Today in History - January 30
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1384 Jan 30,
Vytautas handed over Samogitia to the Knights of the Cross and promised
to serve as a vassal to the order following receipt of Trakai.
(LHC, 1/30/03)
1607 Jan 30, A sudden flood around
the Bristol Channel in southwest Britain killed at least 2,000 people.
It was the worst natural disaster ever recorded in Britain.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.101)
1647 Jan 30, King Charles I was
handed over to the English parliament.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1649 Jan 30, King Charles I of
England, who ruled from 1625-1649, was beheaded for treason at
Banqueting House, Whitehall, by the hangman Richard Brandon. He lost
his capital trial by one vote, 68-67. “For the people, and I truly
desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever, but I
must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consists in having
of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be
most their own. It is not for having a share in government, sirs; that
is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean
different things.” Charles I was canonized by the church of England 13
years later. Parliament became the supreme power under the rule of
Oliver Cromwell, who ruled over Parliament as Lord Protector of the New
Commonwealth from 1649-1658. He argued against his soldiers having a
voice in government because they owned no property. He stated in so
many word that government “has always been, and should always continue
to be, of property, by property, and for property.”
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.T7)(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WSJ, 5/6/97,
p.A20)(HN, 1/30/99)(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)(MC, 1/30/02)(WSJ, 2/7/03,
p.W13)
1649 Jan 30, Jester Muckle John
lost his job when King Charles 1 was beheaded.
(Reuters, 8/7/04)
1667 Jan 30, Lithuania, Poland and
Russia signed a 13.5 year treaty at Andrusov, near Smolensk. Russia
received Smolensk and Kiev.
(LHC, 1/30/03)
1717 Jan 30, Surrounded by the
Russian army the Lithuanian-Polish parliament reduced its army by half
and acknowledged Russian protection.
(LHC, 1/30/03)
1798 Jan 30, A brawl broke out in
the House of Representatives in Philadelphia. Matthew Lyon of Vermont
spat in the face of Roger Griswold of Connecticut, who responded by
attacking him with a hickory walking stick. Lyon was re-elected
congressman while serving a jail sentence for violating the Sedition
Acts of 1798.
(AP, 1/30/98)(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A5)(WSJ, 10/29/04,
p.W10)
1800 Jan 30, US population was
reported at 5,308,483; Black population 1,002,037 (18.9%).
(MC, 1/30/02)
1815 Jan 30, The burned Library of
Congress was reestablished with Jefferson's 6,500 volumes.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1820 Jan 30, Edward Bransfield
discovered Antarctica and claimed it for the UK.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1844 Jan 30, Richard Theodore
Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard
University.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1847 Jan 30, The California Star,
founded by Sam Brannon, published the official name change of Yerba
Buena to San Francisco on this day. Mayor Washington Bartlett had the
town council approve the change. [see Jan 3]
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)(SFC, 1/25/02, p.G6)
1862 Jan 30, The USS Monitor, a
Union ironclad ship designed by John Ericsson, was launched into the
East River at Greenpoint, Long Island, under Captain John L. Worden. It
was the first warship equipped with a revolving turret. On March 6 it
left NY Harbor and headed for Virginia to face the Confederate
ironclad.
(HN, 1/30/99)(AH, 12/02, p.8)(ON, 10/08, p.1)
1882 Jan 30, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (1933-1945), was born in
Hyde Park, N.Y. He led the country out of the Great Depression and
through most of World War II.
(AP, 1/30/98)(HN, 1/30/99)(MC, 1/30/02)
1883 Jan 30, James Ritty and John
Birch received a U.S. patent for the first cash register.
(AP, 1/30/07)
1885 Jan 30, John Henry Towers,
naval and aviation hero, was born.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1894 Jan 30, Boris III
(d.1943), czar of Bulgaria (1918-43), was born.
(SFC, 9/6/00, p.A10)(MC, 1/30/02)
1894 Jan 30, Pneumatic hammer was
patented by Charles King of Detroit. [see May 19, 1892]
(MC, 1/30/02)
1901 Jan 30, Women Prohibitionists
smashed 12 saloons in Kansas.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1912 Jan 30, Barbara Tuchman, U.S.
historian best remembered for her book "The Guns of August," was born.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1912 Jan 30, The British House of
Lords opposed the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1916 Jan 30, Sir Clements Markham
(b.1830), English explorer and geographer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clements_Markham)
1922 Jan 30, Dick Martin, actor,
comedian (Laugh-In), was born in Detroit, Mich.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1925 Jan 30, Turkish government
threw out Constantine VI, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1927 Jan 30, Olof Palme, PM of
Sweden (1969-76, 1982-86), was born in Stockholm.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1931 Jan 30, Gene Hackman, actor
(Bonnie & Clyde, Under Fire, Superman), was born in Calif.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1931 Jan 30, The United States
awarded civil government to the Virgin Islands.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1933 Jan 30, The first episode of
the “Lone Ranger” radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in
Detroit. The show was created by George Washington Trendle and Fran
Striker. The show ran for 21 years on ABC radio.
(AP, 1/30/98)(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A11)(MC, 1/30/02)
1933 Jan 30, German President Paul
von Hindenburg made Adolf Hitler chancellor. After World War I, Germany
fell into disarray and looked for a leader to strengthen it again.
Hitler had emerged after joining the Nazi Party in 1919 and taking it
over in 1921. In 1932 Hitler ran against von Hindenburg and lost--but
not by a wide margin. The Nazis won 230 seats in the German parliament
and continued to gain influence, stifling democracy and communism by
force and by making laws against them. After Hindenburg's death in
1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Der Führer of the Third Reich and
continued as Germany's leader through World War II. Gen. Kurt von
Hammerstein-Equord tried to block the appointment of Hitler as
chancellor but was overruled by Pres. Hindenburg.
(AP, 1/30/98)(HN, 1/30/99)(HNPD, 1/31/99)(SFC,
2/5/00, p.A19)
1936 Jan 30, Governor Harold
Hoffman ordered a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1939 Jan 30, Felix Frankfurter
(1882-1965), Harvard law professor, was sworn in as the 80th US Supreme
Court Justice (1939-62). He retired in 1962. "There is no inevitability
in history except as men make it."
(AP, 2/27/98)(HNQ,
3/16/99)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/78/)
1941 Jan 30, Dick Cheney was born
in Lincoln, Neb. He served as chief of staff for Pres. Ford from
1975-1977. He was a US Rep. From 1979-1989 and served as the Sec. of
Defense for pres. George H.W. Bush from 1989-1993. From 1995 to 2000 he
served as the CEO of Halliburton Corp. and in 2000 was chosen by Gov.
