighting.
A gang hefting machetes dragged a doctor from the president's Kikuyu
tribe from his clinic "and then cut and cut until his head was off."
(Reuters, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Mexico City Elvira
Arellano, a deported Mexican migrant who holed up in a Chicago church
to fight for immigrants' rights, rallied support for Flor Crisostomo
(28), another woman now seeking refuge in the same building. Four
Mexican military officers and one soldier, were turned over to
prosecutors for alleged links to Alfredo Beltran Leyva, but their cases
weren't made public until Oct 31.
(AP, 1/30/08)(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Jan 29, Scientists in New
Zealand reported that smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in
terms of lung cancer risk and warned of an "epidemic" of lung cancers
linked to cannabis.
(Reuters, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Pakistan’s President
Pervez Musharraf returned home after a weeklong trip to Europe.
Security forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic militants holed up at a
house in Karachi, with 3 militants and two policemen dead. A fourth
militant, who was wounded in the shootout, died later in the day.
Hundreds of students in Miran Shah protested Pakistan's support for the
US-led war on terror.
(AFP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said it
had killed some 158,000 chickens after the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain
was found at an infected farm. The agriculture ministry also said more
than 4.5 million fowl have been killed in provinces around the capital,
but it did not specify when the killing took place.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Sri Lanka the
defense ministry said its troops smashed 16 guerrilla bunkers in the
district of Mannar and killed at least 22 rebels. Tamilnet said at
least 11 school children and the principal of the school were among
those killed when the Sri Lanka Army triggered a Claymore mine
targeting a bus carrying school children.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Officials in
impoverished Tajikistan said they would be forced to cut power to much
of the country as residents endured one of the coldest winters in 25
years. Tajikistan is rich in water resources, but the cold weather has
frozen rivers flowing into the Nurek reservoir.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Venezuela 4 gunmen
held more than 30 people hostage inside a bank during a lengthy and
tense standoff with police that began with a botched robbery in the
town of Altagracia de Orituco.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2009 Jan 29, President Barack
Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, an equal pay
bill, into law, declaring that it's a family issue, not just a women's
issue.
(AP, 1/29/09)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.25)
2009 Jan 29, In Illinois Pat Quinn
(60), the Democrat Lt. Gov., became governor after the state Senate
voted 59-0 to convict Rod Blagojevich (52) of abuse of power.
(AP, 1/30/09)(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, A California judge
ruled that Gov. Schwarzenegger can force state workers to take
furloughs to help close the budget gap.
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, In southern
Afghanistan coalition troops killed four militants in a strike on a
bomb-making operation.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 29, The African Union
said the exclusion from its summit of Mauritania and Guinea, which both
suffered coups recently, proved the continent had moved on from its
checkered past. The summit was scheduled for Feb 1-3 in Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, An Australian man
(36) was charged with murder after allegedly throwing his four-year-old
daughter from a Melbourne bridge into the Yarra River during peak hour
traffic.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, In Bolivia the last
US drug enforcement agents left the country, ordered out by Pres.
Morales, even as police reported that coca cultivation and cocaine
processing were on the rise.
