Today in History - April 5
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828 Apr 5, Nicephorus (~77), patriarch of Constantinople (806-815), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1242 Apr 5, Russian troops repelled an invasion attempt by Teutonic Knights. Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeated Teutonic Knights
(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1531 Apr 5, Richard Roose was boiled to death for trying to poison an archbishop.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1585 Apr 5, Clemens Crabbeels became bishop of Hertogenbosch.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1588 Apr 5, Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (Leviathan), was born.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1603 Apr 5, New English king James I departed Edinburgh for London.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1614 Apr 5, American Indian princess Pocahontas (d.1617) married English Jamestown colonist John Rolfe in Virginia. Having converted to Christianity, she went by the name Lady Rebecca. Their marriage brought a temporary peace between the English settlers and the Algonquians.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(AP, 4/5/08)
1614 Apr 5, 2nd parliament of King James I began session (no enactments).
(MC, 4/5/02)
1621 Apr 5, The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1626 Apr 5, Jan van Kessel (d.1679), Flemish painter, was born. He was the grandson of Jan Breughel. He is known for his small paintings on copper and wood. His “Study of Butterflies, Spiders, Lizards, a Beetle, an Ant, a Grasshopper and Other Insects" sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2000 for $1,655,750.
(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W10)(MC, 4/5/02)
1648 Apr 5, Spanish troops and feudal barons struck down people's uprising in Naples.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1649 Apr 5, Elihu Yale (1721), the English philanthropist for whom Yale University is named, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1652)(AP, 4/5/99)
1649 Apr 5, John Winthrop (61), 1st governor of the colony at Mass. Bay, died. [see Mar 26]
(MC, 4/5/02)
1673 Apr 5, Francois Caron (~72), admiral, governor (Formosa), drowned.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1698 Apr 5, Georg Gottfried Wagner, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1722 Apr 5, On Easter Sunday Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered a Polynesian Island 1400 miles from the coast of South America and named it Easter Island. He noted that the island was treeless and wondered how its massive statues were erected. Much of the population was later wiped out and the island became a possession of Chile. An indigenous script called rongorongo survived but by 2002 was still not deciphered. In 2005 Steven Roger Fischer authored “Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island."
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.W1)(http://islandheritage.org/eihistory.html)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.77)
1725 Apr 5, Giacomo Casanova, Italian writer, philanderer, adventurer, was born. [see Apr 2]
(MC, 4/5/02)
1732 Apr 5, Jean Honore Fragonard (d.1806), France, painter, was born. He painted "The Shady Grove." Hubert Robert was a painter friend and the painting "La Jardinaire" was painted by one or the other.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Honor%C3%A9_Fragonard)(AAP, 1964)(WSJ, 2/19/99, p.W12)
1753 Apr 5, British Museum formed. It opened in 1759.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R53)(MC, 4/5/02)
1765 Apr 5, Edward Young (81), English poet (Love of Fame), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1768 Apr 5, 1st US Chamber of Commerce formed in NYC.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1784 Apr 5, Louis [Ludwig] Spohr, German violin virtuoso, composer (Faust), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1788 Apr 5, Franz Pforr, German painter, cartoonist (Lukasbund), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1792 Apr 5, George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)
1794 Apr 5, Georges-Jacques Danton (b.1759), French revolutionary leader, was guillotined along with Marie Jean Herault de Sechelles, French author, politician, and Camille Desmoullins, popular journalist. In 2009 Jonathan Cape authored “Danton: The Gentle Giant of Terror."
(Econ, 7/18/09, p.80)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Danton)
1803 Apr 5, 1st performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony in D.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1806 Apr 5, Isaac Quintard patented apple cider.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1811 Apr 5, Robert Raikes, founder of Sunday Schools, died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1815 Apr 5, Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, in the Java Sea began erupting. [see Apr 10]
(NOHY, 3/90, p.41)(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9071099)
1827 Apr 5, Joseph Lister (d.1912), English physician, was born. He founded the idea of using antiseptics during surgery.
(WUD, 1994, p.836)(HN, 4/5/99)
1830 Apr 5, Alexander Muir (d.1906), poet (Maple Leaf Forever), was born in Lesmahagow, Scotland. He immigrated to Canada in 1833. In October 1867 he composed The Maple Leaf Forever to celebrate the Confederation of Canada.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Muir)
1837 Apr 5, Algernon Charles Swinburne (d.1909), English poet (Atalanta in Calydon), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1839 Apr 5, Robert Smalls, black congressman from South Carolina, 1875-87, was born.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1843 Apr 5, Queen Victoria proclaimed Hong Kong a British crown colony.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1856 Apr 5, Booker T. Washington, Black American educator, was born in Franklin County, Va. The former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute. Booker Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on US stamp. His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in 1999 as the 3rd best work of non-fiction in the English language in the 20th century by the Modern Library.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1858 Apr 5, Washington Atlee Burpee, founded the world's largest mail-order seed company, was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)
1861 Apr 5, Gideon Wells, the Secretary of the Navy, issued official orders for the relief of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1861 Apr 5, Federals abandoned Ft. Quitman, Tx.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1862 Apr 5, Siege of Yorktown, VA., continued.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1865 Apr 5, As the Confederate army approached Appomattox, it skirmished with Union army at Amelia Springs and Paine's Cross Road, Va.
(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1874 Apr 5, Johann Strauss, Jr.'s Opera "Die Fledermaus" was produced in Vienna.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1887 Apr 5, In Tuscumbia, Ala., teacher Anne Sullivan taught her blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller, the word "water" as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1887 Apr 5, British historian Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
(AP, 5/5/08)
1889 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Copper Beeches."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1894 Apr 5, 11 strikers were killed in riot at Connellsville, Penn.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1894 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Empty House."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1895 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of 3 Students."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1895 Apr 5, Playwright Oscar Wilde lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who had accused the writer of homosexual practices.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1900 Apr 5, Spencer Tracy (d.1967), film actor (Adam's Rib, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), was born.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, DB p.56,58)(HN, 4/5/01)
1900 Apr 5, An assassination attempt of Prince of Wales in Brussels failed.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Apr 5, Chester Bowles, ambassador, writer (Conscience of a Liberal), was born in Mass.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Apr 5, Melvyn Douglas, [Hesselberg], actor (Hud, Ghost Story), was born in Macon, Ga.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1902 Apr 5, Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, Bette Davis (d.1989), film actress (Jezebel, All About Eve), was born. "Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone -- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding."
(AP, 7/15/99)(HN, 4/5/01)
1908 Apr 5, Herbert von Karajan, Nazi, conductor (Berlin Philharmonic), was born in Austria.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, George Schick, conductor (Chicago Symphony), was born in Prague, Czech.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, Japanese Army reached the Yalu River as the Russians retreated.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1915 Apr 5, Jack Johnson (1878-1946), African-American heavyweight champion boxer since 1908, lost the heavyweight championship in Cuba to Jess Willard in the 26th round.
(SFC, 1/17/05, p.D6)(www.hickoksports.com/biograph/johnsonjack.shtml)
1915 Apr 5, Black American educator Booker T. Washington (b.1856) died. His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in 1999 as the 3rd best work of non-fiction in the English language in the 20th century by the Modern Library.
(AP, 4/5/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1611)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1916 Apr 5, Gregory Peck, film actor (To Kill a Mockingbird), was born in La Jolla, Calif.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1917 Apr 5, Robert Bloch, sci-fi author (Hugo, Psycho), was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1919 Apr 5, Eamon de Valera became Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland (Dail Eireann).
(HN, 5/5/97)(MC, 4/5/02)
1919 Apr 5, Polish Army executed 35 young Jews.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1920 Apr 5, Arthur Hailey (d.2004), author, was born in Luton, England. His later novels included “Hotel" and "Airport."
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1920 Apr 5, Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1923 Apr 5, Michael V. Gazzo, actor (Cookie, Fear City), was born in Hillside, NJ.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1923 Apr 5, Firestone Co. put their inflatable tires into production.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1923 Apr 5, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert (56), England’s 5th Earl of Lord Carnarvon, died in Egypt from an infected mosquito bite. He financed the excavation of the Egyptian New Kingdom Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert,_5th_Earl_of_Carnarvon)
1923 Apr 5, Nguyen Van Thieu, president of South Vietnam (1965-75), selected this date as his birth date on the grounds that it was luckier than his Nov 1924 birthday.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFC, 10/1/01, p.B2)(MC, 4/5/02)
1925 Apr 5, A few people gathered in Robinson’s drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee, agree that the Butler Bill, opposing the teaching of evolution, might provide a grand opportunity for profit if they can arrange for the trial to happen in their town.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.74-76)
1926 Apr 5, Roger Corman, producer, director (Little Shop of Horrors), was born in Detroit.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1927 Apr 5, Johnny Weissmuller set records in 100 and 200 m. free style.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1928 Apr 5, David Farquhar Andress, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1930 Apr 5, Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1932 Apr 5, A Dutch textile strike was broken by trade unions.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1936 Apr 5, Tupelo, Mississippi, was virtually annihilated by a tornado and 216 died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1937 Apr 5, Colin Powell, U.S. Army general, was born in Bronx, New York. He later became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War and first African American to serve in the position. In 2000 Pres.-elect Bush appointed him to be Sec. of State.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(HN, 4/5/99)(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.A14)
1938 Apr 5, Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Dabrowa, Poland.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1939 Apr 5, Membership in Hitler Youth became obligatory.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1941 Apr 5, German commandos secured docks along the Danube River in preparation for Germany's invasion of the Balkans.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1943 Apr 5, The British 8th Army attacked the next blocking position of the retreating Axis forces at Wadi Akarit.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1944 Apr 5, 140 Lancasters bombed airplane manufacturer in Toulouse.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1944 Apr 5, In Lithuania 40 prisoners filed off their chains and fled through a narrow tunnel at Paneriai. Jewish and Soviet prisoners had been brought to the Ponar forest from Stutthof concentration camp. They were forced to dig up mass graves, collect bodies and burn them. Guards quickly discovered the prisoners and many were shot, but 11 prisoners managed to escape to the forest, reach partisan forces and survive the war. In 2016 an international research team pinpointed the location of the tunnel.
(AP, 6/29/16)
1946 Apr 5, Vincent Millie Youmans (47), US composer (Tea For Two), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1948 Apr 5, WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL., began broadcasting.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1949 Apr 5, The 60 year old St. Anthony's Hospital burned and killed 77 in Effingham, Ill.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1951 Apr 5, Husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of New York City were sentenced to death by Judge Irving R. Kaufman on charges of selling US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, enabling the Soviets to detonate their first nuclear weapon in 1949. Although the couple consistently claimed to be innocent, a jury of 11 men and one woman found them guilty on March 30 on the evidence provided by key government witness David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother. Co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released in 1969. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted on June 19, 1953, leaving behind two young sons.
(CL, 4/5/96)(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(HNPD, 4/5/99)(AP, 4/5/04)
1951 Apr 5, In San Francisco the first fully separate food section made its Chronicle debut.
(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)
1955 Apr 5, Richard J. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago. He served 6 terms until his death in 1976.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/daley1.html)(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.14)
1955 Apr 5, Winston Churchill resigned as British prime minister. He was replaced by Anthony Eden who served to 1957. Eden's biography by Sir Robert Rhodes James (d.1999 at 66) was published in 1987.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.Be)
1962 Apr 5, Herb Gardner's "Thousand Clowns," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1962 Apr 5, NASA civilian pilot Neil A. Armstrong took the X-15 to 54,600 m.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1962 Apr 5, St. Bernard Tunnel was finished and Swiss and Italians workers shook hands.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1964 Apr 5, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur (b.1880) died in Washington, D.C. In 1978 William Manchester authored: "American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur." In 2006 Robert Harvey authored “American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures," which includes a biography of Japan’s Emp. Hirohito in parallel with MacArthur.
(AP, 4/5/97)(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(WSJ, 8/3/06, p.D5)
1964 Apr 5, 1st driverless trains ran on the London Underground.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, In the 37th Academy Awards "My Fair Lady," Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews won.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, Lava Lamp Day was celebrated.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, The second Indo-Pakistani conflict began when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kachchh, a sparsely inhabited region along the West Pakistan-India border.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1967 Apr 5, Pres. Johnson appointed Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984) as the new ambassador to Saigon, South Vietnam. Bunker replaced Lodge and continued as ambassador to 1973.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_South_Vietnam)
1968 Apr 5, Riots erupted across the US following the King assassination.
(CL, 4/5/96)
1968 Apr 5, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sahn ended after 76 days.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1970 Apr 5, Six Nepalese Sherpas died in an avalanche during a Japanese skiing expedition on Everest.
(SFC, 5/15/96, A-10)(www.everestsummiteersassociation.org/listofdeadoneverst.htm)
1971 Apr 5, In Sicily, Italy, Mount Etna began a series of eruptions.
(http://boris.vulcanoetna.com/ETNA_erupt2.html)
1971 Apr 5-1971 Apr 23, In Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) the People’s Liberation Front attempted a nationwide coup, but the army and Mr. Bandaranaike’s government regained control.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)
1972 Apr 5, The Harrisburg 7 trial ended in mistrial after 11 weeks. Philip Berrigan & Sister Elizabeth McAllister were declared guilty, but only of smuggling letters in & out of prison. Librarian Zoia Horn (d.2014) had refused to testify at the trail, becoming the first US librarian to be jailed for refusing to testify. She was freed after 20 days when a jury deadlocked on conspiracy charges.
(www.well.com/~mareev/TIMELINE/1971-1972.html)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.E5)
1973 Apr 5, Pioneer 11, built to be a backup if Pioneer 10 failed, was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on an Atlas-Centaur rocket, on a trajectory similar to Pioneer 10. After Pioneer 10 completed the first ever successful encounter with Jupiter, Pioneer 11 was re-targeted, even while it was flying outward, for an eventual encounter with Saturn after its visit to Jupiter in December, 1973.
(http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/ThePioneers.html)
1974 Apr 5, The World Trade Center (WTC), the tallest building in the world at 110 stories, opened in NYC.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1975 Apr 5, Chiang Kai-shek (b.1887), Chinese statesman and president of the Republic (1943-1950) and President of the Republic of China, Taiwan (1950-1975), died at age 87. Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mayling) moved to New York following her husband's death. In 1982 Sterling Seagrave authored "The Soong Dynasty." In 2009 Jay Taylor authored “The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China."
(WUD, 1994, p.254)(AP, 5/5/97)(SFC, 1/27/00, p.E1,5)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.86)
1976 Apr 5, Tom Stoppard's "Dirty Linen," premiered in London.
(www.donshewey.com/theater_reviews/dirty_linen.html)
1976 Apr 5, Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston at age 72. In 1993 Charles Higham authored “Howard Hughes: The Secret Life." In 1996 Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske authored "Howard Hughes: The Untold Story." Hughes had hired a coterie of Mormons to take care of his confidential business. These included Frank William Gay (1920-2007), who led Hughes’ Summa Corp. from 1970-1978.
(AP, 4/5/97)(SFC, 10/21/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A6)
1976 Apr 5, James Callaghan became PM of England. He served until May 4, 1979.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Callaghan)
1977 Apr 5, In San Francisco a group of 100 people, many with disabilities, began a 26-day sit-in protest at San Francisco’s Federal Offices. Grip bars in toilets were among their demands.
(https://tinyurl.com/y2kclvjr)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.31)
1977 Apr 5, A group of Chilean military men in London announced the formation of a "Front of Democratic Forces of Chile in Exile." Another similar group was formed in Brussels and shortly later in East Berlin.
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A19)
1979 Apr 5, The play “Faith Healer" by Brian Friel opened on Broadway with James Mason as Frank. It closed after 3 weeks.
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.88)(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3933)
1980 Apr 5, Eleven Puerto Rican FALN members were arrested for attempting to rob an armored truck at Northwestern University; three were linked to the raid on the Carter-Mondale campaign headquarters. Several of those arrested were granted clemency in 1999.
(WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A22)
1980 Apr 5, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl (71) was stabbed 31 times and strangled to death. Her body was found in the chapel of Mercy Hospital, Toledo, Ohio. In 2004 Rev. Gerald Robinson (63) was arrested for the murder. In 2006 Robinson was convicted of murder. On July 4, 2014, Robinson, who continued to maintain his innocence, died in a prison hospice unit.
(SFC, 4/24/04, p.A2)(SFC, 5/12/06, p.A3)(AP, 7/4/14)
1981 Apr 5, It was reported that Yugoslav authorities appeared to be sending extra militia units to the southern province of Kosovo after nationalist demonstrations in which 35 people were injured and scores arrested.
(http://tinyurl.com/2n6atk)
1982 Apr 5, Abe Fortas (b.1910), former Supreme court justice (1965-1969), died. He had resigned on May 14, 1969, under pressure for the acceptance of an allegedly illegal payment from a former business associate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Fortas)
1982 Apr 5, Lord Carrington (b.1919) resigned as Britain’s foreign secretary.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carington,_6th_Baron_Carrington)
1983 Apr 5, France threw out 47 Soviet diplomats accusing them of espionage.
(http://tinyurl.com/2n2m92)
1984 Apr 5, In California Tina Faelz (14) was stabbed to death in a culvert under I-680 while she was walking home from school in Pleasanton. Fellow students discovered her body shortly afterward. On Aug 8, 2011, the Pleasanton Police Department announced that Steven J. Carlson (43), a former classmate of the Foothill High student has been arrested in her killing. In 2012 his case was transferred to adult court. On Oct 30, 2014, Carlson was convicted of first-degree murder. In 2020 Carlson wrote letters confessing to the murder.