George W. Bush as a running mate.
(WSJ, 7/26/00, p.A28)
1943 Jan 30, Fieldmarshal
Friedrich von Paulus surrendered himself and his staff to Red Army
troops in Stalingrad.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1945 Jan 30, US Army Rangers and
Filipino guerrillas executed a flawless rescue of 486 POWs from Camp
Cabanatuan north of Manila. In 2001 Hampton Sides authored “Ghost
Soldiers,” an account of the rescue.
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A20)(SSFC, 6/17/01, DB p.70)(AH,
2/05, p.16)
1945 Jan 30, The Allies launched a
drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1945 Jan 30, Nazi SS guards shot
down an estimated 4,000 Jewish prisoners on the Baltic coast at
Palmnicken, Kaliningrad. The town was later renamed by the Russians to
Yantarny. Some 7,000 prisoners had been marched 25 miles from
Koenigsberg to a vacant lock factory at Palmnicken where they were
mowed down with machine guns. The prisoners had been vacated from a
network of 30 camps that made up Poland's Stutthoff concentration camp.
90% of the Jews were women from Lithuania and Hungary.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.C1)
1945 Jan 30, The
German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" sank in the Baltic Sea between the Bay
of Danzig and the Danish island of Bornholm. An estimated 7000-8000
people, civilian refugees from East Prussia and wounded German
soldiers, drowned in the icy waters. Three torpedoes fired from a
Russian submarine had scored direct hits on the ship. The result was
the largest and most horrible naval disaster of all time.
(NW, 3/18/02,
p.11)(www.cybercreek.com/cybercity/WWIIps/gu)
1946 Jan 30, The 1st issue of
Franklin Roosevelt dime.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1948 Jan 30, Orville Wright
(b.1871), US aviation pioneer, died. In 1953 McGraw Hill published 2
volumes edited by Marvin W. McFarland: "The Papers of Wilbur and
Orville Wright."
(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(ON, SC, p.4)(MC, 1/30/02)
1948 Jan 30, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi (78) was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a fellow Hindu while
walking to a prayer meeting in New Delhi a few minutes after five
o'clock in the evening. Godse felt that in trying to achieve
reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi had betrayed the
Hindu cause. Born into a family of merchants, Gandhi studied law in
England, where he was inspired by Henry David Thoreau's "Civil
Disobedience" and developed his own philosophy of peaceful resistance.
After residing and practicing law in South Africa for 20 years, Gandhi
returned to India to campaign for home rule and reconciliation of all
classes and religious groups. Convinced that India would never be free
as part of the British Empire, he demanded independence as payment for
helping Britain win World War II. Indian independence was achieved in
1947, but riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims seeking the
partition of the country into India and Pakistan. Mahatma ("Great
Soul") Gandhi was on a hunger strike demanding an end to the violence
when he was murdered. The book “Gandhi the Man” by Eknath Easwaran was
published in 1972.
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97,
p.A13)(SFC,12/24/97, p.C6) (HNPD, 1/309)
1948 The seven sins according to
Mahatma Gandhi were: 1) wealth without work. 2) Pleasure without
conscience. 3) Knowledge without character. 4) Commerce without
morality. 5) Science without humanity. 6) Worship without sacrifice. 7)
Politics without principal.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1949 Jan 30, In India, 100,000
people prayed at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first
anniversary of his death.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1951 Jan 30, Ferdinand Porsche
(b.1875), German car inventor (Porsche), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Porsche)
1953 Jan 30, President Dwight
Eisenhower announced that he would pull the Seventh Fleet out of
Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1956 Jan 30, Elvis Presley
recorded his version of "Blue Suede Shoes."
(MC, 1/30/02)
1958 Jan 30, The play "Sunrise at
Campobello," by Dore Schary about Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggle
against polio, opened on Broadway with Ralph Bellamy as FDR.
(AP, 1/30/08)
1962 Jan 30, Two members of the
"Flying Wallendas" high-wire act were killed when their seven-person
pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1964 Jan 30, The United States
launched Ranger 6 from Cape Canaveral. It was an unmanned spacecraft
carrying six television cameras that was to crash-land on the moon.
(AP, 1/30/98)(HN, 1/30/99)
1965 Jan 30, The state funeral of
Winston Churchill took place.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1968 Jan 30, The Viet Cong and
North Vietnamese Communist forces launched a surprise offensive on the
lunar New Year Tet holiday truce that became known as the Tet
Offensive. They struck in a coordinated attack on 36 of South Vietnam’s
44 provincial capitals, and 70 other towns in the country. Although the
Communists were beaten back, the offensive was seen as a major setback
for the US and its allies.
(www.ashbrook.org/publicat/dialogue/hayward-tet.html)(SFC, 2/3/00,
p.A25)(AP, 1/30/08)
1969 Jan 29, Allan Welsh Dulles
(b.1893), US diplomat, director (CIA 1953-61), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles)
1972 Jan 30, In Londonderry
(Derry), Northern Ireland, British troops fired on a civil rights march
in the Bloody Sunday massacre. 13-14 people were killed by soldiers of
the First Parachute Regiment, six of whom were only 17. The British
embassy in Dublin was burned down. One man who was photographed being
arrested and taken into a British army Saracen was later found shot
dead. The march, which was called to protest internment, was "illegal"
according to British government authorities. Internment without trial
was introduced by the British government on August 9, 1971. The British
government-appointed Widgery Tribunal found soldiers were not guilty of
killing the 13 marchers. The 1997 book “Eyewitness Bloody Sunday” by
Don Mullan included 113 accounts by participants and bystanders. In
1998 an independent commission said that the identities of the soldiers
would not be protected. In 2001 Martin McGuinness admitted that he was
2nd in command of the IRA at the time of the massacre. The Saville
Inquiry heard its last oral testimony in 2004.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1p.7)(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A18)(SFEM,
1/18/98, p.11)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)(Econ, 2/14/04,
p.51)
1973 Jan 30, A jury found
Watergate defendants Liddy & McCord guilty on all counts.
(www.watergate.info/chronology/1973.shtml)
1976 Jan 30, The play "Streamers”
by David Rabe (b.1940) premiered at the Long Wharf Theater in New
Haven, Connecticut.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamers)
1976 Jan 30, George Bush became
the 11th director of the CIA replacing William E. Colby. Bush revived
the reputation of the organization and left it Jan 20, 1977.