(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 29, Britain’s PM Gordon
Brown vowed to act with "purpose and determination" to restore economic
growth a day after the IMF said Britain would be the country worst hit
by the global recession.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, An international
rights group said Cameroon's government is employing extrajudicial
killings and torture to crush political opponents, and such violence
may escalate as the global economic crisis deepens.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The first of more
than 6,000 Congolese rebels took part in a ceremony to integrate their
units into the regular army as part of a deal to end the conflict in
eastern DR Congo.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The ship Monchegorsk
arrived in Cyprus. It was examined twice after it arrived under
suspicion of ferrying weapons from Iran to Hamas fighters in Gaza, and
detained. The US military had stopped the ship last month in the Red
Sea, and said it found artillery shells and other arms on board. But it
could not legally detain the ship, which continued to Port Said, Egypt,
and then to Cyprus.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Jan 29, The European Union
signed an agreement to give Ethiopia 251 million euros (322 million
dollars) in aid to boost development projects across the Horn of Africa
nation.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 29, In France hundreds of
thousands of workers staged a nationwide strike to try to force
President Nicolas Sarkozy and business leaders to do more to protect
jobs and wages during the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, India began a plan to
issue a new biometric identity card to its whole 1.2 billion
population. On June 25 Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was
given ministerial status and appointed to run the scheme.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/nvfahh)
2009 Jan 29, Iraq said it will bar
Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for US
diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a
company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings of
17 Iraqi civilians. Hazim Salim al-Zaidi (51), former Iraqi army
officer in Mosul, was among three Sunni candidates killed two days
ahead of elections. One of the other Sunnis was killed in a drive-by
shooting in western Baghdad. The third was abducted along with his
brother and cousin in the Diyala province town of Mandali near the
Iranian border. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found later in the day.
(AP, 1/29/09)(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 29, George Mitchell,
President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy, turned his attention to the
Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank. Palestinians
fired a rocket into Israel, and residents of the south Gaza town of
Khan Younis said an Israeli airstrike there wounded an unidentified man
on a motorcycle and five passers-by, among them children walking home
from school. Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas indicated a
willingness to negotiate a deal for a long-term truce with Israel as
long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of the world.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Japan hanged four
convicted murderers, carrying out the country's first executions of the
year despite international criticism.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Madagascar's
president made a conciliatory gesture, promising to put a radio station
back on air after its closure sparked anti-government rioting that left
at least 43 dead. A US envoy later estimated over 100 dead while police
said 76 had died in the rioting.
(AP, 1/29/09)(WSJ, 2/4/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 29, Mexican police
detained an Ecuadorean man for carrying about $2.5 million in cash in a
suitcase at Mexico City's international airport.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 29, New Zealand’s central
bank lowered its key interest 1.5 percentage points to a record low of
3.5%, in response to a decelerating global growth outlook.
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 29, In Nigeria gunmen
kidnapped a Nigerian boy (9) in the oil city of Port Harcourt, shooting
dead a domestic worker who was taking him to school.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Pakistani police
arrested three men who they alleged carried out a deadly 2006 bombing
in Pakistan on the orders of India's intelligence agency.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The UN launched an
emergency appeal for $613 million to help Palestinians recover from
Israel's three weeks of military operations in Gaza.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, In the Philippines a
powerful explosion destroyed a fireworks factory and a nearby
electronics plant south of Manila, killing at least six people and
injuring more than 40.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Somali pirates
hijacked a German gas tanker, the MV Longchamp, and its 13-man crew in
the Gulf of Aden, the third ship captured off the Horn of Africa this
month. The ship was released along with its 13 crew members on March 28.
(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A16)(AP, 3/28/09)
2009 Jan 29, A South Korean
biotech company claimed to have cloned dogs using a stem cell
technology for the first time in the world.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, In Sri Lanka UN
workers evacuated hundreds of severely wounded civilians from behind
rebel lines as government troops fought to secure final victory over
the Tamil Tigers. Up to 250,000 civilians were trapped in the combat
zone in the northeast of the island.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Swiss police said
they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation last year while using
Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping software.
They arrested 16 people and seized 1.1 tons (1.2 US tons) of marijuana
as well as cash and valuables worth 900,000 Swiss francs ($780,000).
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, At the economic forum
in Davos, Switzerland, Israel’s Pres. Peres (85) traded accusations
with Turkey’s PM Erdogan, who declared: “You kill people,” and
criticized Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Erdogan stalked off stage after
being cut short during the exchange.
(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, Zimbabwe Finance
Minister Patrick Chinamasa said citizens will be allowed to conduct
business in other currencies, alongside the Zimbabwean dollar. A UN
report said Zimbabwe's humanitarian disaster is far worse than
anticipated with only six percent of the population formally employed
and more than half in need of emergency food aid.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)(AFP, 1/29/09)
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