(SFC, 8/9/11, p.A1)(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)(SFC, 10/31/14, p.D2)(SSFC, 10/25/20, p.A1)
1984 Apr 5, Arthur Travers ("Bomber") Harris (b.1892), marshal of British RAF, died.
(www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p431_Lutton.html)
1986 Apr 5, A Berlin nightclub was bombed. US Sgt. Kenneth Ford (21) and Nermin Hannay (29) died at the scene. Sgt. James Goins (25) died later in hospital. 230 people were injured. Palestinian Yasser Shraydi (Chraidi) was suspected of playing a lead role in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque. In 1996 he was extradited from Lebanon to face charges in Germany. In 1996 Andrea Hasler was arrested in Greece and extradited to Germany. Also a woman named Verena Chanaa, suspected of planting the bomb, and her former husband named Ali Chanaa were arrested in Berlin. In 1997 Musbah Abulghasen Eter was arrested by Italian police in Rome in connection with the bombing. In 2001 V. Chanaa was sentenced to 14 years, A. Chanaa and Eter were sentenced to 12 years, and Chraidi was sentenced to 14 years. Libya was implicated and in 2004 agreed to pay $35 million in compensation.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C3)(SFC, 11/14/01, p.A18)(AP, 9/3/04)
1986 Apr 5, Manly Wade Wellman (b.1903), sci-fi author (Devil's Planet), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_Wade_Wellman)
1987 Apr 5, Fox Broadcasting Co. made its prime-time TV debut by airing the premiere episodes of "Married ... With Children" and "The Tracey Ullman Show" three times each. In 2004 Daniel M. Kimmel authored “The Fourth Network." Ron Leavitt (1947-2008), writer and producer, co-created “Married… With Children" with Michael Moye.
(AP, 4/5/02)(WSJ, 6/11/04, p.W4)(SFC, 2/13/08, p.B7)
1987 Apr 5, In New York state the Schoharie Creek Bridge, a New York State Thruway bridge over the Schoharie Creek near Fort Hunter, collapsed killing 10 people.
(SFC, 4/11/09, p.D12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_Creek_Bridge_collapse)
1988 Apr 5 Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won a solid victory in Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary while, on the Republican side, Vice President George Bush overwhelmed his opposition.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 Apr 5, Honduran and US authorities captured Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros (b.1945). He was taken from Honduras by US marshals, triggering violent protests, the burning of a US Embassy office and the deaths of five people. In 2011 a court issued warrants for the arrest of 11 former officials accused of helping US authorities seize the drug trafficker.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Matta-Ballesteros)(AP, 8/10/11)
1988 Apr 5 A 15-day hijacking ordeal began as gunmen forced a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet to land in Iran.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 Apr 5, Alf Kjellin, Swedish actor, director (Juggler), died.
(www.tv.com/alf-kjellin/person/24487/summary.html)
1989 Apr 5, Joseph Hazelwood, former captain of the Exxon Valdez supertanker that leaked nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, surrendered to authorities in New York.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1989 Apr 5, The government of Poland signed an agreement restoring the independent labor movement Solidarity after a seven-year ban.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1990 Apr 5, It was announced that President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev would hold their first full-scale summit in the United States.
(AP, 4/5/00)
1990 Apr 5, Paul Newman won a court victory over Julius Gold to keep giving all profits from Newman foods to charity.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1990-4/1990-04-05-CBS-15.html)
1991 Apr 5, The US government reported the nation’s jobless rate surged to six-point-eight percent in March.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The space shuttle “Atlantis" blasted off on a mission that included the deploying of the second of “NASA’s" Great Observatories. NASA launched the $670 million Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. It was directed to a suicide plunge in 2000.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC, 6/3/00, p.A6)(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, Former Texas Senator John Tower, his daughter and 21 other people were killed in a commuter plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The UN adopted Resolution 688, which condemned Sadam Hussein’s suppression of the Kurds and demanded respect and political rights for all citizens. A safe haven was established above Iraq’s 36th parallel.
(www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0688.htm)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)
1992 Apr 5, In Washington, D.C., a crowd estimated by authorities at half a million marched in support of abortion rights.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton died in Little Rock, Ark., at age 74.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, A medical student (Suada Dilberovic) became the first fatality of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina as Serb nationalists began forcibly opposing the republic's secession from Yugoslavia.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, Pres. Fujimori seized dictatorial power by sending tanks to shut down Peru's Congress and judiciary. Former president Alan Garcia fled Peru to avoid arrest by the Fujimori regime. In 2008 Peru's Cabinet chief testified at the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori that security forces attempted to assassinate Garcia following the shut down of Congress.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.D4)(AP, 1/18/08)
1993 Apr 5 North Carolina defeated Michigan 77-71 to win its first NCAA basketball championship in 11 years.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1993 Apr 5 The European Community called for more and tighter sanctions on Serbia to try to force Belgrade's allies in Bosnia to accept a peace plan.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1994 Apr 5, "Jackie Mason Politically Incorrect" opened at the John Golden Theater in NYC for 347 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0495)
1994 Apr 5, President Clinton presided over a 90-minute town hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., in which he called himself the victim of "false charges" in connection with the Whitewater controversy.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1994 Apr 5, A US Navy A-6E bomber jet slammed into the San Francisco Bay killing both the pilot and navigator.
(SSFC, 3/31/19, DB p.39)
1994 Apr 5, Kurt Cobain (b.1967), singer-musician for the grunge band Nirvana, committed suicide in Seattle. His body was found on April 8 at his Lake Washington Boulevard home.
(AP, 4/8/97)(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.52)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain)
1994 Apr 5, Andre Victor Tchelistcheff (b.1901), Russian-born winemaker, died in California. He developed frost-prevention techniques and helped curb vine disease in Napa Valley. Besides managing Beaulieu Vineyards in Napa for 35 years, Tchelistcheff operated a private wine laboratory in St. Helena for 15 years. He also assembled a fabled library of wine literature.
(http://tinyurl.com/8kqmd)
1995 Apr 5, The House of Representatives passed, 246-188, a tax-cut bill, the final major item in the Republicans' "Contract with America."
(AP, 4/5/00)
1995 Apr 5, The Mekong Agreement created the Mekong River Commission with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as members.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.34)(www.kellnielsen.dk/mekong/agreem.htm)
1996 Apr 5, Accompanied by six children who survived the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton bowed his head in silent prayer at the site where 168 people were killed almost a year earlier.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1996 Apr 5, In NYC a gunman wearing a black jacket and a Wu-Tang Clan hat walked past Shdell Lewis on /Staten Island, turned around and opened fire. Lewis was hit several times, collapsed nearby and later died at a hospital. Police soon identified Grant Williams (25) as his killer. Williams was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to life in prison, where he spent 23 years — all for a crime he did not commit. On July 22, 2021, a Richmond County judge vacated Williams’s conviction.
(AP, 7/23/21)
1996 Apr 5, Francis Wood, administrator of the China dept. of the British Library questioned the authenticity of Marco Polo’s travels in a study titled: “Did Marco Polo Go to China?"
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1996 Apr 5, Heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia left 75 people dead, after peace talks broke down between clan leaders Mohamed Farak Aidid and his former backer, Osman Hassan Ali Ato.
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1997 Apr 5, From Serbia it was reported the Pres. Milosevic might step down from Serbian presidency at the end of his 2 terms and try to assume the ceremonial post of president of all of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro).
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5, In Zaire the rebels agreed to allow a UN airlift of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees back to their homeland.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A17)
1998 Apr 5, In Leeds, England, environment chiefs from the world's top eight industrialized nations announced plans to curb the smuggling of hazardous waste, endangered species and substances that damage the ozone layer.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1998 Apr 5, In Indonesia an outbreak of dengue fever killed 125 people since the beginning of the year in South Sumatra.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T13)
1998 Apr 5, Iran and Iraq exchanged 1,589 prisoners of war, bringing the number to over 4,000. Up to 30,000 prisoners were thought to be held by both sides.
(SFC, 4/6/98, p.A16)
1998 Apr 5, In Japan the $3.8 billion, 12,906 foot Akashi Kaikyo Bridge linking the islands of Shikoku and Honshu was opened. It was built to withstand an 8.5 earthquake and took ten years to build.
(SFEC, 4/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Apr 5 South Korea accepted to reopen talks with North Korea on economic aid and other issues. North Korea proposed yesterday that officials at the deputy minister level meet in Beijing for talks.
(SFEC, 4/6/98, p.A12)
1999 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court ruled that police can search the belongings of car passengers while seeking evidence against the driver.
(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, In Laramie, Wyo., Russell Henderson pleaded guilty to kidnapping and felony murder in the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student.
(AP, 4/5/00)
1999 Apr 5, At Newport News, Va., members of local 8888 of the United Steelworkers went on strike. The shipyard offered a $2.49 per hour raise over 3 years as opposed to the union demand for $3.95.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.D1)
1999 Apr 5, In Kansas City, Mo., 5 decomposing bodies were found in the home of Gary Beach (56) and his stepson. Beach was arrested the next day. The 5 dead included his stepson and were thought to have been dead from 2-7 days.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A3)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 5, NATO attacks struck Belgrade, Nis and Novi Sad in the most ferocious attacks for a 13th straight day. The first Kosovo refugees were flown out to Norway and Turkey and the US said it would take some 20,000 to Guantanamo Ari Base in Cuba. Pres. Clinton asked for public donations for the relief effort.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1,8)(AP, 4/5/00)
1999 Apr 5, In Indonesia 2 people were killed during clashes in Liquisa, East Timor. Jose Alexandre Gusmao, under house arrest in Jakarta, called for guerrilla attacks against Indonesian forces. In Maluku province soldiers found some 20 burned bodies in the village of Larat on Kai Besar Island.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Apr 5, In Macedonia ethnic Albanians were blocked at the border due to extremely slow processing by government officials. Political stability was feared and the UN was denied a mandate to process the refugees.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A8)
1999 Apr 5, Iraq claimed that US and British warplanes bombed a control station that delivered oil approved for export on a UN humanitarian program.
(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on Libya.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, Serbia said a dozen civilians were killed by NATO bombs at Aleksinac.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, In Turkey a suicide bomber killed himself and a teenage girl in an apparent attempt on the life of Gov. Suleyman Kamci.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A10)
2000 Apr 5, Ending a two-year investigation, a US independent counsel cleared Labor Secretary Alexis Herman of allegations that she’d solicited $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions.
(AP, 4/5/01)
2000 Apr 5, A 261-page report by the 12-person National Research Council said “it was not aware of any evidence suggesting foods on the market today are unsafe to eat as a result of genetic modification."
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 5, The Netscape 6 browser was introduced.
(WSJ, 4/5/00, p.B1)
2000 Apr 5, The WHO and UNAIDS recommended that the drug trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (or cotrimoxazole) be used to fight AIDS in Africa. The antibiotic, also known as Bactrim, would help victims live longer.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 5, In Brazil Jose Rainha Jr., leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, was acquitted of the 1989 killing of farm owner Jose Machado Neto.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, Yoshiro Mori took over as Japan’s new prime minister, succeeding Keizo Obuchi, who’d been felled by a stroke.
(AP, 4/5/01)
2000 Apr 5, In Mexico Rodolfo Montiel, an imprisoned peasant leader, was awarded the $125,000 Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts to protect the forests of the Sierra Madre. 6 other winners were scheduled for Apr 17.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A16)
2000 Apr 5, In Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to life in prison for hijacking and terrorism due to his Oct 12 refusal to let a passenger plane land with 198 people aboard.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, In Peru Alejandro Toledo (54), the “Cholo," rose dramatically in the polls as opposition candidate to Pres. Alberto Fujimori, the “Chino." Toledo represented the Peru Possible Party.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, In Russia the FSB arrested a US businessman for suspected espionage after he allegedly bought information on defense technology from Russian scientists. Edmond Pope was later identified as a retired navy captain working for Pennsylvania State Univ. in applied research. The key witness against Pope recanted his testimony in Nov.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)(USAT, 4/7/00, p.6A)(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A14)
2001 Apr 5, Wang Zhizhi of China, 7 feet and 1 inch tall, made his NBA debut for the Dallas Mavericks. Wang Zhizhi became the first Chinese player to play in the NBA when he took the court for Dallas against Atlanta. He scored six points and grabbed three rebounds as the Mavericks beat the Hawks 108-to-94.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.A17)(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, The United States and China intensified negotiations for the release of an American spy plane's crew; President Bush, in a conciliatory gesture, expressed regret over the plane's Apr 1 in-flight collision with a Chinese fighter that triggered the tense standoff.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A1)(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, The DJIA rose 402 to 9,918, its 2nd largest point gain ever. The Nasdaq rose 146 to 1,785, its 3rd biggest % increase.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A1)
2001 April 5, Michelle Curran (16) was reported missing in Las Vegas. She was kidnapped as she hitchhiked, sexually abused for three weeks, and then shot in the head. In 2006 Michael Thorton (50) and Janeen Snyder (26) were both found guilty of murder, rape with a foreign object, and burglary. The pair were sentenced to death.
(http://tinyurl.com/fww93)(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B2)
2001 cApr 5, Presidents Robert Kocharian of Armenia and Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan met in Key West, Fla., for negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh. A new $2.7 billion oil pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, was expected to pass just north of the area. Halliburton Co., was a finalist in engineering bids for the line and Vice President Chaney was the former chief executive of Halliburton. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice formerly served on the Board of Directors for Chevron, a player in the pipeline bid.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 5, Dutch driver Perry Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his truck in Dover, England.
(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, Iyad Hardan, head of Sarai al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, was killed in the explosion of a booby trapped pay phone in the West Bank.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A16)
2001 Apr 5, In Mexico Brig. Gen. Ricardo Martinez was arrested with aides Capt. Pedro Maya and Lt. Javier Quevedo on drug trafficking charges.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 5, In the Philippines former Pres. Estrada was indicted for allegedly pocketing $82 million in kickbacks and payoffs over his 2 ½ years in office.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D6)
2002 Apr 5, US mediator Anthony Zinni met with Yasser Arafat in Ramallah as Israeli forces continued their offensive. At least 35 Palestinians were killed on the bloodiest day of fighting since the beginning of Israel's week-old military offensive.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A1)(AP, 4/5/03)
2002 Apr 5, A new US stamp that featured the SF Bay Area was 1st displayed. It was part of the new 50-state “Greetings from America" series.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A14)
2002 Apr 5, The coffin of the Queen Mother was carried through the heart of London on a gun carriage as Britain honored the woman whose life spanned a tumultuous century of upheaval and change.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2002 Apr 5, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei urged Islamic oil-producing countries to suspend oil exports for a month to countries supporting Israel.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A10)
2003 Apr 5, In the 18th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US 3rd Infantry troops entered Baghdad for the first time. Coalition troops took several objectives surrounding the capital in the north and northwest. US warplanes hit Iraqi positions near the commercial center of Mosul. Up to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed as American armored vehicles moved into Baghdad.
(AP, 4/5/03)(AP, 4/6/03)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 5, Ali Hassan al-Majid (king of spades), Saddam Hussein’s 1st cousin and dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents for ordering a 1988 poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, was killed by an airstrike on his house in Basra.
(AP, 4/7/03)(SFC, 4/26/03, A14)
2003 Apr 5, The Belgian Senate approved a measure gutting a 1993 war crimes law.
(AP, 4/6/03)
2003 Apr 5, Croatian police have arrested Ivica Rajic (45), a Bosnian Croat long sought by the UN war crimes tribunal, for allegedly carrying out atrocities against Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 4/6/03)
2003 Apr 5, In East Timor Jose Cardosa Fereira, senior militia leader, was found guilty of murder, rape and torture of civilians in East Timor who supported the territory's 1999 independence from Indonesia. He was sentenced to 12 years.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2003 Apr 5, A prison riot in northern Honduras left 86 prisoners dead and dozens more injured at the 1,600-inmate El Porvenir prison outside of La Ceiba. Soldiers and police searched for escaped inmates. Honduras' 26 prisons were built to house 5,500 inmates but are crammed with 13,000 prisoners. In 2008 a court sentenced 22 soldiers and police to a combined 740 years in prison for the massacre. In 2008 a Honduran court sentenced Dimas Antonio Benitez, a former prison official, to 1,051 years in jail for the deaths in the prison massacre.
(AP, 4/6/03)(SFC, 4/7/03, p.A8)(AP, 6/4/08)(AP, 9/7/08)(AP, 2/16/12)
2003 Apr 5, In Israel Brian Avery (23), a peace activist from Albuquerque, NM, was wounded when Israeli troops opened fire in Jenin.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A8)
2003 Apr 5, In the southern Philippines two bombings killed two people and wounded eight.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2003 Apr 5, Uganda Army troops killed at least 30 LRA rebels in the northern Pader and Gulu districts, days after a three-week cease-fire expired.
(AP, 4/8/03)
2004 Apr 5, Univ. of Connecticut won the basketball NCAA finals over Georgia Tech 82-73.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. Edward P. Jones won the fiction award for "The Known World." Steven Hahn won the history award for "A Nation Under Our Feet" Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration." Anne Applebaum won the general non-fiction award for "Gulag: A History."
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 5, A US-Canadian task force investigating the massive power blackout of Aug 14, 2003, called for urgent approval of mandatory reliability rules to govern the electric transmission industry.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2004 Apr 5, Leonard Reed (b.1907), tap dancer extraordinary, died.
(Econ, 4/17/04, p.84)
2004 Apr 5, Rebel attacks across Chechnya killed six Russian soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, China promised $122 million to Pres. Skerritt in return for revoking Dominica’s recognition of Taiwan.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.29)
2004 Apr 5, Six ethnic Croats surrendered to the U.N. war crimes tribunal to face allegations they participated in the torture and massacre of Muslims in Bosnia in 1993.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, The governing coalition of Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean territory, collapsed over allegations that the justice minister gave favors to a political donor convicted of corruption.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, Indonesians voted in legislative elections with Golkar, the party that once supported ex-dictator Suharto, expected to win the most seats. Some 140,000 Indonesians chose between 450,000 candidates competing for 15,276 offices.