(SFEC, 1/16/00, Par p.2)(http://tinyurl.com/2mm8r9)
1976 Jan 30, The U.S. Supreme
Court banned spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom
of speech.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1979 Jan 30, The civilian
government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, who'd been living in exile in France, to return.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1980 Jan 30, The first-ever
Chinese Olympic team arrived in New York for the Winter Games.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1980 Jan 30, Professor Longhair
(61), legendary New Orleans Blues musician, died. He was born as Henry
Roeland Byrd in 1918.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Longhair)
1981 Jan 30, An estimated two
million New Yorkers turned out for a ticker-tape parade honoring the
freed American hostages from Iran.
(AP, 1/30/02)
1988 Jan 30, Israeli troops fired
on hundreds of demonstrators in the West Bank while protests also
rocked the Gaza Strip, shattering three weeks of relative quiet in the
occupied territories.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1989 Jan 30, Former criminal
defense lawyer Joel Steinberg was convicted in NYC of first-degree
manslaughter in the 1987 death of his illegally adopted 6-year-old
daughter, Lisa. On March 24 he was sentenced from 8 1/3 to 25 years in
prison.
(AP,
1/30/99)(www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/lisa_steinberg/12.html)
1989 Jan 30, Ilene Misheloff (13)
disappeared in Dublin, Ca., while walking home from school.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A18)(SFC, 1/29/09, p.A1)
1990 Jan 30, A federal judge
ordered former President Reagan to provide excerpts of his personal
diaries to John M. Poindexter for the former national security
adviser's Iran-Contra trial. The judge later reversed himself, deciding
the material was not essential.
(AP, 1/30/00)
1981 Jan 30, an estimated two
million New Yorkers turned out for a ticker-tape parade honoring the
freed American hostages from Iran.
(AP, 1/30/01)
1991 Jan 30, The first major
ground battle of the Gulf War was fought at the frontier port of Khafji
in Saudi Arabia; eleven US Marines were killed, seven of them by
“friendly fire.”
(AP, 1/30/01)
1992 Jan 30, President George H.W.
Bush and other world leaders gathered for an unprecedented U.N.
Security Council summit to coordinate policy on peacekeeping,
disarmament and quelling aggression.
(AP, 1/30/02)
1992 Jan 30, The space shuttle
Discovery landed in California, ending an eight-day mission.
(AP, 1/30/02)
1992 Jan 30, Irish Prime Minister
Charles Haughey announced his resignation. The 8-year rule by PM
Haughey ended. Later allegations arose that he had accepted cash from
Dunnes Stores while in office. There were also allegations that Dunnes
had given members of Parliament more than $5 million over 10 years.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A5)(AP, 1/30/02)
1993 Jan 30, Los Angeles
inaugurated its Metro Red Line, the city's first modern subway.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1993 Jan 30, A car bombing in
Bogota, Colombia, killed at least 20 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_bomb)
1993 Jan 30, On the 60th
anniversary of Hitler's swearing-in as chancellor of Germany, more than
300,000 Germans carried candles to denounce the Nazi era.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1994 Jan 30, The Dallas Cowboys
repeated as NFL champions as they defeated the Buffalo Bills, 30-13, in
the Super Bowl. It was the fourth straight Super Bowl loss for the
Bills.
(AP, 1/30/99)
1994 Jan 30, Pierre Boulle
(b.1912), French writer (Executioner), died.
{Writer, France}
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Boulle)
1995 Jan 30, The Smithsonian
Institution abandoned plans for a major exhibit on the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima, yielding to critics who charged the exhibit would have
portrayed America as the aggressor and Japan as the victim in World War
II.
(AP, 1/30/00)
1995 Jan 30, At least 42 people
were killed and nearly 300 wounded when a car bomb blamed on Muslim
insurgents exploded in downtown Algiers.
(AP, 1/30/00)
1996 Jan 30, In an election billed
as an early barometer for the national political season, Ron Wyden won
a close race to become Oregon’s first Democratic US senator in 30
years, replacing Bob Packwood.
(AP, 1/30/01)
1996 Jan 30, The FDA licensed
indinavir, viracept, Abbott Lab’s ritonavir (trade name Norvir) and
saquinavir based on short term clinical data between 1995-1997. The new
protease-blocking drugs were effective in combating AIDS especially
when used in combination with current medicines. The drugs were later
found to cause metabolism problems related to fats.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A7)(WSJ,
1/3/06, p.A10)
1996 Jan 30, Iran tested a Chinese
missile designed to attack ships by flying under their radar and could
be fired from boats with a range of miles.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-12)
1997 Jan 30, The US Marine Corps
opened an investigation of two videotaped hazing incidents in 1991 and
1993 known as "blood pinings" in which elite paratroopers had golden
jump pins beaten into their chests. The 1993 incident led to a
recommended discharge for a sergeant.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1997 Jan 30, The GPS (Global
Positioning System) satellites detected unusual crustal movements of
the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii.
(SFC, 2/17/97, p.A4)
1997 Jan 30, In Columbia police
seized 8 tons of cocaine and shut down a large cocaine processing plant
in the state of Guaviare.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Jan 30, In Guatemala more
than 1,000 military police seized their own headquarters and demanded
at least $7,000 severance pay each when the 4,000 member military
police is dissolved later in the year.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A12)
1997 Jan 30, In Jamaica it was
reported that NAFTA has had devastating effects on the economy. Garment
exports were down 7% and 7,000 jobs were lost.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 30, In southern Lebanon a
roadside bomb killed 3 Israeli soldiers.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A15)
1998 Jan 30, In Washington the
creation of The National First Ladies’ Library was announced at the
Renwick Gallery. Physical materials would be located in Canton, Ohio,
in the childhood home of Ida Saxton McKinley, the 20th first lady.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 30, An aviation pact was
reached between Washington and Tokyo, enabling American travelers to
fly to Japan and other Asian points from several more U.S. cities.
(AP, 1/30/99)
1998 Jan 30, In Sarasota, Florida,
a 14-year-old girl was found staggering along a road. She had been
raped and stabbed nearly 30 times and beaten badly four days earlier.
She hid in the woods in fear of her assailant, Scott Christopher Malsky
(22), who was arrested in Delaware the next day.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 30, In Columbia
paramilitary gunmen descended on the city of Puerto Asis and proceeded
to kill 48 civilians thought to be guerrilla sympathizers. Mayor Nestor
Hernandez warned army commanders at a local garrison but received no
assistance.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 30, From Hong Kong it was
reported that real estate prices were diving down. Prices were reported
down 25% since August.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 30, From India it was
reported that over the past 2 months over 50 cotton farmers in Andhra
Pradesh state had committed suicide due to farming losses caused by
cluster caterpillars.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A13)
1998 Jan 30, It was reported that
Iraq had executed 10 people for stealing the huge bearded head of a
large winged-bull dating from 700 BC.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 30, In Lebanon the army
clashed with supporters of Sheik Sob Tufaili in Baalbek and at least 50
people were killed. Tufaili had been expelled a week earlier from the
Muslim fundamentalist Hezbollah.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A21)
1998 Jan 30, In Spain Alberto
Jimenz Becerril, a Popular Party Councilman, and his wife, Asuncion
Garcia Ortiz, were assassinated in Seville.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 30, In the Sudan the city
of Wau fell to rebels who pretended to defect and then attacked from
inside.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)
1999 Jan 30, Huntz Hall (78),
comedian and actor, died in North Hollywood, Ca. He was in 120 films of
which 87 were with the "Dead End Kids," "East Side Kids," and the
"Bowery Boys."
(SFC, 2/2/99, p.A19)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0355653/)
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)
1999 Jan 30, NATO authorized its
secretary general to launch military action in Yugoslavia if the
warring parties failed to negotiate an agreement for autonomy in
Kosovo.
(AP, 1/30/00)
2000 Jan 30, In Atlanta the St.
Louis Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans 23-16 in Super Bowl XXXIV.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 30, Elian Gonzalez’s
grandmothers returned home to a hero’s welcome in Cuba, vowing to
continue the struggle to wrest the six-year-old shipwreck survivor from
relatives in Miami.
(AP, 1/30/01)
2000 Jan 30, A Kenyan Airbus 310
crashed into the sea after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Kenya
Airways Flight 431 carried 179 people. 10 survivors were pulled from
the water.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 30, In Lebanon Col. Akl
Hashem, 2nd in command of the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army,
was killed in a Hezbollah bomb at his home attack in Dibel village.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 30, In Romania a dam at
the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed and caused cyanide to pout into the
Lapus River and then into the Somes River. It flowed into Hungary and
within weeks into the Tisa (Tisza) River in Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A9)(SFC, 2/18/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 30, Republicans pushed
John Ashcroft's attorney general nomination to the Senate floor by a
narrow 10-8 Judiciary Committee vote; all but one Democrat voted
against him.
(AP, 1/30/02)
2001 Jan 30, Chrysler announced
production cuts of 15% and work force cuts to 20% in the biggest US
auto industry retrenchment in nearly a decade.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)
2001 Jan 30, In France thousands
of teachers, hospital workers and police marched to demand pay
increases. Some 17,000 marched in Paris.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 30, In the Netherlands a
Scottish court convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan
intelligence officer, of murder in the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight
103. A 2nd Libyan, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 30, In Turkey Mehmet
Fevzi Sihanlioglu (55), member of parliament, was beaten by fellow
lawmakers in the Grand National Assembly and died of a heart attack.
The attack followed a debate on whether time for speeches should be
extended.
(SFC, 2/14/01, p.D18)
2002 Jan 30, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said the United States would watch closely to see what
Iraq, Iran and North Korea did next, a day after President Bush singled
them out as part of a dangerous "axis of evil."
(AP, 1/30/03)
2002 Jan 30, Congressional
investigators and the GAO planned to sue the White House to obtain a
list of executives who met with the Cheney task force that developed
Bush’s energy policy in 2001. Enron officials were on the list.
(WSJ, 1/31/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 30, The US Federal
Reserve finished a 2-day meeting and did not change short-term interest
rates. The DJIA rose 144 to 9,762. Nasdaq rose 20 to 1,913.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 30, The 3.5-ton satellite
Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUNE), launched in 1992, broke up in
Earth’s atmosphere over Egypt. It had surveyed the entire Milky Way and
beyond and transmitted date until Jan 31 2001.
(SFC, 1/30/02,
p.A2)(www.cbc.ca/health/story/2002/01/31/satellite020131.html)
2002 Jan 30, Inge Morath (78),
Austrian-born photographer and wife of Arthur Miller, died in NYC.
(SFC, 2/4/02, p.B5)
2002 Jan 30, Interim Afghan leader
Hamid Karzai visited the World Trade Center site and placed a wreath of
yellow roses by a memorial wall as he surveyed the ruins of the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attack.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2002 Jan 30, In Afghanistan war
lords Padsha Khan Zadran and Saifullah led fighting for the control of
Paktia province.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 30, In Chile it was
reported that the remains of some 10 victims of the Pinochet regime had
been found at Fuerte Arteaga, an army base north of Santiago.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 30, In Ireland the Roman
Catholic Church agreed to pay $110 million in cash and property to
Irish children sexually abused by priests, nuns and other church
officials in past decades. There were as many as 7,000 potential
claimants for payouts ranging from $43k to 260k.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A9)(SFC, 2/1/02, p.A16)
2002 Jan 30, In Italy Samuele
Lorenzi (3), was found bludgeoned to death in the family's Alpine home.
His mother Anna Maria Franzoni, who denied the murder, was convicted
and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2007 a Turin appeals court
upheld the conviction but reduced her sentence to 16 years.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2002 Jan 30, A Palestinian suicide
bomber, Murad Abu Asal (23), killed himself and wounded 2 Israeli Shin
Bet officers near Taibe.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 30, President Bush put
allies on notice that diplomacy would give way to a decision on war
with Iraq in "weeks, not months." Wary world leaders and congressional
critics urged patience and demanded proof of Iraq's transgressions.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2003 Jan 30, Spencer Abraham, US
Energy Secretary, said the US would rejoin the $5 billion int'l.
project to build an experimental fusion reactor. The US had left the
project in 1998.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A6)
2003 Jan 30, John Snow won
confirmation as US Treasury secretary.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2003 Jan 30, Richard Reid, the
British citizen and al-Qaida follower who'd tried to blow up a
trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoes, was
sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge in Boston.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2003 Jan 30, In Afghanistan 4
American soldiers were killed when special operations UH-60 Black Hawk
helicopter went down seven miles east of the Bagram Air Base while on a
training mission.