(AP, 4/5/04)(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)(Econ, 4/10/04, p.31)
2004 Apr 5, In northeastern Iran an oil tanker truck and a passenger bus collided, killing 30 people and injuring 27.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, declared a radical Shiite cleric an "outlaw" after his supporters rioted in Baghdad and four other cities in fighting that killed at least 52 Iraqis, eight U.S. troops and a Salvadoran soldier. A warrant was issued for al-Sadr related to the murder of a rival Shiite leader in 2003.
(AP, 4/5/04)(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Israeli troops killed 3 Palestinians near a Gaza settlement.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Alexander Lerner (90), an eminent cyberneticist and a leading member of the "refusenik" movement that promoted Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, died in Israel.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, A flash flood swept through two border communities in northern Mexico, flooding rivers, washing away houses and killing 15 people. Dozens more were reported missing.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, Pakistan gave tribesmen 2 weeks to expel foreign terrorists.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A3)
2004 Apr 5, In Sri Lanka Pres. Kumaratunga appointed Mahinda Rajapakse as PM.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A2)
2005 Apr 5, The US State Dept. toughened passport rules and announced that Americans returning from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere would be required to show their passports in a program to be fully phased in by Dec 31, 2007.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D1)
2005 Apr 5, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former White House official who has served as US ambassador in his native Afghanistan, was named to take over the post in Iraq.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Crude futures prices fell as traders took profits from a recent run-up. The EU cut its economic growth forecast and OPEC began discussions on another output increase.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Peter Jennings (b.1938), Canada-born ABC News anchorman revealed, he had lung cancer. He died in August 2005.
(AP, 4/5/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jennings)
2005 Apr 5, Saul Bellow (89), Nobel winning novelist, died in Brookline, Mass. His books included “The Dangling Man" (1944), “Herzog" (1964), and “Ravelstein" (2000). In 2015 Zachary Leader authored “The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964."
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A1)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.76)(SSFC, 5/10/15, p.N1)
2005 Apr 5, Dale Messick (b.1906), creator of the Brenda Starr cartoon series, died. The strip began in 1940 in Long Island.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.B7)
2005 Apr 5, The IMF warned that the growing market for credit derivatives and other complex securities could suffer a rapid selloff if conditions turned negative.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 5, In Brazil authorities charged eight policemen with murder for the Mar 31 death-squad killings that left 30 people dead on the outskirts of Rio.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Amnesty International said China accounted for the majority of executions reported worldwide last year, but the true frequency of the death penalty is impossible to count because many death sentences are carried out secretly.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, China's top industrial safety official said the number of deaths in China's accident-plagued coal mines surged by nearly 21% to 1,113 in the first three months of this year despite a national safety crackdown.
(AP, 4/5/05)(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 5, In Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood, an abandoned taxi exploded on an expressway near a U.S. patrol, killing a US soldier and wounding four others. A US Marine was killed by an explosion in the sprawling, western province of Anbar.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Rebels opposed to a bus link joining parts of Kashmir controlled by rivals India and Pakistan set off bombs and fought gun battles with troops, two days before the service was due to start.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla (39), radio reporter, was wounded in the chest, abdomen, legs and arms during an attack in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. She died from her wounds April 16.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 5, Saudi police killed 2 more militants, bringing the total to 9, as security forces continued a tense standoff in ar-Rass. Among those killed were Moroccan Kareem Altohami al-Mojati and Saudi Saud Homood Obaid al-Otaibi, who were ranked 4 and 7 respectively on Saudi Arabia's list of 26 most wanted al-Qaida-linked terror suspects.
(AP, 4/5/05)(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 5, Tens of thousands of Sudanese marched through the capital Khartoum against a UN resolution referring war crime suspects to the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, The UN handed prosecutors from the International Criminal Court thousands of documents and a list of 51 people to be investigated for alleged war crimes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/6/05)(Econ, 4/9/05, p.38)
2006 Apr 5, Seattle customs authorities arrested 18 men and 4 women who had arrived from China in a 40-foot cargo container.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 5, Katie Couric announced she was leaving NBC's "Today" show to become anchor of "The CBS Evening News."
(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3 players had raped a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke cancelled the lacrosse season. The rape charges were later dropped, but the players still faced allegations of sexual offense and kidnapping; all maintained their innocence.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Apple Corp. introduced free software to allow users of its latest Mac models to run MS Windows.
(Reuters, 4/5/06)(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 5, SF picked Google and EarthLink to bring free Internet access to the city.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3 players rape a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke cancelled the lacrosse season.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 5, Brown-Forman said it will lay off 76 people and close its Fetzer Vineyards’ Valley Oaks Hospitality Center in Hopland. Brown-Forman acquired Fetzer in 1992.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.F2)
2006 Apr 5, Allan Kaprow (b.1927), an artist who coined the term “happenings" in the late 1950s, died at his home in Encinitas, Ca. In 1966 he published “Assemblage, Environments, and Happenings."
(SFC, 4/11/06, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
2006 Apr 5, Gene Pitney (b.1941), US singer and songwriter and pop music star of the 1960s, died during a tour of Britain. His chart-topping hits included “Town Without Pity" (1961) "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" and "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart."
(AP, 4/5/06)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B7)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.86)
2006 Apr 5, In Afghanistan coalition forces killed an insurgent and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on a band of Taliban.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 5, A Brazilian congressional investigative committee gave its final approval to a report recommending prosecution of over 100 people linked to a campaign finance and corruption scheme run by former members of the governing Workers Party.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain reiterated its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and rejected Argentina's claims in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office began criminal proceedings against nine individuals and five companies it alleges fixed the price of two widely prescribed generic drugs sold to the country's free National Health Service (NHS).
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said London would press for Romania to be granted membership of the European Union "as soon as possible" as he praised the country's work against people trafficking.
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Cuban coast guard officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler and arrested two others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39 migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat. State television later said that the migrant smuggler who was fatally shot had left the island as a migrant himself three weeks earlier, but returned as a crew member on the same boat to repay a debt.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 5, In France demonstrators blocked roads, rail lines and mail delivery trucks in a second straight day of protests to demand the repeal of a divisive jobs law, while unions vowed they would not compromise in talks with President Jacques Chirac's ruling party on the issue.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Indonesia an explosion in the headquarters of the paramilitary police command in the western city of Medan killed two officers and injured several others.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, A video posted on the Internet in the name of an extremist group claimed to show Iraqi insurgents dragging the burning body of a US pilot on the ground after the April 1 crash of an Apache helicopter.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Iraq a Sunni professor was found dead hours after he was abducted in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Nepal police detained dozens of opposition politicians and ordered a night curfew to thwart a planned general strike aiming to pressure King Gyanendra to restore democracy.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Pakistani security forces and suspected Islamic militants battled for a second day near the Afghan border, leaving four soldiers and 16 fighters dead.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, PM Ismail Haniyeh said the new Hamas-led government is broke and missed the April 1 monthly pay date for tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In the Solomon Islands former premier Sir Allan Kemakeza narrowly clung to his seat in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 5, Militants who captured the South Korean fishing vessel off the coast of Somalia denied they were pirates and said they were defending their waters from illegal fishing.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Sudan said it would allow UN Undersecretary Jan Egeland to visit Darfur.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Thailand’s PM Thaksin Shinawatra handed over power to a longtime friend and fellow police officer, less than 24 hours after saying he would step down over allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Actor Michael Douglas presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with an award for his dedication to ridding the world of land mines, marking the first international day to honor the cause.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Venezuela Jorge Aguirre, a photographer for the Caracas daily El Mundo, was shot and killed on the way to an anti-crime protest. He managed to take a picture of his assailant fleeing on a motorcycle. Homicide charges were filed on April 15 against Boris Lenis Blanco (33), a police officer, who was arrested April 13.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2007 Apr 5, The US pressed Ethiopia for details on detainees from 19 nations taken to secret prisons there and interrogated by CIA and FBI agents.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, The US Transportation Dept. said it will require all passenger vehicles to have electronic gear to prevent deadly rollovers by 2012.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, Florida’s Gov. Charlie Crist persuaded 2 of 3 members of the state board of executive clemency that most felons had served their time and should automatically recover the right to vote.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.35)
2007 Apr 5, FBI Special Agent Barry Lee Bush was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow agent as a stakeout team closed in on three suspected bank robbers in Readington, N.J.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, In San Mateo, Ca., Dr. William Ayres (75), a published child psychologist, was arrested on 14 counts of child molestation, which dated back as far as 1969. 4 new charges were added on April 12. In 2013 Ayres was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/7/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/13/07, p.B1)(SFC, 8/27/13, p.C1)
2007 Apr 5, Darryl Stingley (55), a former New England Patriots player paralyzed during an on-field collision in 1978, died in Chicago.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, Australian police charged two men, including an army captain, with stealing military rocket launchers, some of which ended up in the hands of a suspected terrorist.
(AFP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Fifteen British sailors and marines held captive by Iran returned home to a nation relieved at their freedom but also outraged that they were used by Tehran's propaganda machine.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Ramzan Kadyrov was inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya on a blessing from the Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more than a decade of separatist fighting.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, China told banks to increase their reserves for the third time this year, cutting the amount of money available for lending in a new effort to cool an investment boom that Beijing worries could lead to a financial crisis. Chinese celebrated the annual tomb-sweeping festival, but state media said soaring funeral costs were leading to people complaining they can no longer afford to die.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bus carrying passengers on the start of the Easter holiday crashed in northern Colombia, igniting a blaze that killed 27 people, including six children.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Greek cruise ship, the Sea Diamond, sank off the Aegean Sea island of Santorini, forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,600 people.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.E3)
2007 Apr 5, The editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia was acquitted of charges that he violated the Muslim nation's indecency laws by publishing pictures of scantily clothed women.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bomb struck an oil pipeline, cutting off supplies and causing a huge fire in southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait. A US Army helicopter went down south of Baghdad, injuring 4 of the 9 soldiers aboard. A US soldier was killed by small-arms fire while on patrol in eastern Baghdad. 4 British soldiers and a Kuwaiti interpreter were killed in an ambush in southern Iraq. Thaer Ahmed, assistant director of Baghdad TV, was killed when a car bomb struck the television offices in Jami'a, in west Baghdad. 12 people were wounded. Police in west Baghdad found the bullet-riddled body of Khamael Muhsin, a famous television presenter during Saddam Hussein's rule. She was kidnapped two days ago. Gunmen killed 18 Iraqi, British and American soldiers in the past 24 hours in attacks in Baghdad, the southern oil hub of Basra and near the northern city of Mosul.
(AP, 4/5/07)(Reuters, 4/5/07)(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 5, Kosovo's parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a UN plan that proposes internationally supervised independence for the disputed province.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, In eastern Pakistan a speeding tractor plowed into a roadside school, killing nine children and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A British diplomat met with Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh to push for the release of a kidnapped BBC journalist, the first direct meeting between a European Union diplomat and a Hamas official of the Palestinians' new coalition government.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Attackers fired a grenade into a mosque in Thailand's restive south, wounding 16 Muslim worshippers in an act of defiance after authorities imposed a strict curfew to contain escalating violence.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Ugandan court scrapped the nation's adultery law, saying it was unconstitutional and favored men.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2008 Apr 5, Skybus Airlines, a low-cost carrier based in Columbus, Ohio, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.D3)
2008 Apr 5, Charlton Heston (84), film star, died. he won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s.
(AP, 4/6/08)
2008 Apr 5, Afghan and NATO forces killed 15 Taliban insurgents in separate raids in southern Afghanistan, where police also captured Abdul Jabar, a senior Taliban commander.
(AFP, 4/6/08)
2008 Apr 5, British PM Gordon Brown called the current global economic crisis the largest challenge of its kind in centuries while addressing some of the world's key decision makers at a summit on climate change, the economy and global poverty.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 was hit by fresh flights disruption when the baggage system suffered a major software problem.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Croatia President Bush celebrated NATO's expansion into former communist territory and urged further enlargement, highlighting differences with Moscow hours before final talks with outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Iran said it would not make any concession in exchange for incentives offered by the West to halt sensitive atomic activities.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Youssef Adel, an Assyrian Orthodox priest, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus carrying morning commuters on the busy Palestine Street, killing at least four passengers and wounding 15.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Japan G8 development officials began a two-day ministerial meeting in Tokyo on how to ease suffering in Africa and other impoverished states as well as bolster their efforts in foreign development aid.
(AFP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Kashmir police fired tear gas to break up a protest by stone-throwing demonstrators against alleged prison abuses as a strike paralyzed life in revolt-hit Srinagar.
(AFP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Electoral officials said Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF took 30 seats in elections for the country's senate, or upper house of parliament, with the combined opposition taking the same number. The president and tribal chiefs are to appoint the remaining 93 seats. Opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai claimed outright victory in presidential elections and warned Robert Mugabe's ruling party would resort to violence to cling to power. 3 cattle ranchers were driven off their land, and equipment and livestock were seized.
(Reuters, 4/5/08)(AFP, 4/5/08)(AP, 4/6/08)
2009 Apr 5, State media said China has reopened Tibet to foreign tourists almost two months after imposing a ban ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In the Czech Rep. President Barack Obama set out his vision for ridding the world of nuclear arms, declaring the US ready to lead steps by all states with atomic weapons to reduce their arsenals. Obama said the US will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of nuclear weapons. Obama also urged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member of the 27-nation bloc, in remarks rejected outright by France and met coolly by Germany.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen (b.1964) began serving as prime minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_L%C3%B8kke_Rasmussen)
2009 Apr 5, In Iraq Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won assurances that Iraqi leaders will protect Palestinians living in Iraq, including thousands stranded in desert refugee camps, during his first visit to the country since the US-led invasion of 2003. Two roadside bombs in Fallujah killed one officer and wounded three other people. Someone threw a grenade at a police patrol in Samarra, killing one policeman and wounding four. 8 people, including seven policemen, were wounded by a bomb that blasted their patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, Macedonia’s conservative candidate Gjorgje Ivanov (49) won the runoff election in a landslide with about two-thirds of the popular vote.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 5, In Moldova the Communist Party won re-election under alleged ballot rigging. The Communists, in power since 2001, won about 50% of the vote in what international observers said was a fair election. With a population of 4.1 million, Moldova was one of Europe's poorest nations with an average monthly salary of $350. Last year Moldovans abroad sent home $1.6 billion, roughly the same amount as the state budget.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen killed a policeman as they kidnapped a Scottish oil-services worker in Port Harcourt. The British worker was released on April 25.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 5, North Korea defied international warnings and sent a rocket hurtling over the Pacific, a launch President Barack Obama called an illicit test of the regime's long-range missile technology that threatened the security of nations "near and far." North Korea said it successfully sent its "Kwangmyongsong-2" satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful bid to develop its space program. South Korea and the US military disputed North Korea's claim of a successful launch into space, saying the rocket fell into the ocean in stages.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Pakistan a suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque in Chakwal city in Punjab province killed 24-26 people. A senior Pakistani Taliban commander promised two more attacks per week in the country if the US does not stop missile strikes on Pakistani territory.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.39)
2009 Apr 5, Rwanda's ambassador said the bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Somalia an overnight mortar attack aimed at troops and peacekeepers in Mogadishu killed a child and wounded six other people, including 4 of the dead child's siblings. Somali pirates hijacked a small Yemeni boat in the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 5, Sri Lanka’s military said 3 days of intense fighting in the northeast has left 525 Tamil Tiger rebels dead and pushed the remaining guerrillas into a small "no-fire" zone crowded with tens of thousands of civilians. Woman rebel commanders Vidusha and Durga were reported to be among those killed.
(AP, 4/5/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.38)
2009 Apr 5, Off the coast of Yemen another smuggling boat carrying 23 Somalis hit rough seas. 13 made it to shore and two were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2010 Apr 5, The Discovery space shuttle launched with 7 astronauts, including 3 women, for a rendezvous with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 5, In NYC 4 people were shot and dozens of people were arrested in a mile-long stretch of Manhattan near Times Square in mayhem following the city's annual auto show.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In West Virginia a huge underground explosion blamed on methane gas killed 25 coal miners at Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine, about 30 miles south of Charleston. It was the worst US mining disaster since 1984. Four missing miners were found dead on April 10. In 2009 the US Mine Safety and health Administration (MHSA) had cited the mine 515 times, often for problems with its ventilation and escape route plans. On Feb 22, 2012, mine superintendent Gary May (43) was charged with conspiracy to defraud the federal government. May became the 2nd employee of Massey to face prosecution in the case. Massey CEO Don Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2015 and one year in prison. In 2020 a documentary play, "Coal Country" by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, opened in Manhattan.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/10/10)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.32)(SFC, 2/23/12, p.A9)(Econ., 3/7/20, p.76)
2010 Apr 5, In Afghanistan NATO forces killed 10 militants in a raid on a compound in Nangarhar province's Khogyani district. Gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in Pul-e Khumri, capital of northern Baghlan province. In Helmand province 4 insurgents and 4 civilians died in a NATO airstrike.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northern Congo UN-backed government forces retook the Mbandaka provincial airport from rebels. In eastern Congo 2 soldiers shot and killed national radio journalist Patient Chebeya Bakome. Bakome's brother said the soldiers shot Bakome in front of his wife and took his phone and money. Beni police arrested the 2 soldiers.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Ethiopia a British geologist (39) working on behalf of the state-run Malaysian energy company Petronas was shot dead near Danot town.
(Reuters, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Iraq a Shiite couple and four of their children were gunned down in their home outside Baghdad.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mexico five men were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car outside a shopping mall in Mazatlan, in the northeastern state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mongolia over 5,000 protesters surged through the center of Ulan Bator demanding that the government of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and the Mongolian Democratic Party fulfill promises from the 2008 elections to crack down on graft and better distribute the country's mining wealth.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Nigeria fresh clashes erupted between groups of Christian and Muslim youths in the central city of Jos, leaving one dead as security forces restored order.