(AP, 1/31/03)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A11)
2003 Jan 30, Belgium officially
recognized gay marriages.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A9)
2003 Jan 30, Brazil's President
Lula da Silva launched his anti-hunger program with a move to provide
$14 a month to 1.5 million families, most from the country's
poverty-stricken northeast.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 30, An Israeli undercover
unit shot dead two Palestinian militants in Tulkarem, including a
militia leader. Army bulldozers demolished a Palestinian vegetable
market and closed Palestinian police and TV stations in Hebron.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 30, Italian police
arrested 28 Pakistanis during a routine sweep for illegal immigrants.
The arrested possessed explosives, hundreds of forged documents and
maps of the Naples area with "sensitive" targets circled.
(AP, 1/31/03)
2003 Jan 30, Sweden said it will
contribute $5.9 million to help Afghanistan repay debts to the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 30, Thailand sealed its
border with Cambodia, recalled its ambassador and sent military planes
to evacuate hundreds of terrified Thais after rioters looted and
torched its embassy in the Cambodian capital.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2004 Jan 30, NASA’s Mars rover
Opportunity spied hints of a mineral that typically forms in water, a
finding that could mean Mars was once wetter and more hospitable to
life.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2004 Jan 30, The Chinese
government said audits aimed at ferreting out corruption in China
uncovered $8 billion in misused or embezzled funds and widespread
irregularities that produced "serious losses" of state assets.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 30, In remote
southwestern Ethiopia tribal fighting, sparked by a raid on a gold
mine, began. Over the following week nearly 200 people were killed and
some 10,000 others were forced to flee their homes.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Jan 30, Alain Juppe, former
French PM (1995-1997), was found guilty in a party financing scandal
and declared ineligible for public office for 10 years.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 30, Iliad, a French
broadband firm founded by Xavier Niel, made a successful IPO. Niel was
briefly jailed a few months after its IPO, when it was discovered that
one of his sex shops was a front for prostituion. Niel was fully
exonerated, but was fined for receiving money from the shop.
(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-4228042_ITM)
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.74)
2004 Jan 30, Iran's hard-line
Guardian Council reinstated a third of the candidates it had
disqualified from next month's legislative elections.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Japan a judge
ruled that Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue light-emitting diode
(LED), should share in the profits of his former employers. He was
awarded $190 million in a case against Nichia Corp.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)
2004 Jan 30, A 25-30 seat
passenger plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Lagos, Nigeria.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Peru VP Raul Diez
Canseco resigned amid allegations that he gave a tax break to his
girlfriend's father, a scandal that had forced him to step down as
trade minister two months earlier.
(AP, 1/31/04)
2004 Jan 30, It was reported that
Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange had filed their 1st suit against the
US companies that produced the toxic defoliant used by American forces
during the Vietnam War.
(AP, 2/4/04)
2005 Jan 30, In Georgia more than
300,000 customers had no electricity as crews worked to repair power
lines snapped by an ice storm.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, SBC Communications
agreed to acquire AT&T in a $16 billion transaction.
(WSJ, 1/31/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 30, Researchers at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison reported that they've whipped up a
new recipe that could someday treat spinal cord injuries or provide a
cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's
disease.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Jan 30, In much of Bangladesh
traffic ground to a halt and shops closed as a nationwide strike,
protesting a deadly grenade attack on the main opposition party,
entered a 2nd day.
(AFP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, In Colombia a
126-member unit of the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC) disbanded in
Ciudad Bolivar, 155 miles northeast of Bogota, bringing to at least
4,700 the number of fighters who have demobilized in the past two years.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, Iraqis voted to elect
275 members of a transitional national assembly, which will write a
constitution; 111 members of the Kurdish legislature; and local
councils in Iraq’s 18 provinces. Insurgents struck polling stations
with a string of suicide bombings and mortar volleys, killing at least
44 people, including 9 attackers. 5 people were killed and 17 injured
when a suicide attacker blew himself up aboard a minibus bound for a
polling station in central Iraq. 260 attacks left 34 people dead.
Security problems in Mosul kept some 15,000 from polls.
(AP, 1/30/05)(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 30, A British C-130
military transport plane crashed north of Baghdad in Iraq killing 10
troops. An Iraqi insurgent group claimed responsibility for shooting
down the plane in an Internet statement.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Jan 30, More than 100,000
demonstrators gathered in Jerusalem to protest PM Ariel Sharon's plan
to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements from Gaza and four from the West
Bank, demanding it be put to a national referendum.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, Israeli troops killed
a 65-year-old man who entered an unauthorized area near an army post.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Jan 30, Kuwaiti security
forces stormed a building in a residential part of the capital and
exchanged gunfire with suspected terrorists, killing one suspect in a
battle that also left a security officer and a bystander dead.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, In Northern Ireland’s
Catholic enclave of Short Strand Robert McCartney (33), a Catholic
forklift driver, was stabbed to death outside a pub crowded with
Provisional IRA men. On June 3 Terence Davison (49), a reputed IRA
veteran, was charged in the murder. In 2008 Davison was acquitted.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.55)(SFC, 6/4/05, p.A3)(SSFC,
6/5/05, p.A3)(AP, 1/30/08)(AFP, 6/27/08)
2005 Jan 30, OPEC warned that oil
prices, already hovering near $50 a barrel, would remain high through
the spring, even as the cartel decided to keep its production ceiling
at 27 million barrels a day.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, In Karachi, Pakistan,
gunmen riding three motorcycles opened fire outside a Sunni Muslim
mosque, killing a Sunni cleric who once belonged to an outlawed group
suspected of committing sectarian violence and his bodyguard.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan, at a summit of the 53-member African Union in Abuja,
Nigeria, urged pan-African cooperation to resolve conflicts.
(AFP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 30, The World Economic
Forum ended 5 days of talks in Davos, Switz. Chinese Vice Premier Huang
Ju said Chinese per capita income will triple during the next 15 years
and there was no reason for the world to fear his country's emergence
as a global giant. During the forum Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the
MIT Media Lab, proposed providing personal laptops for under $100 to
school children in the poorest parts of the world.
(AP, 1/30/05)(Econ, 10/1/05, p.62)
2006 Jan 30, Pres. Bush nominated
Edward Lazear, Stanford Univ. prof. of economics, as his chief
economics adviser, replacing Ben Bernanke, the new chairman-select of
the Federal Reserve.
(SFC, 1/31/06, p.E1)
2006 Jan 30, The Smithsonian
Institute selected a space on the National Mall near the Washington
Monument as the site of Its National Museum of African American History
and Culture.
(SFC, 1/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Jan 30, Exxon Mobil posted
record profits for any US company: $10.71 billion for the fourth
quarter of 2005 and $36.13 billion for the year.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2006 Jan 30, In Goleta, Ca.,
Jennifer San Marco, a female ex-postal worker, opened fire at a mail
processing plant, killing 5 people before committing suicide. A former
neighbor was found slain the next day and a critically wounded worker
died Feb 1.
(AP, 1/31/06)(SFC, 2/2/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 30, Playwright Wendy
Wasserstein (55) died. She celebrated women confronting feminism,
careers, love and motherhood in such works as "The Heidi Chronicles"
and "The Sisters Rosensweig."
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, Australian Gas Light
Company (AGL) announced that it would build the country's largest wind
farm as part of efforts to meet its legal obligation to invest in
renewable energy. The 95 megawatt facility would cost 236 million
dollars (177 million US dollars) and use 45 wind turbines over an area
of 14 square kilometers (5.6 square miles) near the town of Hallett in
South Australia.
(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, The University of
Vienna announced that it plans to build a new Holocaust research center
in honor of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, Music retailers said
the Rock band Arctic Monkeys have smashed the British record for the
fastest-selling debut album of all time.
(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, Chile’s
President-elect Michelle Bachelet unveiled a Cabinet that fulfilled her
campaign promise to give half the jobs to women and kept a balance
among the four parties in her center-left coalition.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan 30, Feng Xiliang (86), a
US-trained journalist, died in Beijing. In 1978 he helped to launch the
China Daily, the communist government's main English-language newspaper.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2006 Jan 30, The controversy over
Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad escalated as gunmen seized an EU
office in Gaza and Muslims appealed for a trade boycott of Danish
products. Denmark called for its citizens in the Middle East to
exercise vigilance. A roadside bomb targeted a joint Danish-Iraqi
military patrol near the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, Iran’s Interior
Ministry said 7 Iranian soldiers kidnapped last month by Jundallah,
(God's Brigade), have been freed. No word was given on the fate of 2
other kidnapped soldiers.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan 30, European Union
foreign ministers called on Hamas to recognize the state of Israel,
renounce violence and disarm. “It is the view of the Quartet (UN, EU,
American and Russia) that all members of a future Palestinian
government must be committed to nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and
acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the
Roadmap. We urge both parties to respect their existing agreements,
including on movement and access."
(AP, 1/30/06)(http://tinyurl.com/fut5w)
2006 Jan 30, Iraqi and UN health
officials said a 15-year-old girl who died this month was a victim of
the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the first confirmed case
of the disease in the Middle East.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, In Iraq US soldiers
backed by warplanes killed two militants in Ramadi, while at least one
Iraqi policeman died and dozens were wounded in a suicide car bomb
attack on their base south of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, In Nigeria 4 foreign
oil workers were released after being held hostage for more than two
weeks by a militia demanding that residents in southern Nigeria benefit
more from its energy wealth.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 30, In Adana, Turkey, a
bomb exploded at a Turkish-American friendship association in a
southern city that hosts a US air base, wounding five Turks.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2007 Jan 30, The Windows Vista
computer operating system from Microsoft went on sale in the consumer
retail market.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 30, The draft of a new
global climate report said rising temperatures will leave millions more
people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and
Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Florida 2 people
shot and killed a sheriff's wife and a deputy before officers killed
the suspects at the sheriff's home in Jackson County.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, A propane tank
explosion leveled the Little General Store in Ghent, W.Va., killing
four people.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2007 Jan 30, Jeanne Kane, a member
of the 1960s singing group the Kane Triplets, was shot and killed by
her ex-husband John Galtieri, a retired NYC police officer. In 2009
Galtieri was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lhbevm)(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2007 Jan 30, Gordon S. Macklin
(79), a founder of the Nasdaq stock exchange (1971) and a board member
for Worldcom during its notorious accounting fraud, died of unknown
causes.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070131/obit_macklin.html?.v=1)(WSJ, 2/3/07,
p.A8)
2007 Jan 30, Sidney Sheldon (89),
American writer, died. He won awards in three careers, Broadway
theater, movies and television, then at age 50 turned to writing
best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world
of ruthless men.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Britain shut down
Northern Ireland's legislature and planned a new election to determine
the fate of power-sharing, the central goal of the peace accord.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Manchester was chosen
as the site for Britain's first Las Vegas-style supercasino.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao set out on an eight-nation tour of Africa. Foreign ministry
spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: “On the arms exports to Africa, China takes
a cautious and responsible attitude.”
(AP, 1/30/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Colombia’s Supreme
Court opened preliminary investigations into four more politicians for
alleged ties to illegal right-wing militias after it was revealed they
signed a 2001 letter of understanding with the paramilitary groups.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Supporters of
Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa armed with sticks and stones
fought their way into the Congress building, demanding lawmakers call a
referendum on whether the country's constitution should be rewritten.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, The African Union
summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ended with a proposed peacekeeping
force for Somalia still lacking firm commitments for thousands of
troops.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Thousands of German
workers took part in protests against a government plan to raise the
retirement age to 67.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The United Nations
said it will send 350 more peacekeepers to Haiti in the latest effort
to flush out armed gangs from the capital's slums.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Hong Kong Cheng
Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress, told the Financial Times in an interview: "There is a bubble
going on. Investors should be concerned about the risks." He said 70%
of the domestically traded companies were worthless and should be
delisted.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/2ubmjk)
2007 Jan 30, Reliance Industries
opened 9 shops in and around Delhi. They were among the first
supermarkets to appear in India.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.64)
2007 Jan 30, Assailants struck
Shiite worshippers in three Iraqi cities, killing at least 39 people in
bombings and ambushes during the climax of ceremonies marking Ashoura,
the holiest day in the Shiite calendar. Mortar shells slammed into
predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad hours later, killing at
least five people and wounding 20. Bloodshed killed at least 58 people
despite heightened security surrounding Ashoura ceremonies. A morgue
official in the city of Kut said his facility received six more bodies
from previously unreported Ashoura-related violence. Two US soldiers
and one Marine died of wounds sustained due to enemy action in Anbar
province.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Another outbreak of
bird flu was suspected in southern Japan after 23 chickens were found
dead at a farm.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The first all-female
UN peacekeeping unit, made up of 103 women from India, arrived in
Liberia to help the West African nation recover from 14 years of
on-and-off civil war.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Jamal Khalifa, a
Saudi citizen married to a sister of Osama bin Laden, was killed when
gunmen broke into his house in village in Madagascar in an apparent
robbery.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Nigeria's Vice
President Atiku Abubakar accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of buying
arms to suppress unrest in the oil-rich Niger delta rather than
pacifying the region with development.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Pakistan's PM
Musharraf appealed to the European Union to help repatriate some 3
million Afghan refugees, a move he said would help clear his country of
militants blamed for attacks in border regions. A rocket or a grenade
exploded at a Shiite procession, sparking violence in Hangu in which
two Sunni Muslims were fatally shot and 13 other people were wounded,
many of them policemen.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Palestinian PM Ismail
Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence in the
internal violence that killed 36 people in recent days as a tenuous
cease-fire took hold in the Gaza Strip. Gunmen killed a Hamas militant,
but the cease-fire seemed to hold.