(AFP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Peru a 2nd day of clashes between police and protesting miners left 6 miners dead as the government tried to put restrictions on unregulated gold mining in the southern jingle region of Madre de Dios.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 5, PM Vladimir Putin said Russia may sell $5 billion worth of weapons to Venezuela following his visit to the South American nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northwest Pakistan Islamist militants attacked a US consulate in Peshawar with car bombs and grenades, killing 8 people. 4 militants were killed during the attack. Hours earlier 45 people died in a suicide attack on a political rally in the town of Timergarah in Lower Dir.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AFP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Russia’s Ingushetia region a suicide bomber killed two policemen.
(Reuters, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Thailand thousands of defiant anti-government demonstrators fanned out to other parts of Thailand's capital and threatened businesses with ties to the government after ignoring police orders to leave Bangkok's paralyzed commercial district.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, Turkish police detained 19 officers, including four generals, as part of an investigation into an alleged plot by elements of the fiercely secular military seeking to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Uzbekistan to fulfill its international human rights commitments and take further steps toward improving the repressive political climate in the Central Asian nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2011 Apr 5, A US astronaut and 2 Russian cosmonauts blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station from Russia’s cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 4/5/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 5, In Tennessee crews recovered the bodies of two workers from the rubble of a wastewater-treatment plant wall that collapsed earlier in the day. Officials continued to investigate what caused the breach that released sewage into a rain-swollen river at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Baruch S. Blumberg (b.1925), 1976 Nobel Prize winner in medicine or physiology, died. He had discovered a virus that caused hepatitis and a vaccine to pre-vent it.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.92)
2011 Apr 5, In eastern Afghanistan NATO forces killed seven insurgents who tried to storm their way onto a base in Jalalabad.
(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, The UN weather agency said a protective ozone layer in the Arctic that keeps out the sun's most damaging rays, ultraviolet radiation, has thinned about 40 percent this winter, a record drop.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Bahraini authorities deported two Iraqi journalists working for the opposition's main newspaper. The government had accused Al Wasat newspaper of unethical coverage of the Shiite uprising against the Sunni rulers. At least 27 people have been killed, since the protests began in Bahrain in mid-February.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Two British tabloid journalists were arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting voice-mail messages left on cell phones. Media reports identified Neville Thurlbeck and Ian Edmondson of news of the World in the ongoing phone-hacking scandal.
(SFC, 4/6/11, p.A3)
2011 Apr 5, China’s central bank raised interest rates again.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.84)
2011 Apr 5, Ecuador said it is expelling US Ambassador Heather Hodges over a diplomatic cable divulged by WikiLeaks that accused Jaime Hurtado Vaca, a newly retired police chief, of a long history of corruption and speculates that President Rafael Correa was aware of it.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Ethiopia’s PM Meles Zenawi told lawmakers Ethiopia is ready to help the people of Eritrea topple the regime of Issaias Afeworki, ruling out a military invasion.
(AFP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Iraq's environment ministry says the war-plagued country has an estimated 25 percent of the world's unexploded land mines, making it one of the most contaminated. Most of the land mines were left behind from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein's regime planted them in the desert near the border. There are no existing maps to show where they are located.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Italy and Tunisia signed a deal to choke off the flood of Tunisians heading to Italian shores. Italy agreed to take two flights a day of repatriated migrants.
(SFC, 4/6/11, p.A2)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.58)
2011 Apr 5, In Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo, surrounded by troops backing Alassane Ouattara, huddled in a bunker at his home with his family and tried to negotiate terms of surrender. Ouattara, the democratically elected leader, has urged forces loyal to him to take Gbagbo alive.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, said it had reduced the flow of highly radioactive water out of a reactor. The government set its first radiation safety standards for fish after the nuclear plant reported radioactive contamination in nearby seawater measuring at several million times the legal limit.
(Reuters, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Lebanon several hundred inmates demanding improved conditions at the country’s largest prison took three guards hostage and set fire inside one of the buildings. Police stormed the country's largest prison to halt a dayslong riot by the inmates. Two prisoners died during the operation.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, Libya's government said it is ready to negotiate reforms but only as long as Moamer Kadhafi is not forced out. Government forces unleashed a bombardment of the rebels outside the key oil town of Brega pushing them back, even as the regime said Gadhafi might consider some reforms but would not step down. The ICC's prosecutor said the International Criminal Court has evidence Gaddafi's government planned to put down protests by killing civilians before the uprising in Libya broke out. A group of journalists came under attack by Gaddafi forces near Brega. South African photographer Anton Hammerl was wounded in the attack. Hammerl was initially reported to have been captured by militia, together with Americans Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley, but it was later believed that he died from his wounds.
(AFP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/5/11)(Reuters, 4/5/11)(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 Apr 5, The Pacific nation of Niue has printed unusual commemorative stamps for Britain's royal wedding: an image of Prince William and Kate Middleton with perforations that split the couple down the middle.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Palestinian authorities said Mohammed Shalha (21) was killed by Israeli fire along Gaza's volatile border. Relatives of Shalha said he was collecting gravel along the border. The Israeli military said the man was armed, and that soldiers opened fire after spotting him.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group acknowledged that its ranks include child soldiers and said its leaders would meet with United Nations representatives for talks on how to wean the youths from war.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Poland the restored synagogue at Zamosc, Renaissance gem looted by the Nazis, was presented to the public in a ceremony attended by Jewish leaders, US and Israeli diplomats and city officials. It will serve occasionally as a house of worship for Jewish tourists who visit death camps in the area.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Sudan an unidentified plane flew in from the Red Sea and fired a missile at a car travelling from the airport to Port Sudan, killing both passengers and destroying the vehicle. The next day Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel of carrying out the air strike.
(AFP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, In South Sudan 13 people died in tribal violence. The governor of Western Equatoria, Joseph Bangasi Bakosoro, later said gunmen attacked his village while authorities from the two states were meeting to find ways of ending hostilities between the communities.
(AP, 4/7/11)
2011 Apr 5, The southern Syrian town of Daraa, the center of pro-democracy protests, was hit by a general strike and braced for fresh rallies after midday prayers.
(AFP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Yemen tribesmen loyal to Pres. Saleh clashed with a group of soldiers whose commander has sided with the opposition. Fighting in a suburb of Sanaa left 3 tribesmen dead. In Taiz dozens of protesters were treated from breathing problems after police fired tear gas as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a 3rd consecutive day. Security forces shot dead two protesters in the western city of Hudaydah during demonstrations.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AFP, 4/5/11)
2012 Apr 5, Pres. Obama signed the “Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups" aka Jobs Act. The Republican crafted bill to loosen securities regulations was passed by Congress on March 27.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A1)(Econ, 3/31/12, p.16)
2012 Apr 5, US President Barack Obama dropped in on a meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and Massud Barzani, the visiting leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Barzani, also met with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In NYC Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout (45), dubbed the Merchant of Death, received the mandatory minimum 25 years in prison in a case that demonstrated the US government's determination to bring him to justice. The judge also ordered a $15 million forfeiture.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, The Montana Attorney General’s office said Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute and author of “Three Cups of Tea" (2006), mismanaged the organization and misspent its money. He would remain the face of the charity, but would have to repay $1 million.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A7)
2012 Apr 5, Buford, Wyoming, was purchased by Vietnamese businessman Pham Dinh Nguyen (38). He bid $900,000 for Buford, which consists of a gas station and convenience store, a 1905 schoolhouse, a cabin, a garage and a three-bedroom house on 10 acres between Cheyenne and Laramie. The town was formed as the Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1860s. It was sold by Don Sammons, the self-proclaimed "mayor" who owned it for the past two decades and was its sole inhabitant.
(AP, 4/13/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck a bazaar in a northeastern district, killing two people and wounding 16 others in the Kishim district of Badakhshan province. A NATO service member died in a roadside bomb explosion in the south.
(AP, 4/5/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Argentina a strong overnight storm in Buenos Aires blew down trees and destroyed roofs, killing at least 13 people in the region and leaving more than 20 injured.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Bangladesh police discovered the badly injured body of Aminul Islam (40) dumped by the roadside northwest of Dhaka, leading his supporters to point the finger at Bangladesh's security forces. He had led a top union that organized protests to increase the wages of the three million workers in the garment sector. Top global retail associations soon demanded a swift and impartial probe into his murder.
(AFP, 4/25/12)(AP, 5/9/12)
2012 Apr 5, Britain broadcaster Sky News admitted it had authorized a journalist to access emails belonging to John Darwin and his wife Anne, who had faked his death in a canoe accident before moving to Panama to start a new life with the insurance payout.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Around 20 million Britons were banned from using garden hoses, after one of the driest two-year periods on record.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In England a Chinese student (24) died after he was knocked down by an unmarked British police car in Birmingham.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Jaguar Land Rover, owned by India's Tata Motors, announced that it plans to build its new Jaguar F-Type sports car in Britain.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Egyptian security forces and military aircraft searched south-eastern Sinai for militants believed to be behind a rocket launch against Israel. A rocket fired from Egypt's Sinai desert hit the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat early today There were no injuries.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Italy Umberto Bossi (70), the firebrand founder of a populist anti-immigrant party, whose crucial support kept Silvio Berlusconi in power in three governments, resigned as Northern League secretary amid a widening corruption scandal over party funds.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Japan passed a 90.3 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) budget, with about half the spending expected to be financed by new bonds that will add to its massive debt mountain.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika (78) died after a heart attack. Under the constitution, Vice President Joyce Banda (b.1950) is next in line. But that succession is politically fraught because Mutharika kicked her out of the ruling party in 2010 as he chose to groom his brother as heir apparent instead of her.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Malaysian police arrested 137 people, mostly from China and Taiwan, in a raid in the city of Kajang on a crime ring that bet on English football, arranged Internet gambling and carried out online scams.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Mali the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, a rebel group that recently seized control of the remote north, announced a cease-fire saying they had reached their military goal. Ansar Dine kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats in Gao. The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) later demanded 15 million euros for the diplomats and 30 million for 3 aid workers kidnapped last Oct 23. On Sep 2 MUJAO said Tahar Touati, one of the diplomats, has been executed.
(AP, 4/5/12)(AFP, 4/5/12)(AFP, 5/2/12)(AFP, 9/2/12)
2012 Apr 5, Nigerian authorities said they have recovered a cache of arms, including explosives and rocket launchers, in two separate raids in the restive northern city of Gombe and arrested six suspects.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Dutch PM Mark Rutte denounced Suriname's decision to grant amnesty to President Desi Bouterse for crimes committed under his earlier military dictatorship as "totally unacceptable" and recalled the country's ambassador from its former colony in protest.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a vehicle carrying a senior police official in the southern port city of Karachi, killing four people.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Papua New Guinea's parliament voted to postpone national polls for six months, sparking public outrage.
(AFP, 4/10/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Peru 9 miners were trapped after a horizontal mining shaft collapsed not very deep under the surface. The miners were behind debris about six meters (20 feet) wide that collapsed when they set off an explosion to dislodge copper ore. On April 11 the miners walked free through a newly built tunnel.
(AP, 4/7/12)(AFP, 4/11/12)
2012 Apr 5, Alexei Kudrin, Russia's former finance minister (2000-2011), announced the creation of an independent committee to shape policies alternative to those of the government.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Somalia African Union troops deployed in the city of Baidoa, the first time the force has dispatched troops outside Mogadishu since it was set up five years ago. Baidoa, located 250 km (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, was the seat of Somalia's transitional parliament until the hardline Shebab captured it three years ago.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Syria fierce clashes between government forces and rebels erupted near Damascus ahead of an agreed truce. Some 2,500 crossed the border today, bringing to 24,000 the number of Syrian refugees now in Turkey.
(AFP, 4/5/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, A team led by a Norwegian major general arrived in Damascus to negotiate the possible deployment of a UN team that would monitor a cease-fire agreement between Syrian government troops and rebel forces.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In south-eastern Turkey overnight blasts temporarily shut down a pipeline pumping oil from Iraq. Kurdish rebels were suspected to be behind the explosions.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Pope Benedict XVI denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, A Vietnamese survey reported that nearly a third of pre-school children in Vietnam suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth, while in urban areas rates of childhood obesity are rising. The study by the National Institute of Nutrition was based on research in 2009 and 2010.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Yemen’s interior minister said government troops have killed over 100 Al-Qaida fighters in the past two days.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 5, Zimbabwe said it had taken over majority shares from foreign mining firms which had not sold 51 percent of their equity to black Zimbabweans, without specifying which or how many firms were affected. The announcement will be implemented retrospectively from September 25, 2011, when companies had to hand in plans on how they intend to sell their majority shares.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2013 Apr 5, A US federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age and criticized the Obama administration for interfering with the process for political purposes.
(Reuters, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, A data leak was reported orchestrated this week by a Washington-based group called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It involved tens of thousands of offshore bank accounts, mainly form the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore, and named dozens of prominent figures around the world. New details were being released by the day. The leak allegedly involved records from 10 tax havens.
(AP, 4/6/13)(SFC, 4/5/13, p.A4)
2013 Apr 5, US Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, one of the American military's most seasoned combat leaders, took charge of US Africa Command. The AC’s No. 1 mission is to work with allies to neutralize the continent's widening web of Islamic extremist groups, including those affiliated with al-Qaida.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Oakland, Ca., Lionel Fluker (54), a former freelance photographer for the Oakland Tribune, was shot a killed by a stray bullet as he drove home from a gym. Donel Poston (37) was arrested on June 14 on suspicion of attempting to murder Anthony Lister (38). On Sep 12 prosecutors filed murder charges against Lister.
(SFC, 9/13/13, p.D7)
2013 Apr 5, In Florida the parents of Travon Martin, the teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer last year, settled a wrongful-death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida subdivision where their son was killed.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a bomb attached to a donkey exploded, killing a policeman and wounded three civilians in Laghman province.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Afghanistan American contractor David Gordon (38), detained in a contract dispute on April 3, was released. 3 US congressmen, who complained about his detention, said he had been seized without charges and beaten.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Brazil’s Public Ministry announced an investigation into a report connecting former Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to a vast vote-buying scheme that involved the channeling of funds to the governing Workers’ Party.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A6)
2013 Apr 5, Britain's most high-profile entertainment retailer HMV was handed a lifeline when Hilco, a turnaround group bought it in a deal worth about 50 million pound, ensuring a future for a firm which gave the Beatles one of their first big breaks.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Chile the Ultraport company managing the Angamos port agreed to compensate workers with a bonus following negotiations mediated by Chile's work minister.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Indonesia’s in North Sumatra province Buddhist fishermen and Rohingya Muslim asylum seekers from Myanmar brawled with knives and rocks at an immigration detention center, leaving 8 dead and another 15 injured. On Dec 5 a court in medan sentenced 14 Rohingya to nine months in jail for the role in the deadly brawl.
(AP, 4/5/13)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 5, In Iran a road accident killed 18 people, including 15 Afghans, after a truck smuggling fuel slammed into a sedan packed with Afghans who were being brought illegally into the country.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Iraq attackers detonated a bomb as an army jeep was driving through the western Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Ghraib, killing 3 soldiers. Another bomb exploded near a vegetable stand, killing 3 civilians and wounding 15 in the Shiite-dominated city of Hillah. In Baqouba a roadside bomb exploded as worshippers left a Sunni mosque, killing two and wounding a dozen people.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Israel forces took Mohammad Khalek (14) into custody. 8 assault-rifle wielding soldiers shackled and blindfolded the boy as his five siblings watched. The military said Mohammad hurled rocks at Israeli vehicles on April 2 and at Israeli forces on several occasions. On April 17 the Palestinian-American teenager was sentenced to two weeks in prison for throwing rocks at Israeli forces.
(AP, 4/11/13)(AP, 4/17/13)
2013 Apr 5, Italy's Pres. Giorgio Napolitano pardoned Joseph Romano, a US Air Force colonel, convicted in absentia by Italian courts in the CIA-conducted abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street. He hoped the move would keep American-Italian relations strong, especially on security matters.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto visited Hong Kong, and said "I am convinced that Mexican products should take advantage of the dynamism of China's markets." A report by a chief economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch this week estimated that Mexico's labor costs are now 19.6 percent lower than China's.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In southwest Nigeria at least 36 people were killed in a bus crash in which a gasoline tanker exploded in Edo state.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, North Korea warned it could not guarantee the safety of diplomats after next Wednesday and asked embassies to consider moving staff out of the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Pakistan 4 soldiers and 14 militants were killed as the army launched a ground offensive in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber tribal area.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Portugal’s constitutional court struck down previously planned cuts in public sector pay, pensions and benefits.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.54)
2013 Apr 5, Russia's foreign minister said Moscow doesn't understand why North Korea has suggested that Moscow and other countries close their embassies in Pyongyang, and he says he's concerned about the high tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, South Korean media reported that North Korea had placed two of its intermediate-range missiles on mobile launchers and hidden them on the east coast of the country in a move that could threaten Japan or US Pacific bases.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Syria a barrage of rockets slammed into a contested district on the northeastern edge of Damascus, killing at least five people and trapping others under the rubble, while violence raged around suburbs of the capital.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Activists said Tanzania's government is preparing to kick Maasai tribesmen off their land near to allow a company from the United Arab Emirates to use the land for hunting. Tanzania's Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism announced last week it is shrinking the size of the Loliondo Game Controlled Areas.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2014 Apr 5, Atlanta’s Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton Gregory, in an effort to appease angry parishioners, said that he will sell a $2.2 million mansion just three months after he moved in.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Peter Matthiessen (b.1927), a co-founder of the Paris Review (1953) and two-time winner of the National Book Award, died at a hospital on Long Island. His books included “The Snow Leopard" (1978) and “Shadow Country" (2008).
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A18)
2014 Apr 5, Afghans voted nationwide, defying a threat of violence by the Taliban to cast ballots in what promises to be the nation's first democratic transfer of power. Around 60 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots. Rocket attacks and gunbattles forced authorities to close some 211 polling centers, raising the total number that weren't opened because of security concerns to 959. 6,212 polling centers were opened.