(AP, 1/30/07)(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign
minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to calm
the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Somalia's president
agreed to a national reconciliation conference to try to end 16 years
of anarchy in the war-ravaged country.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Researchers said
South Africa's AIDS epidemic, often regarded by health workers as a
disease of the poor, is in fact spreading quickly among the country's
richest and best educated people.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Sweden former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad
Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to protect human
rights.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's pro-Western foreign minister, resigned saying a monthlong
struggle between him and the government dominated by a Russia-leaning
party risked damaging the country's international reputation.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Venezuela said it
plans to obtain air defense missiles to guard strategic sites such as
oil refineries and major bridges against any air strike.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2008 Jan 30, The US Federal
Reserve cut its federal funds rate by half a point to 3%, and left the
door open to further cuts. The 1.25 point cut in 8 days was the largest
since it began disclosing rate moves two decades ago.
(SFC, 1/31/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 30, Democrat John Edwards
exited the presidential race, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he
steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with
family hardship that roused voters' sympathies.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Following his third
place finish in Florida, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped
out of the presidential race and endorsed Sen. John McCain.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In Philadelphia Nurse
Lee Cruceta (35) admitted he cut body parts from 244 corpses and helped
forge paperwork so the parts, some of them diseased, could be used in
unsuspecting patients. Cruceta has also pleaded guilty to related
charges in New York and negotiated pleas to serve concurrent sentences
of 6 1/2 to 20 years.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Using DNA, the
blueprint of life, US researchers said they have made a
three-dimensional structure from particles of gold in a development
that could lead to a host of custom-designed materials.
(Reuters, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, It was reported that
bats were dying off by the thousands as they hibernated in caves and
mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to
find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome." Up
to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more were showing
signs of illness this winter.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber in a vehicle tried to attack a NATO convoy in Kandahar
province's Zhari district, but instead hit a private car wounding 4
civilians.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, The Bangladesh
government said an unidentified person has donated $130 million to help
rebuild hundreds of schools and storm shelters destroyed by a cyclone
along Bangladesh's southwest coast.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In Brazil heavily
armed police cracking down on crime ahead of Rio's famed carnival
celebrations engaged in shootouts with criminals in two slums, killing
at least seven suspects.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, China’s government
deploy nearly 500,000 army troops to assist areas troubled by winter
storms. 15 sailors drowned and another was missing after two ships
collided on China's Yangtze river.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Wilber Varela, one of
Colombia's most-wanted drug lords, was found slain in Merida,
Venezuela. Varela's war with his rival within the Norte del Valle
cartel, Diego Montoya, plagued the city of Cali and much of
southwestern Colombia, killing more than 1,000 people in several years.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Jan 30, Thousands of striking
taxi drivers drove at a snail's pace around France as part of a protest
against government plans to open up their business to greater
competition.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Police in India said
they broke up an illegal organ transplant ring spanning five Indian
states and involving at least four doctors, several hospitals, two
dozen nurses and paramedics and a car outfitted as a laboratory (see
Feb 7).
(AP, 1/30/08)(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 30, The final Winograd
Commission report was announced in Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem. It had
been commissioned to inquire into Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon.
(Econ, 2/2/08,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winograd_Commission)
2008 Jan 30, Ao Man-long, Macau's
highest-level official ever convicted of corruption, was sentenced to
27 years in prison for taking contract kickbacks in the construction
boom that's turning the Chinese gambling enclave into a Las Vegas-style
vacation destination.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 30, Mozambique’s interior
ministry said police intercepted a lorry carrying 39 youngsters as they
were about to be smuggled across the border into Zimbabwe by suspected
child traffickers. Rights groups warned late last year that trafficking
of Mozambican children across to neighboring countries, mostly South
Africa, has risen tenfold in the last two years.
(AFP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In southern Nepal 34
people were wounded in a bomb attack at a political rally.
(AFP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In Pakistan 3
suspected militants allegedly planning suicide attacks died when a bomb
detonated early in Miran Shah.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In the southern
Philippines a homemade bomb ripped through a fish processing plant,
killing three and injuring 27 workers.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, President Vladimir
Putin and his likely successor called for sweeping environmental
improvements, saying cleaning up Soviet-era pollution and reducing
industrial waste are crucial for Russia's economy and public health.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Imprisoned Russian
oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky launched a hunger strike to protest
authorities' refusal to give his jailed ex-lawyer AIDS medication.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, South African police
raided a downtown Johannesburg church late at night where hundreds of
Zimbabweans had taken refuge, hauling people in pajamas to a police
station in scenes reminiscent of apartheid-era raids.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 30, Auto giant Ford
announced a multi-million dollar investment in South Africa, brushing
aside fears about an electricity crisis which has alarmed other
international investors.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, In Sri Lanka troops
overran at least 25 bunkers and killed 10 guerrillas.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Jan 30, Subprime-related
problems at UBS AG mounted as the Swiss bank unveiled $4 billion in new
write-downs in a surprise statement and sank deep into the red for the
year, depressing its shares.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Tunisia hosted the
25th session of the meeting of Arab Ministers of the Interior. Security
chiefs agreed to toughen rules on material that might promote terrorism.
(Econ, 2/9/08,
p.53)(http://allafrica.com/stories/200801220589.html)
2008 Jan 30, The United Nation's
disaster relief agency announced that a meningitis outbreak that has
claimed some 52 lives in Burkina Faso by mid-month has spread to three
other west African countries. A spike in the number of meningitis cases
has also been reported in Mali, Niger and Nigeria since the end of 2007.
(AFP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 30, The UN Security
Council renewed the mandate of the struggling UN peace force on the
Eritrea-Ethiopia border for six months despite a request from
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for just one month.