(AP, 4/5/14)(Reuters, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Brazil more than 2,000 soldiers stormed into the Mare slum complex of Rio de Janeiro with armored personnel carriers and helicopters in a bid to improve security two months before the start of the World Cup.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In northern Cameroon two Italian priests and a Canadian nun working as missionaries were abducted before dawn in their residences by two armed groups. On June 1 the Vatican and Italy’s foreign ministry said Gianantonio Allegri, Giampaolo Marta and Gilberte Bussier have been released.
(AP, 4/5/14)(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Apr 5, Chinese state media reported that kindergarten headmaster Shi Haixia and a man were sentenced to death in a poisoning case that left two girls dead. Haixia was upset that a rival school had better enrollments and injected rat poison into a bottle of yogurt. She then asked her accomplice to place it on the road in late April 2013, with a notebook and a pencil in a plastic bag on the way to the other kindergarten in Pingshan County, Hebei province.
(AP, 4/5/14)(AFP, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In China workers in Guangdong province walked out of factories owned by Yue Yuen, a Taiwanese maker of branded shoes. The walkout grew to involve tens of thousands of workers.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.41)
2014 Apr 5, In Egypt at least 23 people were killed in overnight clashes between rival families in the southern city of Aswan.
(Reuters, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, The European Union said it plans to set up an international court in Kosovo to deal with alleged crimes committed by ethnic-Albanian guerrillas during the war with Serbia.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In France Anne Hidalgo (54), the first female mayor of Paris, took office, hailing a "great advance for all women" and saying she feels the weight of responsibility in her new job.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Iraq an explosion at a booby-trapped house near Fallujah, ensuing clashes with militants and roadside bombings killed 21 soldiers.
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A2)
2014 Apr 5, In Mali former planning minister Moussa Mara (39) was promoted to the premiership after Mali's first post-war PM Oumar Tatam Ly (50) quit just six months into office. Ly had reportedly become frustrated over being unable to enact reforms in the administration.
(AFP, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In northern Nigeria gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen stormed a meeting in Yar Galadima, Zamfara state. The clashes between suspected Fulani cattle rustlers mounted on motorbikes and local youth vigilantes left 72 people dead.
(AFP, 4/6/14)(Reuters, 4/7/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Nigeria Umar Sani (35) hosted a small wedding celebration at his home in the small Kano village of Unguwar Yansoro. Wasila Tasi'u was 14 when she married Umar Sani. Prosecutors later claimed that Tasi'u prepared food and laced it with rat poison before serving it to her guests. Four people, including Sani, died within hours of eating the meal.
(AFP, 5/20/15)
2014 Apr 5, Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli inaugurated Central America's first subway system, the most-emblematic project of a five-year term marked by fast economic growth and more than a hint of hubris.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir arrived in Khartoum to meet Sudanese President Omar Bashir.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Spain British millionaire Andrew Bush (48) was shot and killed in his home on Spain's Costa del Sol. In 2016 his former girlfriend, Slovakian model Maria Kukucova (26), was found guilty of the murder.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2014 Apr 5, In Syria mortar shells continued to hit Damascus and the central city of Homs amid heavy fighting. A rocket hit Homs and struck a market in the western neighborhood of Inshaat, killing six people.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Thousands of Thai pro-government "Red Shirts" massed in a show of support for PM Yingluck Shinawatra, warning that they would resist attempts to oust her through the courts.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Ukraine rejected Russia's latest gas price hike and threatened to take its energy-rich neighbor to arbitration court over a dispute that could imperil deliveries to western Europe.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Ukraine’s security service said it has detained a 15-strong armed gang planning to seize power in Luhansk province. Weapons seized included 300 machine guns, an anti-tank grenade launcher and a large number of grenades.
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A5)
2014 Apr 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Central African Republic for the first time since the country erupted into sectarian bloodshed four months ago. Ban has urged council members to act quickly on his recommendation for a 12,000-member peacekeeping mission.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2015 Apr 5, Rolling Stone magazine withdrew and apologized for a discredited story last November about a gang rape on a US college campus in Virginia, publishing a review of the debacle that found "avoidable" failures in basic journalism practices.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, Fredric Brandt (b.1949)), celebrity dermatologist, died in Florida. Brandt, dubbed the “Baron of Botox," was the author of two books about the skin aging process and retention of youthful appearance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Brandt)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.86)
2015 Apr 5, The Afghan Taliban published a descriptive biography of their "charismatic" supreme leader Mullah Omar, in a surprise move apparently aimed at countering the creeping influence of the Islamic State group within insurgent ranks.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Bangladesh’s former premier and main opposition leader Khaleda Zia was granted bail in two graft cases after she appeared before a special court.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Bangladesh a severe storm killed at least 24 people and injured dozens more, mostly in Bogra district in the northern part of the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, British army Sgt. Emile Cilliers sabotaged the parachute of his wife by damaging her main and reserve parachutes in order to collect insurance money. Virginia Cilliers survived by landing in a newly plowed field. In 2018 jurors convicted Emile (38) of two attempted murder charges and damaging a home gas valve.
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, In southern China 7 members of a family on a holiday outing drowned when a 17-year-old girl fell into a reservoir and several relatives dove in after her in a deadly attempt to rescue her in Shantou, Guangdong province.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Egypt a bomb blast on a bridge leading to an upscale neighborhood in central Cairo killed a policeman and wounded at least two passers-by. The group Ajnad Misr claimed responsibility. Security forces said Hamam Mohamed Attia, the founder and leader of Ajnad Misr, was killed by security forces early today.
(AP, 4/5/15)(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In France an 18-day-old dispute at Radio France stemmed from concerns over job losses and service reductions aimed at reining in a budget deficit. The longest strike in a decade at France's public radio broadcaster has left paralyzed news stations playing music and shows no sign of ending after weekend talks failed to defuse a standoff over cost cuts.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Germany Israeli citizen Yosi Damari was found killed in the ruins of a Berlin church with massive injuries to his head. On April 10 an Albanian man was arrested in the Czech Republic on suspicion of beating Damari to death.
(AP, 4/8/15)(AFP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 5, Indian police arrested former nightclub bouncer Raminder Singh (28) wanted in connection with two sex attacks in Britain. He was arrested in New Delhi after three years on the run.
(AFP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Iraq three separate attacks in Baghdad killed at least 9 people and wounded others.
(AP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Kenya identified one of the al Shabaab gunmen who massacred students at Garissa University as Abdirahim Abdullahi, a university of Nairobi law graduate and the son of government official in Mandera county.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Libya a suicide bomber killed at least 6 people outside the militia-controlled third city Misrata in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
(AFP, 4/5/15)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.44)
2015 Apr 5, Malawi’s police chief ordered police this weekend to shoot "dangerous criminals" who attack albinos in order to sell their body parts for witchcraft.
(AFP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, Malaysian police detained 17 suspected militants. Authorities the next day said the militants had planned to attack police stations and army camps to acquire weapons and carry out terrorist attacks in Kuala Lumpur and that two of the militants had just returned from Syria.
(SFC, 4/7/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, In northern Mali one person was killed and three injured as unidentified assailants shelled the city of Gao.
(AP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In northeastern Nigeria suspected Boko Haram gunmen opened fire on villagers and torched a number of buildings in a new attack in Kwajaffa, Borno state.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In northwest Pakistan Mir Ahmad Shah (25) gunned down his former fiancée and nine of her relatives, six months after murdering his own parents and two brothers for refusing to pay his dowry.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas threatened to turn to the International Criminal Court over Israel's refusal to fully release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies owed the Palestinian Authority. He rejected an Israeli transfer of millions because of deductions for utility debts owed to Israel.
(AFP, 4/5/15)(SFC, 4/6/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, A Palestinian official said around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus after the Islamic State group seized large parts of it.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In eastern Saudi Arabia a policeman was killed and three were wounded during a raid in al-Awamiya, a predominantly Shiite town.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In South Africa statue of Afrikaner hero Paul Kruger was defaced in Pretoria, the latest in a series of anti-colonial protests that has forced the country to square its racist past with the spirit of reconciliation championed by Nelson Mandela.
(AFP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Spain Denise Thiem (41) of Arizona was last seen walking along the St. James Way pilgrimage route at the town of Astorga. On Sep 11 suspect Miguel Angel Munoz (39) led police to her body and was arrested in Asturias.
(AP, 9/12/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Switzerland CERN said the world's largest particle smasher has restarted after a two-year upgrade that will allow physicists to explore uncharted corners of the matter that makes up the universe.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In eastern Ukraine 6 soldiers were killed in two separate incidents as isolated clashes continue to violate a fragile ceasefire to end the year-long war.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Yemen warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition bombed Sanaa overnight on the eleventh day of a campaign against Iran-allied Houthi. A senior Houthi member said Yemen's Houthis are ready to sit down for peace talks as long as a Saudi-led air campaign is halted and the negotiations are overseen by "non-aggressive" parties. Armed tribesmen deployed in the streets of Mukalla, pushing al Qaeda fighters out of much of the eastern port town three days after the militants overran it. Houthis, along with allied security forces loyal to the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, carried out a number of overnight raids arresting leading Islah Party members Mohammed Qahtan and Hassan al-Yaeri, along with more than 120 others. Houthi militiamen, supported by army units, gained ground in the southern city of Aden.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)(AP, 4/5/15)
2016 Apr 5, The United States and its allies conducted 23 strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
(Reuters, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, San Francisco became the first US city to require six weeks of paid leave for new parents. The SF Board of Supervisors enacted expansive anti-eviction protections for tenants who work in SF schools.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A1)
2016 Apr 5, Mississippi’s Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 allowing religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples based on religious beliefs. On May 9 a suit was filed against the measure due to become law on July 1.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A12)(SFC, 5/10/16, p.A6)
2016 Apr 5, PayPal became the first and only prominent tech company to commit moving operations out of North Carolina, whose governor last week signed into law a bill that bars local governments from passing antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.C1)
2016 Apr 5, In Texas the body of Haruka Weiser (18), a dance major from Portland, Oregon, was discovered in a creek near the Univ. of Texas alumni center and football stadium in the heart of campus. On April 8 police announced the arrest of a suspect. On June 10 Meechaiel Criner (17), a runaway from the state’s foster care system, was indicted on a capital murder charge.
(AP, 4/8/16)(SFC, 6/11/16, p.A5)
2016 Apr 5, In Wisconsin Ted Cruz beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump soundly, winning most of the state’s delegates and raising the probability of a contested GOP convention in July. Upstart senator Bernie Sanders also beat Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton, bolstering his claim to be a viable alternative standard-bearer to the former secretary of state and first lady.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, Ford announced plans for a new $1.6 billion auto assembly plant in Mexico, creating about 2,800 jobs and shifting small car production from the US.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.C6)
2016 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated his explosives near a busy bazaar in northern Parwan province, killing at least 6 people.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists in Nagorny Karabakh said they had halted fighting after four days of bloodshed, as international powers scramble to resolve the worst violence in decades over the disputed region. The ceasefire was brokered in Moscow. The 4-day war left an estimated 200 people dead.
(AFP, 4/5/16)(Econ, 4/9/16, p.53)(Econ, 5/21/16, p.46)
2016 Apr 5, In Brazil a Supreme Court judge ruled that the lower house of Congress must open impeachment proceedings against Vice-President Michel Temer because he faces the same allegations of breaking fiscal rules as Pres. Rousseff.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 5, In Brazil a gas explosion ripped through an apartment complex north of Rio de Janeiro early today, killing 5 people and injuring 13.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, China banned most imports of North Korean coal and iron ore, the country's main exports, in a significant increase in pressure on the North under UN sanctions against its nuclear and missile tests.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, China denounced accusations arising from a massive leak from a Panamanian law firm as "groundless" and moved to limit coverage of documents that may have exposed financial wrongdoing by some of the world's rich and powerful.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, French finance minister Michel Sapin said France will put Panama back on its blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions, after media revelations about a Panamanian law firm specialised in setting up offshore firms.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Paris riot police fired tear gas and charged youths throwing stones, bottles and eggs during fresh protests against France's proposed labor reforms, making over 100 arrests.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Germany plans to introduce a new national transparency register to make offshore companies disclose their owners' identity, as part of the fight against tax evasion and the financing of terrorism.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Iceland's PM Sigurdur David Gunnlaugsson (41) asked Pres. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to dissolve parliament as his government reeled from a political crisis over the so-called Panama Papers, but the president refused. Gunnlaugsson stepped down, the first major political casualty to emerge from the massive leak of 11.5 million documents detailing hidden offshore accounts held by world leaders and celebrities.
(AFP, 4/5/16)(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, The Indian state of Bihar completely banned the sale of alcohol in a surprise move, including liquor at bars and hotels.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, The Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) terminated the case against Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto saying there was insufficient evidence he was involved in violence following presidential elections in 2007.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 5, In Nigeria angry motorists queued overnight at petrol stations across the country and lines of cars blocked traffic in the commercial capital Lagos as the worst fuel shortages for years hit Africa's top oil producer.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Thirteen North Koreans working at a restaurant in China defected. They traveled to a Southeast Asian country before being flown to South Korea.
(AP, 4/8/16)(AP, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 5, President Vladimir Putin said Russia is creating a national guard to fight terrorism and organized crime.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Saudi police Colonel Kattab Majid al-Hammadi was shot dead in the Riyadh region in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, South Africa's parliament began a debate on a motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma after the constitutional court ruled that he breached the constitution by ignoring an order to repay some of the $16 million in state funds spent on his private home.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, In Sweden Meg Rosoff (59) was named the winner of the 5 million kronor ($615,000) Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for literature aimed at children and young adults. A Boston native living in London, Rosoff's novels include "How I Live Now" (2004), "Just in Case" (2006) and "What I Was" (2007).
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Syrian insurgents shot down a government warplane in the north of the country and shelled a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood in the city of Aleppo. A pregnant woman and three children were among 18 civilians killed when Syrian rebels shelled a Kurdish neighborhood in Aleppo.
(AP, 4/5/16)(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, In Syria Rifai Ahmad Taha, a senior Egyptian al-Qaida figure, was killed along with several others in a US drone strike. Before joining al-Qaida, Taha was a top figure in Egypt's notorious militant group Gamaa Islamiya, which massacred 58 foreign tourists in the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor in 1997.
(AP, 4/8/16)
2016 Apr 5, Turkish police detained almost 70 businessmen, local officials and teachers in a new nationwide sweep against supporters of Pres. Erdogan's arch foe.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Shelling from Yemen killed two people in a Saudi town, in a rare breach of a calm in the border area agreed with Iran-backed rebels early last month.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2017 Apr 5, US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said parents and children caught crossing the Mexican border illegally won't be separated unless the "situation at the time requires it."
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Basque political parties said they hoped a pledge by militant separatist group ETA to disarm this weekend would draw a line under a decades-long campaign that killed more than 800 people across Spain.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Britain said it would help Saudi Arabia to diversify its oil-dependent economy as PM Theresa May visited the Gulf kingdom.
(AFP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, London police on behalf of the Kuwaiti authorities arrested Fahad al-Rajaan (68), the former head of Kuwait's social security fund convicted in his home country of corruption and embezzling public money.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, China and Finland will increase cooperation under the China-European Union framework, President Xi Jinping said after arriving in Finland for his first visit as head of state.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, European Union lawmakers adopted a resolution setting their red lines for the two-year divorce talks with Britain and rejected attempts by British MEPs to recognize Gibraltar's pro-EU stance in the Brexit referendum.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, German conglomerate JAB, owner of Krispy Cream and other food brands, announced that it was taking over the St. Louis-based Panera Bread bakery chain for $7.5 billion.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.26)
2017 Apr 5, Kuwait said it has signed a new a multi-billion-dollar deal to supply Egypt with crude oil and petroleum products for the next three years.
(AFP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, North Korea conducted another ballistic missile test in defiance of UN sanctions. The projectile went about 37 miles into the East Sea.
(SFC, 4/5/17, p.A4)
2017 Apr 5, Norway said it plans to build a 5,610-foot tunnel for ships. The Stad Ship Tunnel was expected to open in 2023 at a cost of $314 million.
(SFC, 4/7/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr 5, In Poland opposition lawmakers called for the dismissal of Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, saying he is undermining the nation's armed forces with dismissals and demotions of high-ranking officers who aren't his allies.
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Somalia a massive car bomb blast at a restaurant in Mogadishu killed at least seven people.
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Hundreds of South Sudanese refugees fled into Uganda for a second day, bearing further grim testimony of an attack by government forces on the border town of Pajok in which at least 17 people were killed.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Switzerland Geneva's regional council voted to modify a 1929 ordinance that banned women from swimming topless in the city's main natural waterways. The change doesn't apply to public swimming pools or swimming totally naked.
(AP, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Syria US-backed fighters laid siege to the northern town of Tabqa, an Islamic State stronghold. IS militants killed 33 young men in eastern Syria, close to the border with Iraq, according to Syrian opposition activists.
(AP, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, Venezuela's opposition's lawmakers gathered from dawn, some carrying injuries from protests, to seek the dismissal of Supreme Court judges whom they accuse of propping up a dictatorship.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2018 Apr 5, The Trump administration told Congress that it plans to approve the sale of more than $1.3 billion in artillery to Saudi Arabia.
(SFC, 4/6/18, p.A2)
2018 Apr 5, California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education ordered San Jose-based Silicon Valley Univ. to provide a closure plan. The school, founded in 1997 by husband and wife team Feng-Min Shiao and Mei Hsin Cheng, had lost its accreditation last December 7. It was seen as a vias mill and cited with 15 violations.