(Reuters, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Vietnam’s central
bank raised official interest rates up 1.5% to fight inflation which
had reached 14.1%, the highest since 1995.
(Econ, 2/2/08, p.46)
2009 Jan 30, President Barack
Obama signed a series of executive orders that he said should "level
the playing field" for labor unions in struggles with management.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, The Republican Party
chose former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the first black
national chairman in its history.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, US Senator Claire
McCaskill (D., Mo.) introduced legislation that would limit the salary,
bonuses and stock options of executives of financial companies getting
federal bailout aid to no more than what the US president earns:
$400,000 a year, excluding benefits.
(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.B1)
2009 Jan 30, Exxon Mobil Corp.
reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record
for a US company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent
from a year ago. Chevron reported a record $23.93 billion annual profit.
(AP, 1/30/09)(SFC, 1/31/09, p.C1)
2009 Jan 30, Scientists reported
that serotonin, a brain chemical that affects people’s moods, can also
transform dessert locusts into swarms that ravage the countryside.
Serotonin, a messenger molecule, carries signals between nerve cells.
(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A9)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.85)
2009 Jan 30, A trip to the Grand
Canyon turned deadly when a bus carrying Chinese tourists overturned on
an Arizona highway near the Hoover Dam, killing seven people and
injuring 10 others, several critically.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, In West Virginia a
small plane crashed in snowy weather killing all six on board.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 30, In Algeria at least
27 people were wounded and several buildings torched during clashes
among Muslim worshippers outside a mosque in Ghardaia.
(AFP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, Melbourne,
Australia's second-largest city, struggled to cope with a
once-in-a-century heatwave as temperatures hit 109 degrees. The heat
wave has claimed dozens of lives and sparked wildfires that have razed
up to 20 homes.
(AFP, 1/31/09)(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 30, Bahrain’s riot police
in Manama used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters angry
with perceived government discrimination against the Shiite majority.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, At least two million
worshippers gathered north of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka for the
Bishwa Ijtema, or World Muslim Congregation, a three-day event billed
as the largest annual Islamic event after the hajj. It was first held
in the 1960s and was launched by Tablig Jamaat, a non-political group
that urges people to follow Islam in their daily lives.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, In Brazil officials
in Rio Grande do Sul state said 10 victims had drowned in the city of
Pelotas, and that floods had driven thousands from their homes.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, In Britain wildcat
strikes against foreign workers spread through oil refineries and other
energy facilities, fuelled by fears of rising job cuts due to the
global slowdown.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Ethiopia said that
4.9 million of its people will need emergency food aid in the first six
months of 2009 due to drought and appealed for $390 million from donors
to pay for it.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, In Libreville, Gabon,
leaders of the six Central African states (Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, CAR,
Congo, Equatorial Guinea), began meeting to discuss closer economic
ties, including the creation of a new regional airline. The Economic
and Monetary Union of Central Africa, known as CEMAC, planned
discussions on such issues as monetary reform and the free movement of
citizens.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Hans Beck (79),
creator of the colorful plastic Playmobil toy figures that sold by the
millions around the world, died in Germany. Beck had created and
developed the 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) tall line of figures for the
company in 1971. they were dubbed Playmobil and brought to market in
1974.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Jan 30, Georgia's PM Grigol
Mgaloblishvili (35) resigned, citing health reasons after just three
months on the job as President Mikhail Saakashvili's second-in-command.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Guatemala's
government filed 3,350 criminal complaints accusing former soldiers,
paramilitaries and others of human rights violations against more than
5,000 civilians during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Indian officials said
tigers have killed at least three children and four adults in northern
Uttar Pradesh in recent weeks, forcing frightened villagers to stay
indoors while forest rangers search for the wild cats.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Indonesia said it
will repatriate 174 "economic migrants" who fled Myanmar claiming
persecution, as new accounts emerged of their harrowing sea journey and
alleged abuse by the Thai navy. The 174 Rohingya and 19 Bangladeshis
being kept at an Indonesian naval base landed in Weh Island off
northern Sumatra on January 7.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, An Israeli rights
group said it to use a database detailing the complicity of Israel's
government in widespread illegal construction in West Bank settlements
to help Palestinians file lawsuits over their lost land.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Kuwait’s National
Assembly passed a law banning women from working between 8 pm and 7 am
except in hospitals. Legislation also limited the workweek to 48 hours
and required accommodation for expatriate workers. New penalties for
begging carried a 6-month sentence and a fine of 500 Kuwaiti dinars
followed by deportation.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 30, Nigerian militants
called off a cease-fire after clashing with government forces.
(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 30, North Korea announced
that it is scrapping agreements with South Korea on easing military
tensions, accusing Seoul of pushing relations to the brink of war.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, A roadside bomb hit a
Pakistani army convoy near a Taliban stronghold in the Swat valley,
killing three soldiers and wounding another six.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, In Gaza City some
5,000 people rallied as Hamas lawmaker Khalil al-Hayeh emerged from
hiding and declared victory in the 23-day Israeli offensive in Gaza.
(SFC, 1/31/09, p.A5)
2009 Jan 30, Russia moved to
rebuild ties with Cold War ally Cuba, granting it loans and signing
deals on energy and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, South African
President Kgalema Motlanthe signed legislation that disbands the
country's elite anti-crime investigating unit, known as the Scorpions.
The unit will now be part of the standard police forces.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Sri Lanka rejected
growing international calls for a ceasefire amid fears for the safety
of 250,000 civilians trapped as the military pushed for victory against
Tamil rebels.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 30, Turkmenistan's
authoritarian President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov ordered members of
his government to go back to school or lose their jobs. He said that
officials are under qualified to implement the necessary reforms in the
energy-rich Central Asian nation.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 30, In Venezuela an armed
group vandalized Caracas' oldest synagogue, shattering religious
objects and spray-painting walls in what Jewish leaders called the
worst attack ever on their community. On March 26 prosecutors filed
charges against eight police officers and three other people, accusing
them of involvement in the attack.
(AP, 2/1/09)(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Jan 30, Zimbabwe's opposition
decided to join a government with President Robert Mugabe next month,
ending a paralyzing political deadlock that has worsened the desperate
economic and humanitarian crisis. WHO reported that the death toll in
Zimbabwe’s cholera outbreak had reached 3,161, out of 60,401 recorded
cases.
(Reuters, 1/30/09)(AP, 1/30/09)
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