(SSFC, 4/22/18, p.A14)
2018 Apr 5, In southern California police in Barstow fired what sounded like more than 30 bullets at a packed car in a shopping store parking lot, killing Diante Yarber, a black father of three, and injuring a young woman in the latest US law enforcement shooting to spark backlash.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6uenu4o)(SFC, 4/25/18, p.A4)
2018 Apr 5, In NYC Ultimate fighting star Conor McGregor threw a hand truck at a bus full of fighters after a news conference for UFC 223 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. McGregor faced criminal charges after the backstage melee injured two fighters and forced the removal of three bouts on April 6 from UFC's biggest card this year.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, A US federal immigration raid took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant, as part of an employment crackdown under President Donald Trump's administration. Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Afghan air strike in Jawzjan province killed Qari Hekmat, an important Islamic State (IS) commander, one year after he defected from the Taliban and established a new Islamic State foothold in the country. Mawlavi Habib Ur Rahman was soon appointed as his IS successor in the north of the country.
(Reuters, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, Albania's opposition blocked the country's main highway junctions in an anti-government protest, accusing officials of links to organized crime and of increasing both taxes and poverty.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Antarctica German scientists said they have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Australian judge ruled that Frenchman Smail Ayad will not be tried for killing two British backpackers at a hostel in Home Hill, Queensland state, in August, 2016, because of mental illness.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Brazil's Supreme Court rejected former Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's plea to remain free until he exhausts all his appeals clearing the way for his imprisonment.
(Reuters, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, Britain opened its first permanent military base in the Middle East in more than four decades in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Forty-three Cambodians deported by the United States arrived in Phnom Penh, the largest batch yet under a controversial deal that enables America to expel legal residents with criminal records. More than 600 US-based Cambodian convicts have been forcibly returned to the Southeast Asian country since 2002.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Cyprus said it will lodge protests over the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant a few dozen kilometers from the island nation. One worry raised is that the Akkuyu area, where the plant is to be built, is earthquake-prone.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In France PM Edouard Philippe said the government would not back down in a shake-up of the state-owned SNCF railways, prompting accusations of arrogance from unions who said further strikes would go ahead as planned.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a long-awaited, 300 million-euro autism plan for a country that is shockingly behind the curve on providing basic education and care for people on the autism spectrum.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was convicted of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago and sentenced to five years in prison.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Subhabrata Majumdar (46) was arrested after his mother's body was found in the large freezer during a police raid on their home in the city of Kolkata. He allegedly kept his mother's body in the freezer for almost three years while collecting her monthly pension payments, about $460.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India a girl (11) was sexually assaulted and murdered in the western Gujarat city of Surat. Her body was found the next day. The case was made public on April 15.
(Reuters, 4/15/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Indonesian energy ministry official said a coal ship that dropped anchor off the coast of the port city of Balikpapan on Borneo island was likely to blame for an oil spill, after dragging a pipeline more than 100 meters and causing it to crack. The spill and fire killed five fishermen.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed a Palestinian, while a second man died from wounds sustained in last week's mass protest along the Gaza-Israel border.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announced a 35 billion yen ($330 million) loan for irrigation projects in Iraq during talks with PM Haider al-Abadi and pledged Japan's continuing support.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Students protesting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir clashed with government forces after authorities reopened schools following the killings of 13 rebels and five civilians. Government forces fired tear gas to stop students from marching at several colleges in Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city of Srinagar.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A Kenyan court sentenced a policeman to 15 years in prison, after he was found guilty of killing a man in 2013 he suspected of stealing a mobile phone. Titus Musila was last month convicted of murder for shooting Kenneth Mwangi three times in the head instead of arresting him.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Kenya started marking rhinos and aimed to tag and identify 22 of them in two weeks at a cost of $600,000, as part of conserving their dwindling numbers.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Malaysian authorities ordered former PM Mahathir Mohamad's political party to temporarily disband in a blow to the opposition ahead of expected general elections.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Mali two Chadian peacekeepers were killed and at least 10 others were wounded when a UN camp came under mortar fire in the northern Kidal region. The French army said that French and Malian troops had killed about 30 Islamist insurgents during a gun battle near the border with Niger.
(Reuters, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, Nigerian officials said at least 1,200 of the more than 100,000 people displaced by Boko Haram violence in the northeastern town of Bama have returned after the town was partly re-built.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) said Lassa fever has killed 142 people in Nigeria since the start of the year, reporting a rise of 32 fatalities in a month.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Poland Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said politicians' salaries will be reduced and bonuses recently paid to government ministers will go to charity, following a public outcry.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Russian gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev, who has exhumed Stalin-era mass graves, was found not guilty of child pornography charges and released following a trial that supporters have denounced as a sham.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A Saudi soldier was killed during a raid against suspected militants in the town of al-Awamiya in the kingdom's eastern Qatif province.
(Reuters, 4/8/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Slovakia nearly 50,000 people marched through the capital Bratislava and other cities in a fresh sign of anger over a cozy political system many say turns a blind eye to graft.
(Reuters, 4/8/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Somalia the US military killed three militants after launching an air strike near the town of Jilib against al Shabaab, a militant Islamist group allied with al Qaeda.
(Reuters, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, A South Korean pilot was killed when his F-15K fighter jet crashed into a mountain in the country's rural south. The co-pilot remained missing and was also presumed dead.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Spain's High Court released Swiss bank whistleblower Herve Falciani from custody but ordered him to remain in Spain while it considers an extradition request from Switzerland which wants to jail him for industrial sabotage. In 2008 Falciani, a French citizen who worked for HSBC's Swiss private bank, leaked details of thousands of clients many of whom he suspected were using their accounts to evade tax at home.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Syria evacuations from the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus were suspended, days after hundreds of opposition fighters and their relatives left for areas of the country's north as part of a surrender deal following a massive government offensive. State news agency SANA said the suspension was the result of disagreements within the Army of Islam rebel group.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Turkey a gunman shot dead four academics at their university whom he saw as supporters of a Muslim cleric accused by the government of being behind a failed coup in 2016.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A top Turkish official said the country's intelligence agency has snatched around 80 Turkish citizens who the government wanted for alleged links to the country's 2016 failed coup in covert operations in 18 countries.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Shares in Turkey's majority state-owned Halkbank rose as much as 18 percent after US prosecutors sought a 20 year jail term for a Halkbank executive convicted of helping Iran evade US sanctions.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, The United Nations said it is beefing up its inspections of ships bringing humanitarian aid to Yemen to ensure that no military items are being smuggled and to speed delivery of desperately-needed relief supplies.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Vietnamese human rights lawyer and activist Nguyen Van Dai was (48) jailed for 15 years, along with five other activists who were given prison terms of 7-12 years. Dai was charged in a Hanoi court with activities "aimed at overthrowing the people's administration".
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2019 Apr 5, US Vice President Mike Pence stepped up efforts to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office by imposing new sanctions on its oil shipments, and promising "stronger action" against Cuba for helping to keep the regime afloat.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southern California Lenrey Briones (19) was charged with slashing nine people in the face with a knife in a series of random attacks around South Los Angeles, Lynwood and South Gate from March 20 to April 1.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3as74k9)(SSFC, 4/7/19, p.A10)
2019 Apr 5, In western Afghanistan the Taliban besieged a government and army compound in remote Badghis province for a second day, killing at least 12 more troops. Roughly 2,000 Taliban fighters were involved in the attack, with about 600 Afghan troops and members of the security forces inside.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, An international climate conference in Albania was disrupted over tensions between Kosovo and Serbia. The conference proceeded, but only with technical experts.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Algeria a vast crowd of protestors flooded the streets of Algiers, the first mass demonstrations since the resignation of ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and a show of strength by those pushing demands for reform. Private Ennahar TV reported that Algeria's spy chief has been fired.
(AFP, 4/5/19) (Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Armenia Lilit Martirosian, a transgender woman, told members of parliament's human rights committee that the group she founded, Right Side, had recorded 283 cases of transgender rights violations. The next day, hundreds of people protested outside the parliament building, demanding fumigation of the podium at which Martirosian spoke. Death threats soon followed.
(AP, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 5, PM Theresa May asked the EU to delay Britain's departure until June 30 while Brussels suggested that it might be best to postpone the split for up to a year.
(AFP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Britain Arif Naqvi, the chief executive of the collapsed Dubai private equity firm Abraaj Capital Ltd, was arrested on US charges for defrauding investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Managing partner Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel on April 11.
(Reuters, 4/12/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jason Kakaire (29) was charged with five counts of attempted murder following a series of stabbings in north London which have heightened public concern about rising knife crime in Britain.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Cuba newsprint shortages forced the Communist daily to run a trimmed-down edition. Amid shortages, the government is being forced to ration basics like flour, cooking oil and chicken, leading to long lines outside stores.
(AFP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 5, European Union authorities said that German automakers BMW, Daimler and VW colluded to limit the development of emissions-cleaning technology in cars.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, President Emmanuel Macron appointed nine researchers to carry out a two-year investigation into the role of the French army in the Rwandan genocide that is still a source of tension between Paris and Kigali 25 years later.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In France G7 foreign ministers ended a 2-day meeting. They adopted joint commitments to better handle the world's top security challenges. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen stayed at home citing domestic duties and Washington sent lower-ranking officials instead.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, France said it will airlift 12 tons of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Greek authorities said they have arrested and charged a Bulgarian man over the suspected contract killing of John Macris (46), a Greek-Australian, who was fatally shot outside his home in an Athens seaside suburb last year. The suspect's brother was also wanted on suspicion of having helped plan the murder.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Greek police fired tear gas to disperse migrants who had gathered in a field near the country's border with Northern Macedonia in the hope of making their way illegally up through the Balkans toward northern Europe. Migrants in Athens also blocked the city's main train station in demonstrations that authorities said had been triggered by false reports on social media that restrictions on travel to northern Europe had been lifted.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Honduras thousands of people marched through the streets of the Tegucigalpa demanding the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez and an investigation of him and his family.
(AFP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Japanese court approved the detention of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn through April 14 after his latest arrest over financial misconduct allegations, a move that has raised questions among legal experts.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Japan's space agency said an explosive dropped from its Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully blasted the surface of an asteroid for the first time to form a crater and pave the way for the collection of underground samples for possible clues to the origin of the solar system.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Libyan commander said forces allied to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli have taken 145 troops prisoner from the Eastern forces and that 60 vehicles had been confiscated..
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southeastern Mexico electric power returned to three states on the Yucatan peninsula late today, including tourist hot spots Cancun and Tulum, after a partial blackout left 1.6 million customers without energy.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Morocco dozens of activists linked to the Hirak protest movement that rocked northern Morocco in 2016 and 2017 had prison sentences of up to 20 years upheld by a court of appeal.
(AFP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said officials will release 360 Indian prisoners detained for fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian sea. The anglers will be freed in four batches starting April 15.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Russia won a dispute about "national security" at the World Trade Organization, in a ruling over a Ukrainian transit dispute because it had invoked national security. The WTO ruling, the first ever on national security, can be appealed.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A small Russian bank owned by former US congressman Charles Taylor was stripped of its license after allegedly breaking anti-money laundering rules. Taylor, a Republican widely considered a hard-line conservative, was a congressman from North Carolina between 1991 and 2007. Taylor bought CBI in 2003 alongside his business partner Boris Bolshakov, a former KGB agent and Supreme Soviet deputy who is listed as the bank's second-largest shareholder.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society arrived in Russia's Far East on a mission to inspect 97 belugas and orcas and help create conditions for them to be released. Environmentalists said four animals likely died because of cramped conditions and low temperatures.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Serbian court sentenced four former state security members to up to 30 years in prison for the April 11, 1999, killing of Slavko Curuvija, a prominent journalist, who was a critic of then-leader Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, South Korean firefighters managed to extinguish most of a massive forest fire that ripped through the mountainous northern coast, destroying 135 homes and forcing more than 4,000 to flee the region that hosted the 2018 Winter Olympics. Two deaths were reported.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Marek Falenta, a fugitive businessman convicted in an eavesdropping case that led to the fall of the Polish government, was captured in Spain. He was convicted of organizing the secret recordings of top Polish politicians in 2013 and 2014, creating a scandal that contributed to the defeat in 2015 of a pro-EU government and the election of a populist right-wing party.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 5, Physicians for Human Rights said Sudan's security forces have killed at least 60 people in more than three months of street protests.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Thailand election officials said that 66 winning candidates in last month's elections face possible disqualification because of complaints filed against them.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southern Thailand two Border Patrol Police officers were killed while praying in a mosque in the latest violence believed linked to a Muslim separatist insurgency.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey's official news agency said prosecutors have launched a terror propaganda investigation into Adnan Selcuk Mizrakl, the newly-elected mayor of Turkey's predominantly Kurdish Diyarbakir province.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey began the relocation of Ataturk International Airport to Istanbul Airport on the Black Sea shores. The move is expected to end tomorrow.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, It was reported that cholera is surging once more in Yemen, with more than 76,000 suspected new cases and 195 deaths in March, double the number in the previous two months.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2020 Apr 5, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper defended the US Navy's controversial decision to remove the commander of a coronavirus-stricken US aircraft carrier, saying it was a "tough call" but that ultimately it was "a chain of command issue".
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Hawaii reported 351 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and four deaths.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A4)
2020 Apr 5, The death toll in New Jersey has so far reached 846 with 34,124 positive cases of the coronavirus. Ravinder Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, announced in a statement that all employees of essential businesses still operating in the city are now required to wear face covers or masks while working.
(ABC News, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, New York state reported 594 deaths from the coronavirus and 8,327 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, increasing the numbers to 4,159 dead and 122,000 cases since the outbreak began. As of this morning more than 8,500 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. Global cases of the coronavirus pass 1.2 million and deaths top 66,000.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)(ABC News, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, US federal and local zoo officials said a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Nine Wisconsin mayors, including those representing the state's five largest cities, urged the state's top public health official to postpone the April 7 primary election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)(NY Times, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 5, Albania reported 28 new cases of the new coronavirus and said a failure to respect social distancing had led to the highest numbers of infections over the last three days. The COVID-19 disease has killed 20 and infected 361.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Austria reported that the number of new coronavirus infections rose to 11,897. The country also reported more newly recovered than newly diagnosed patients and a declining number of people in intensive care. Some 204 people in Austria have died of the pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Britain's PM Boris Johnson, infected with the coronavirus, went to St. Thomas’s hospital in central London as a precaution.
(Bloomberg, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 5, Leading Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang (44) was released from prison after almost five years behind bars. Wang's initial detention in 2015 came as part of the so-called "709" crackdown, nicknamed as such because it began on July 9 that year.
(AFP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Denmark's confirmed cases of the coronavirus rose to 4,369, with 179 deaths.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Ethiopia reported its first death from the virus and announced five more cases bringing its total to 43, most of them imported by travelers. A number of regional states have implemented bans on movement of people and vehicles, but not yet in the capital Addis Ababa.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In France the coronavirus that killed 7,560. France, like other countries, has confined its residents to home since March 17 to curb the spread of the virus. The measures have been extended until April 15, and are likely to be extended again.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Germany's confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 5,936 in the past 24 hours to 91,714, the third straight drop in the daily rate of new cases.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Hungary the number of coronavirus infections climbed to 733, with 34 people dead. Officials said the figure of 313 registered infections in Budapest could rise fast as some were losing patience with restrictions, gathering in parks and using the almost empty streets for illegal drag racing.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Indian soldiers killed five suspected militants in the Keran sector of Kashmir. Three Indian soldiers were also killed. Another clash a day earlier in Kulgam town killed 4 rebels.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 5, In Indonesia commuters in Jakarta are now barred from using public transit if they aren’t wearing face masks. The country's numbers of coronavirus infections rose to 2,273.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Indonesia a transgender woman (43) died from burns sustained in the incident a day earlier. Police identified six suspects, three of whom were arrested. On April 8 police said they would not bring murder charges against suspects because they believed the suspects who set the fire had not burned her intentionally.
(NBC News, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 5, Iran’s fatalities from coronavirus rose to 3,603 after 151 deaths and 2,483 new cases in the past 24 hours. Total infections reached 58,226.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Israel a small group of Franciscan monks and Roman Catholic faithful took to the streets of Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter in the Old City to distribute olive branches after the traditional Palm Sunday procession was cancelled due to restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. More than 8,000 people in Israel have contracted the coronavirus and 46 have died. In the West Bank, nearly 200 cases have been reported, including a large outbreak in the biblical town of Bethlehem.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Tokyo reported more than 130 new coronavirus infections, bringing the number of cases in the Japanese capital to more than 1,000.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Lebanon a government decree limited car travel six days a week and forbade it on Sundays. Lebanon has reported 520 cases of coronavirus and 18 deaths since the first case was reported in late February.
(AP, 4/5/20)(Econ, 4/11/20, p.38)
2020 Apr 5, Malawi's President Peter Mutharika announced that he and all government ministers are taking a 10% wage cut for three months to raise money to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Malawi has reported four confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far. All have all been linked to people travelling from the UK.
(BBC, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Malaysia reported 179 new coronavirus cases, raising the cumulative total to 3,662. The new cases included 4 deaths, raising the tally to 61 people as of noon.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In the Netherlands the number of deaths caused by the new coronavirus increased by 115 to 1,766. Confirmed infections increased by 1,224 to 17,851.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, The Philippine health ministry reported 8 additional coronavirus deaths and 152 newly confirmed cases. Positive cases rose to 3,246, while the death toll rose to 152.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Rwanda authorities reported that a valley dam has been discovered that could contain about 30,000 bodies, more than a quarter-century after the country’s genocide.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Singapore reported 120 new cases of the coronavirus, the most in a day, bringing the total to 1,309. Of the new cases, only four involved patients with recent travel history.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In South Africa all 50 wedding guests, the pastor who conducted the ceremony, and the newlyweds themselves were promptly arrested and taken to a police station outside Richards Bay due to a country-wide ban on all public gatherings because of coronavirus.
(BBC, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 5, Officials in South Sudan said the country has its first case of COVID-19, making it the 51st of Africa's 54 countries to have the disease. President Salva Kiir last week imposed a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for six weeks and closed borders, airports, schools, churches and mosques.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Spain deaths from the coronavirus fell for a third day. The Health Ministry reported 674 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 12,418. The number of confirmed cases rose to 130,759.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, The United Nations urged governments around the world to fight the rise in domestic violence as abuse soared since stay-at-home orders have been imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
(The Week, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 5, Yemeni government officials said shelling by Houthi rebels hit a prison for women in a southwestern province, killing at least six prisoners.
(AP, 4/6/20)
2021 Apr 5, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged the adoption of a minimum global corporate income tax, an effort to offset any disadvantages that might arise from the Biden administration's proposed increase in the US corporate tax rate.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, A White House official said the US government's removal of AstraZeneca PLC's COVID-19 shot production from Emergent BioSolutions Inc's Baltimore manufacturing facility does not suggest it has any concerns about the vaccine's safety or effectiveness and will not impact its output of doses. The US Department of Health and Human Services ordered Johnson & Johnson to take charge of production at Emergent and for Emergent to stop making AstraZeneca's shots after the contract manufacturer made an error that ruined 15 million J&J COVID-19 vaccine doses.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, A nonpartisan US Senate official ruled that Democrats can pass multiple bills over the next two years with a straight Senate majority rather than a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
(NY Times, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court brought an end to a legal fight over former President Donald Trump's effort to block critics from following his now-frozen Twitter account, deciding the dispute was moot and throwing out a lower court's decision that found he had violated constitutional free speech rights.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court handed Alphabet Inc's Google a major victory, ruling 6-2 that its use of Oracle Corp's software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones did not violate federal copyright law.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was announced that novelist James McBride, former US poet laureate Natasha Trethewey and science fiction great Samuel R. Delaney are among this year's winners of Anisfield-Wolf awards for books that confront racism and help promote diversity. The Anisfield-Wolf awards were founded in 1935 and are managed by the nonprofit Cleveland Foundation.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Strong economic data boosted the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 to record highs. The Dow gained 1.1 percent to close at 33,527. The S&P 500 rose by 1.4 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped by 1.7 percent.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas broke with other Republicans and vetoed a bill that would have banned some medications and surgery for transgender minors.
(NY Times, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, California to date had 3,656,939 cases of coronavirus and 59,293 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 424,657 cases and 5,975 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 30,775,094 with the death toll at 555,381.
(sfist.com, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said that he would not resign from Congress in the face of allegations that he "slept with" a 17-year-old girl.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has tested positive for COVID-19 a few days after receiving his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, Texas-based Baylor Univ. won its first men’s college basketball championship, handing Gonzaga its first loss of the season, 86 to 70.
(NY Times, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, In Texas six people were found dead in an apparent murder-cuicide in a suburban Dallas home.
(SFC, 4/7/21, p.A4)
2021 Apr 5, Bangladesh began a one-week lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
(SFC, 4/5/21, p.A5)
2021 Apr 5, The UN mission in Bosnia called for urgent action to stop violent pushbacks and collective expulsions of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants along the Croatian border following an incident last week involving 50 “visibly exhausted" men. The men said they had their cellphones, money and belongings taken away when they tried to cross the border and that they were beaten with sticks back into Bosnia.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, East Timor received its first batch of coronavirus vaccine, arranged by the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX. The former Portuguese colony has detected 714 cases of the coronavirus, most of which it said were imported, and no casualty so far.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that authorities in Ghana are trying to find out what has caused more than 60 dead dolphins to wash up on several beaches.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Retail stores across most of Greece were allowed to reopen despite an ongoing surge in COVID-19 infections, as the country battles to emerge from deep recession.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections, becoming the second country after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day, as politicians stage massive election rallies raising fears of further spreading the virus.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, India's Cadila Healthcare Ltd said it has sought approval from local regulators to use Pegylated Interferon alpha-2b, a Hepatitis C drug, as a treatment for COVID-19 following promising interim results from a late-stage trial.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Iran's state TV announced that authorities arrested several people on charges of spying for Israel and other nations.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, In southwestern Iran a man (50) shot to death his 9-year-old son and seven relatives of his two wives before killing himself in the city of Ahvaz.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Japan's Subaru Corp said that the automaker will shut its Yajima plant between April 10 and 27 due to a chip shortage, affecting 10,000 vehicles.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Jordan's estranged Prince Hamza said in a voice recording released today that he would disobey orders by the army not to communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest and accused of trying to destabilize the country. Prince Hamzah issued a statement hours after mediation, saying he was committed to the constitution.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Mozambique's military said it has regained full control of the coastal town of Palma, more than a week after it was raided by militant Islamists.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The Eemslift Hendrika, a Netherlands-registered special ship designed to carry boats on its deck, went adrift in an area where the North Sea and Norwegian Sea meet, some 40-50 km (25-31 miles) off the shore and the city of Alesund. The crew of 12 was evacuated to shore by helicopter after the ship sent a distress call following a power outage in its main engine in heavy seas.
(AP, 4/7/21)
2021 Apr 5, In Nigeria 1,844 inmates escaped from a prison after it was attacked by gunmen in the south-eastern town of Owerri, Imo state.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Police and politicians in Northern Ireland appealed for calm after a third night of violence that saw Protestant youths start fires and pelt officers with bricks and gasoline bombs.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in last year's popular vote.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Russia said it would extend a punitive slowdown of Twitter until May 15 though it acknowledged the US social media company had speeded up deletion of banned content.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Spain reported 2,247 new cases and 85 deaths. In total, there’s been 3.3 million cases and more than 75,000 confirmed deaths.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, The Sudanese doctors’ committee in West Darfur said at least 18 people were killed and 54 wounded in clashes this weekend between Arabs and non-Arabs. Clashes continued today.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Turkish authorities detained 10 former admirals after a group of 103 retired top navy officers issued a midnight statement that government officials tied to Turkey’s history of military coups. The retired naval officers had signed a statement declaring their commitment to the 1936 international treaty that regulates shipping through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The UN said a fierce attack on a UN peacekeeping base in northern Mali last week killed four peacekeepers and at least 23 attackers, and injured another 34 peacekeepers.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, Venezuela's main academies of medicine and science urged renewed efforts to vaccinate the South American nation's population against the coronavirus amid a spike in infections that has led the government to extend lockdown measures. Venezuela reported 15 deaths and 1,786 new infections, the highest since the start of the pandemic. It has reported 166,123 cases and 1,662 associated deaths.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2022 Apr 5, The US the Treasury Department said the Internal Revenue Service has suspended information exchanges with Russia's tax authorities in a bid to hamper Moscow's ability to collect taxes and fund its war against Ukraine.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 80,181,869 with the death toll at 982,161.
(sfist.com, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Nehemiah Persoff, character actor, died in San Luis Obispo, Ca. His work included roles in numerous TV series and films included "Voyage of the Damned" (1976) and "Yentl" (1983).
(SSFC, 4/10/22, p.F1)
2022 Apr 6, In Florida thousands of crypto-currency enthusiasts gathered for the 4-day Bitcoin 2022 conference opening in Miami.
(SFC, 4/7/22, p.C2)
2022 Apr 5, Lawmakers in Oklahoma approved a near-total ban on abortion, making it the latest Republican-led state to forge ahead with stringent abortion legislation. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt vowed in September to sign “every piece of pro-life legislation" that came to his desk.
(NY Times, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Bobby Rydell (79), a Philadelphia-born singer who became a teenage idol in the late 1950s died in Abington, Pa. Over the course of his recording career he placed 19 singles in the Billboard Top 40 and 34 in the Hot 100.
(NY Times, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, General Motors and Honda Motor Co said they will co-develop a series of electric vehicles based on a new joint platform, allowing production of millions of cars starting in 2027.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said conflict, climate change and rising food and fuel prices are pushing about a quarter of Africans towards hunger.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Airbus has revoked the contract for a third A350 ordered by Qatar Airways after the Gulf carrier rejected delivery in an ongoing dispute over damage to the surface of the long-haul jets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, UK PM Boris Johnson's office said Britain, the United States and Australia have agreed to cooperate on hypersonic weapons and electronic warfare capabilities.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Britain attributed malign cyber activity to parts of three Russian intelligence services: the FSV, SVR and GRU, publishing a factsheet that set out what it said were organizational details of Russia's cyber capabilities.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Chinese authorities extended a lockdown in Shanghai to cover all of the financial center's 26 million people, despite growing anger over quarantine rules in the city, where latest results show only 268 symptomatic daily COVID-19 cases.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that the Czech Republic has sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Denmark said it would expel 15 Russian diplomats, in line with steps taken by other European Union countries, after reports of mass graves being found and of civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, El Salvador's Congress passed a bill criminalizing the publication of gang messages, including by news outlets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Estonia and Latvia said they have each ordered the closure of two Russian consulates and told staff to leave their countries.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, The European Union's executive proposed sweeping new sanctions against Russia, including a ban on coal imports, as the West responds to evidence of civilian killings in a Ukrainian town seized from Russian invaders.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, European and international donors agreed to extend 695 million euros ($762 million) in aid to Moldova, Europe's poorest country, which is hosting more than 100,000 refugees from Ukraine at a time of soaring energy prices.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Hong Kong health authorities reported 3,254 new COVID-19 infections, up from 3,138 a day earlier, and 87 deaths as cases in the global financial center continue a broader downward trend.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, In southern Hungary five people were killed and more than 10 injured when a pick-up truck crashed into a train, derailing a carriage in Mindszent.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, India's government said it has banned 22 YouTube channels, including four of Pakistani origin, for disinformation on subjects concerning national security and public order, the latest such federal crackdown in the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that India has harvested a record rapeseed-mustard crop, but crushing could lose momentum in the coming months as many farmers were holding back from selling to oilseed processors in the hope prices will rally further.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, India condemned the killings of civilians in Ukraine's Bucha and called for an independent investigation, having earlier declined to explicitly criticize the invasion of Ukraine by its long-time partner Russia.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, A video was released that showed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri praising Muskan Khan, who defied a ban on the wearing of the hijab in India's Karnataka state.
(SFC, 4/7/22, p.A4)
2022 Apr 5, In Iran an assailant stabbed three clerics at the revered Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, killing one and injuring two before he was arrested. The motive for the attack remained unclear. Four other suspects were arrested in connection with the case. A 2nd cleric soon died of wounds from the attack.
(AP, 4/5/22)(AP, 4/7/22)
2022 Apr 5, A large study in Israel found that a fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Italian PM Mario Draghi said that "war crimes" carried out in Ukraine must be punished, while Rome said it was expelling 30 Russian diplomats on national security grounds.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Kuwait's government submitted its resignation ahead of a no-confidence vote against PM Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid in parliament, amid a lengthy political feud that has hindered fiscal reform in the Gulf oil producer.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that violence against the press in Mexico rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration, up 85% from the first half of his predecessor's term.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, In the Netherlands Ali Kushayb, an alleged Janjaweed militia leader, went on trial at the Int'l. Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in more than 300 murders the Darfur region of Sudan in 2003-2004.
(SFC, 4/6/22, p.A6)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Nigeria has repeated its demand for telecom companies to bar calls from unregistered phone lines, part of the government's policy to boost security amid an Islamist insurgency and a spate of kidnappings.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Nigerian atheist Mubarak Bala (37), in detention since 2020, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a high court in the northern state of Kano after being convicted of blaspheming Islam.
(BBC, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Shell oil company said the volume of crude oil spills caused by sabotage in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta more than doubled to 3,300 tons last year, a level last seen in 2016.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Pakistan's Supreme Court adjourned for a 2nd day a hearing to decide the legality of PM Imran Khan's blocking of an opposition bid to oust him, a dispute that has led to political turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo lifted a curfew order following widespread defiance on the streets, as protests spiraled against rising fuel and fertilizer prices triggered by the Ukraine conflict.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Romania said it would expel 10 Russian diplomats who are not acting in accordance with international rules.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia must keep a close eye on its food exports to hostile countries because the West's sanctions had fomented a global food crisis and spiraling energy prices.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Russia is turning to microchip manufactures in China to circumvent western sanctions which have boosted demand for bank cards linked to the Mir payment system.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that thousands of auto workers have been furloughed and food prices are soaring as Western sanctions pummel the small Russian city of Kaluga and its flagship foreign carmakers, with more sanctions likely to come.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Russian aluminium giant Rusal, whose global operations have been hobbled by the war in Ukraine, exported its first bauxite shipment from its mines in Guinea in nearly a month. Bauxite exported by Rusal, founded by Oleg Deripaska, typically feeds the company's Aughinish refinery in Ireland.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, In Sri Lanka at least 41 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition, leaving President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government in a minority in parliament as it struggled to quell protests amid the country's worst economic crisis in decades. Finance Minister Ali Sabry resigned a day after his appointment and ahead of crucial talks scheduled with the International Monetary Fund for a loan program.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Jimmy Wang Yu (79), early martial arts film star, died in Taipei. His films included: "One-Armed Swordsman" (1967), "Golden Swallow" (1968), "The Sword of Swords" (1968), "The Chinese Boxer" (1970) and "The Man from Hong Kong" (1975), whih was released in the US as "The Dragon Flies".
(SSFC, 4/24/22, p.F1)
2022 Apr 5, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the United Nations to act and reform its system which gives Security Council permanent member Russia a veto, saying everything must be done to ensure the international body works effectively. In a televised interview with local media Zelenskiy said Ukraine's efforts to push back Russian troops from Mariupol were facing difficulties.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that the United Arab Emirates has sentenced Fida Kiwan (43), an Israeli woman, to death for cocaine possession. Kiwan was arrested on March 21, 2021, with half a kilogram (over 1 pound) of cocaine that she claimed did not belong to her.
(AP, 4/5/22)
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For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
828 Apr 5, Nicephorus (~77), patriarch of Constantinople (806-815), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1242 Apr 5, Russian troops repelled an invasion attempt by Teutonic Knights. Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeated Teutonic Knights
(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1531 Apr 5, Richard Roose was boiled to death for trying to poison an archbishop.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1585 Apr 5, Clemens Crabbeels became bishop of Hertogenbosch.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1588 Apr 5, Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (Leviathan), was born.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1603 Apr 5, New English king James I departed Edinburgh for London.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1614 Apr 5, American Indian princess Pocahontas (d.1617) married English Jamestown colonist John Rolfe in Virginia. Having converted to Christianity, she went by the name Lady Rebecca. Their marriage brought a temporary peace between the English settlers and the Algonquians.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(AP, 4/5/08)
1614 Apr 5, 2nd parliament of King James I began session (no enactments).
(MC, 4/5/02)
1621 Apr 5, The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1626 Apr 5, Jan van Kessel (d.1679), Flemish painter, was born. He was the grandson of Jan Breughel. He is known for his small paintings on copper and wood. His “Study of Butterflies, Spiders, Lizards, a Beetle, an Ant, a Grasshopper and Other Insects" sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2000 for $1,655,750.
(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W10)(MC, 4/5/02)
1648 Apr 5, Spanish troops and feudal barons struck down people's uprising in Naples.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1649 Apr 5, Elihu Yale (1721), the English philanthropist for whom Yale University is named, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1652)(AP, 4/5/99)
1649 Apr 5, John Winthrop (61), 1st governor of the colony at Mass. Bay, died. [see Mar 26]
(MC, 4/5/02)
1673 Apr 5, Francois Caron (~72), admiral, governor (Formosa), drowned.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1698 Apr 5, Georg Gottfried Wagner, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1722 Apr 5, On Easter Sunday Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered a Polynesian Island 1400 miles from the coast of South America and named it Easter Island. He noted that the island was treeless and wondered how its massive statues were erected. Much of the population was later wiped out and the island became a possession of Chile. An indigenous script called rongorongo survived but by 2002 was still not deciphered. In 2005 Steven Roger Fischer authored “Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island."
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.W1)(http://islandheritage.org/eihistory.html)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.77)
1725 Apr 5, Giacomo Casanova, Italian writer, philanderer, adventurer, was born. [see Apr 2]
(MC, 4/5/02)
1732 Apr 5, Jean Honore Fragonard (d.1806), France, painter, was born. He painted "The Shady Grove." Hubert Robert was a painter friend and the painting "La Jardinaire" was painted by one or the other.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Honor%C3%A9_Fragonard)(AAP, 1964)(WSJ, 2/19/99, p.W12)
1753 Apr 5, British Museum formed. It opened in 1759.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R53)(MC, 4/5/02)
1765 Apr 5, Edward Young (81), English poet (Love of Fame), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1768 Apr 5, 1st US Chamber of Commerce formed in NYC.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1784 Apr 5, Louis [Ludwig] Spohr, German violin virtuoso, composer (Faust), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1788 Apr 5, Franz Pforr, German painter, cartoonist (Lukasbund), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1792 Apr 5, George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)
1794 Apr 5, Georges-Jacques Danton (b.1759), French revolutionary leader, was guillotined along with Marie Jean Herault de Sechelles, French author, politician, and Camille Desmoullins, popular journalist. In 2009 Jonathan Cape authored “Danton: The Gentle Giant of Terror."
(Econ, 7/18/09, p.80)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Danton)
1803 Apr 5, 1st performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony in D.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1806 Apr 5, Isaac Quintard patented apple cider.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1811 Apr 5, Robert Raikes, founder of Sunday Schools, died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1815 Apr 5, Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, in the Java Sea began erupting. [see Apr 10]
(NOHY, 3/90, p.41)(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9071099)
1827 Apr 5, Joseph Lister (d.1912), English physician, was born. He founded the idea of using antiseptics during surgery.
(WUD, 1994, p.836)(HN, 4/5/99)
1830 Apr 5, Alexander Muir (d.1906), poet (Maple Leaf Forever), was born in Lesmahagow, Scotland. He immigrated to Canada in 1833. In October 1867 he composed The Maple Leaf Forever to celebrate the Confederation of Canada.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Muir)
1837 Apr 5, Algernon Charles Swinburne (d.1909), English poet (Atalanta in Calydon), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1839 Apr 5, Robert Smalls, black congressman from South Carolina, 1875-87, was born.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1843 Apr 5, Queen Victoria proclaimed Hong Kong a British crown colony.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1856 Apr 5, Booker T. Washington, Black American educator, was born in Franklin County, Va. The former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute. Booker Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on US stamp. His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in 1999 as the 3rd best work of non-fiction in the English language in the 20th century by the Modern Library.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1858 Apr 5, Washington Atlee Burpee, founded the world's largest mail-order seed company, was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)
1861 Apr 5, Gideon Wells, the Secretary of the Navy, issued official orders for the relief of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1861 Apr 5, Federals abandoned Ft. Quitman, Tx.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1862 Apr 5, Siege of Yorktown, VA., continued.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1865 Apr 5, As the Confederate army approached Appomattox, it skirmished with Union army at Amelia Springs and Paine's Cross Road, Va.
(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1874 Apr 5, Johann Strauss, Jr.'s Opera "Die Fledermaus" was produced in Vienna.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1887 Apr 5, In Tuscumbia, Ala., teacher Anne Sullivan taught her blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller, the word "water" as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1887 Apr 5, British historian Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
(AP, 5/5/08)
1889 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Copper Beeches."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1894 Apr 5, 11 strikers were killed in riot at Connellsville, Penn.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1894 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Empty House."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1895 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of 3 Students."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1895 Apr 5, Playwright Oscar Wilde lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who had accused the writer of homosexual practices.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1900 Apr 5, Spencer Tracy (d.1967), film actor (Adam's Rib, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), was born.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, DB p.56,58)(HN, 4/5/01)
1900 Apr 5, An assassination attempt of Prince of Wales in Brussels failed.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Apr 5, Chester Bowles, ambassador, writer (Conscience of a Liberal), was born in Mass.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Apr 5, Melvyn Douglas, [Hesselberg], actor (Hud, Ghost Story), was born in Macon, Ga.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1902 Apr 5, Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, Bette Davis (d.1989), film actress (Jezebel, All About Eve), was born. "Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone -- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding."
(AP, 7/15/99)(HN, 4/5/01)
1908 Apr 5, Herbert von Karajan, Nazi, conductor (Berlin Philharmonic), was born in Austria.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, George Schick, conductor (Chicago Symphony), was born in Prague, Czech.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Apr 5, Japanese Army reached the Yalu River as the Russians retreated.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1915 Apr 5, Jack Johnson (1878-1946), African-American heavyweight champion boxer since 1908, lost the heavyweight championship in Cuba to Jess Willard in the 26th round.
(SFC, 1/17/05, p.D6)(www.hickoksports.com/biograph/johnsonjack.shtml)
1915 Apr 5, Black American educator Booker T. Washington (b.1856) died. His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in 1999 as the 3rd best work of non-fiction in the English language in the 20th century by the Modern Library.
(AP, 4/5/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1611)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1916 Apr 5, Gregory Peck, film actor (To Kill a Mockingbird), was born in La Jolla, Calif.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1917 Apr 5, Robert Bloch, sci-fi author (Hugo, Psycho), was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1919 Apr 5, Eamon de Valera became Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland (Dail Eireann).
(HN, 5/5/97)(MC, 4/5/02)
1919 Apr 5, Polish Army executed 35 young Jews.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1920 Apr 5, Arthur Hailey (d.2004), author, was born in Luton, England. His later novels included “Hotel" and "Airport."
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1920 Apr 5, Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1923 Apr 5, Michael V. Gazzo, actor (Cookie, Fear City), was born in Hillside, NJ.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1923 Apr 5, Firestone Co. put their inflatable tires into production.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1923 Apr 5, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert (56), England’s 5th Earl of Lord Carnarvon, died in Egypt from an infected mosquito bite. He financed the excavation of the Egyptian New Kingdom Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert,_5th_Earl_of_Carnarvon)
1923 Apr 5, Nguyen Van Thieu, president of South Vietnam (1965-75), selected this date as his birth date on the grounds that it was luckier than his Nov 1924 birthday.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFC, 10/1/01, p.B2)(MC, 4/5/02)
1925 Apr 5, A few people gathered in Robinson’s drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee, agree that the Butler Bill, opposing the teaching of evolution, might provide a grand opportunity for profit if they can arrange for the trial to happen in their town.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.74-76)
1926 Apr 5, Roger Corman, producer, director (Little Shop of Horrors), was born in Detroit.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1927 Apr 5, Johnny Weissmuller set records in 100 and 200 m. free style.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1928 Apr 5, David Farquhar Andress, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1930 Apr 5, Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1932 Apr 5, A Dutch textile strike was broken by trade unions.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1936 Apr 5, Tupelo, Mississippi, was virtually annihilated by a tornado and 216 died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1937 Apr 5, Colin Powell, U.S. Army general, was born in Bronx, New York. He later became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War and first African American to serve in the position. In 2000 Pres.-elect Bush appointed him to be Sec. of State.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(HN, 4/5/99)(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.A14)
1938 Apr 5, Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Dabrowa, Poland.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1939 Apr 5, Membership in Hitler Youth became obligatory.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1941 Apr 5, German commandos secured docks along the Danube River in preparation for Germany's invasion of the Balkans.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1943 Apr 5, The British 8th Army attacked the next blocking position of the retreating Axis forces at Wadi Akarit.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1944 Apr 5, 140 Lancasters bombed airplane manufacturer in Toulouse.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1944 Apr 5, In Lithuania 40 prisoners filed off their chains and fled through a narrow tunnel at Paneriai. Jewish and Soviet prisoners had been brought to the Ponar forest from Stutthof concentration camp. They were forced to dig up mass graves, collect bodies and burn them. Guards quickly discovered the prisoners and many were shot, but 11 prisoners managed to escape to the forest, reach partisan forces and survive the war. In 2016 an international research team pinpointed the location of the tunnel.
(AP, 6/29/16)
1946 Apr 5, Vincent Millie Youmans (47), US composer (Tea For Two), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1948 Apr 5, WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL., began broadcasting.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1949 Apr 5, The 60 year old St. Anthony's Hospital burned and killed 77 in Effingham, Ill.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1951 Apr 5, Husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of New York City were sentenced to death by Judge Irving R. Kaufman on charges of selling US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, enabling the Soviets to detonate their first nuclear weapon in 1949. Although the couple consistently claimed to be innocent, a jury of 11 men and one woman found them guilty on March 30 on the evidence provided by key government witness David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother. Co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released in 1969. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted on June 19, 1953, leaving behind two young sons.
(CL, 4/5/96)(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(HNPD, 4/5/99)(AP, 4/5/04)
1951 Apr 5, In San Francisco the first fully separate food section made its Chronicle debut.
(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)
1955 Apr 5, Richard J. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago. He served 6 terms until his death in 1976.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/daley1.html)(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.14)
1955 Apr 5, Winston Churchill resigned as British prime minister. He was replaced by Anthony Eden who served to 1957. Eden's biography by Sir Robert Rhodes James (d.1999 at 66) was published in 1987.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.Be)
1962 Apr 5, Herb Gardner's "Thousand Clowns," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1962 Apr 5, NASA civilian pilot Neil A. Armstrong took the X-15 to 54,600 m.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1962 Apr 5, St. Bernard Tunnel was finished and Swiss and Italians workers shook hands.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1964 Apr 5, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur (b.1880) died in Washington, D.C. In 1978 William Manchester authored: "American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur." In 2006 Robert Harvey authored “American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures," which includes a biography of Japan’s Emp. Hirohito in parallel with MacArthur.
(AP, 4/5/97)(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(WSJ, 8/3/06, p.D5)
1964 Apr 5, 1st driverless trains ran on the London Underground.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, In the 37th Academy Awards "My Fair Lady," Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews won.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, Lava Lamp Day was celebrated.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1965 Apr 5, The second Indo-Pakistani conflict began when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kachchh, a sparsely inhabited region along the West Pakistan-India border.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1967 Apr 5, Pres. Johnson appointed Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984) as the new ambassador to Saigon, South Vietnam. Bunker replaced Lodge and continued as ambassador to 1973.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_South_Vietnam)
1968 Apr 5, Riots erupted across the US following the King assassination.
(CL, 4/5/96)
1968 Apr 5, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sahn ended after 76 days.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1970 Apr 5, Six Nepalese Sherpas died in an avalanche during a Japanese skiing expedition on Everest.
(SFC, 5/15/96, A-10)(www.everestsummiteersassociation.org/listofdeadoneverst.htm)
1971 Apr 5, In Sicily, Italy, Mount Etna began a series of eruptions.
(http://boris.vulcanoetna.com/ETNA_erupt2.html)
1971 Apr 5-1971 Apr 23, In Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) the People’s Liberation Front attempted a nationwide coup, but the army and Mr. Bandaranaike’s government regained control.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)
1972 Apr 5, The Harrisburg 7 trial ended in mistrial after 11 weeks. Philip Berrigan & Sister Elizabeth McAllister were declared guilty, but only of smuggling letters in & out of prison. Librarian Zoia Horn (d.2014) had refused to testify at the trail, becoming the first US librarian to be jailed for refusing to testify. She was freed after 20 days when a jury deadlocked on conspiracy charges.
(www.well.com/~mareev/TIMELINE/1971-1972.html)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.E5)
1973 Apr 5, Pioneer 11, built to be a backup if Pioneer 10 failed, was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on an Atlas-Centaur rocket, on a trajectory similar to Pioneer 10. After Pioneer 10 completed the first ever successful encounter with Jupiter, Pioneer 11 was re-targeted, even while it was flying outward, for an eventual encounter with Saturn after its visit to Jupiter in December, 1973.
(http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/ThePioneers.html)
1974 Apr 5, The World Trade Center (WTC), the tallest building in the world at 110 stories, opened in NYC.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1975 Apr 5, Chiang Kai-shek (b.1887), Chinese statesman and president of the Republic (1943-1950) and President of the Republic of China, Taiwan (1950-1975), died at age 87. Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mayling) moved to New York following her husband's death. In 1982 Sterling Seagrave authored "The Soong Dynasty." In 2009 Jay Taylor authored “The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China."
(WUD, 1994, p.254)(AP, 5/5/97)(SFC, 1/27/00, p.E1,5)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.86)
1976 Apr 5, Tom Stoppard's "Dirty Linen," premiered in London.
(www.donshewey.com/theater_reviews/dirty_linen.html)
1976 Apr 5, Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston at age 72. In 1993 Charles Higham authored “Howard Hughes: The Secret Life." In 1996 Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske authored "Howard Hughes: The Untold Story." Hughes had hired a coterie of Mormons to take care of his confidential business. These included Frank William Gay (1920-2007), who led Hughes’ Summa Corp. from 1970-1978.
(AP, 4/5/97)(SFC, 10/21/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A6)
1976 Apr 5, James Callaghan became PM of England. He served until May 4, 1979.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Callaghan)
1977 Apr 5, In San Francisco a group of 100 people, many with disabilities, began a 26-day sit-in protest at San Francisco’s Federal Offices. Grip bars in toilets were among their demands.
(https://tinyurl.com/y2kclvjr)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.31)
1977 Apr 5, A group of Chilean military men in London announced the formation of a "Front of Democratic Forces of Chile in Exile." Another similar group was formed in Brussels and shortly later in East Berlin.
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A19)
1979 Apr 5, The play “Faith Healer" by Brian Friel opened on Broadway with James Mason as Frank. It closed after 3 weeks.
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.88)(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3933)
1980 Apr 5, Eleven Puerto Rican FALN members were arrested for attempting to rob an armored truck at Northwestern University; three were linked to the raid on the Carter-Mondale campaign headquarters. Several of those arrested were granted clemency in 1999.
(WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A22)
1980 Apr 5, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl (71) was stabbed 31 times and strangled to death. Her body was found in the chapel of Mercy Hospital, Toledo, Ohio. In 2004 Rev. Gerald Robinson (63) was arrested for the murder. In 2006 Robinson was convicted of murder. On July 4, 2014, Robinson, who continued to maintain his innocence, died in a prison hospice unit.
(SFC, 4/24/04, p.A2)(SFC, 5/12/06, p.A3)(AP, 7/4/14)
1981 Apr 5, It was reported that Yugoslav authorities appeared to be sending extra militia units to the southern province of Kosovo after nationalist demonstrations in which 35 people were injured and scores arrested.
(http://tinyurl.com/2n6atk)
1982 Apr 5, Abe Fortas (b.1910), former Supreme court justice (1965-1969), died. He had resigned on May 14, 1969, under pressure for the acceptance of an allegedly illegal payment from a former business associate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Fortas)
1982 Apr 5, Lord Carrington (b.1919) resigned as Britain’s foreign secretary.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carington,_6th_Baron_Carrington)
1983 Apr 5, France threw out 47 Soviet diplomats accusing them of espionage.
(http://tinyurl.com/2n2m92)
1984 Apr 5, In California Tina Faelz (14) was stabbed to death in a culvert under I-680 while she was walking home from school in Pleasanton. Fellow students discovered her body shortly afterward. On Aug 8, 2011, the Pleasanton Police Department announced that Steven J. Carlson (43), a former classmate of the Foothill High student has been arrested in her killing. In 2012 his case was transferred to adult court. On Oct 30, 2014, Carlson was convicted of first-degree murder. In 2020 Carlson wrote letters confessing to the murder.
(SFC, 8/9/11, p.A1)(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)(SFC, 10/31/14, p.D2)(SSFC, 10/25/20, p.A1)
1984 Apr 5, Arthur Travers ("Bomber") Harris (b.1892), marshal of British RAF, died.
(www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p431_Lutton.html)
1986 Apr 5, A Berlin nightclub was bombed. US Sgt. Kenneth Ford (21) and Nermin Hannay (29) died at the scene. Sgt. James Goins (25) died later in hospital. 230 people were injured. Palestinian Yasser Shraydi (Chraidi) was suspected of playing a lead role in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque. In 1996 he was extradited from Lebanon to face charges in Germany. In 1996 Andrea Hasler was arrested in Greece and extradited to Germany. Also a woman named Verena Chanaa, suspected of planting the bomb, and her former husband named Ali Chanaa were arrested in Berlin. In 1997 Musbah Abulghasen Eter was arrested by Italian police in Rome in connection with the bombing. In 2001 V. Chanaa was sentenced to 14 years, A. Chanaa and Eter were sentenced to 12 years, and Chraidi was sentenced to 14 years. Libya was implicated and in 2004 agreed to pay $35 million in compensation.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C3)(SFC, 11/14/01, p.A18)(AP, 9/3/04)
1986 Apr 5, Manly Wade Wellman (b.1903), sci-fi author (Devil's Planet), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_Wade_Wellman)
1987 Apr 5, Fox Broadcasting Co. made its prime-time TV debut by airing the premiere episodes of "Married ... With Children" and "The Tracey Ullman Show" three times each. In 2004 Daniel M. Kimmel authored “The Fourth Network." Ron Leavitt (1947-2008), writer and producer, co-created “Married… With Children" with Michael Moye.
(AP, 4/5/02)(WSJ, 6/11/04, p.W4)(SFC, 2/13/08, p.B7)
1987 Apr 5, In New York state the Schoharie Creek Bridge, a New York State Thruway bridge over the Schoharie Creek near Fort Hunter, collapsed killing 10 people.
(SFC, 4/11/09, p.D12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_Creek_Bridge_collapse)
1988 Apr 5 Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won a solid victory in Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary while, on the Republican side, Vice President George Bush overwhelmed his opposition.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 Apr 5, Honduran and US authorities captured Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros (b.1945). He was taken from Honduras by US marshals, triggering violent protests, the burning of a US Embassy office and the deaths of five people. In 2011 a court issued warrants for the arrest of 11 former officials accused of helping US authorities seize the drug trafficker.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Matta-Ballesteros)(AP, 8/10/11)
1988 Apr 5 A 15-day hijacking ordeal began as gunmen forced a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet to land in Iran.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 Apr 5, Alf Kjellin, Swedish actor, director (Juggler), died.
(www.tv.com/alf-kjellin/person/24487/summary.html)
1989 Apr 5, Joseph Hazelwood, former captain of the Exxon Valdez supertanker that leaked nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, surrendered to authorities in New York.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1989 Apr 5, The government of Poland signed an agreement restoring the independent labor movement Solidarity after a seven-year ban.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1990 Apr 5, It was announced that President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev would hold their first full-scale summit in the United States.
(AP, 4/5/00)
1990 Apr 5, Paul Newman won a court victory over Julius Gold to keep giving all profits from Newman foods to charity.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1990-4/1990-04-05-CBS-15.html)
1991 Apr 5, The US government reported the nation’s jobless rate surged to six-point-eight percent in March.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The space shuttle “Atlantis" blasted off on a mission that included the deploying of the second of “NASA’s" Great Observatories. NASA launched the $670 million Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. It was directed to a suicide plunge in 2000.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC, 6/3/00, p.A6)(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, Former Texas Senator John Tower, his daughter and 21 other people were killed in a commuter plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The UN adopted Resolution 688, which condemned Sadam Hussein’s suppression of the Kurds and demanded respect and political rights for all citizens. A safe haven was established above Iraq’s 36th parallel.
(www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0688.htm)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)
1992 Apr 5, In Washington, D.C., a crowd estimated by authorities at half a million marched in support of abortion rights.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton died in Little Rock, Ark., at age 74.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, A medical student (Suada Dilberovic) became the first fatality of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina as Serb nationalists began forcibly opposing the republic's secession from Yugoslavia.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1992 Apr 5, Pres. Fujimori seized dictatorial power by sending tanks to shut down Peru's Congress and judiciary. Former president Alan Garcia fled Peru to avoid arrest by the Fujimori regime. In 2008 Peru's Cabinet chief testified at the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori that security forces attempted to assassinate Garcia following the shut down of Congress.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.D4)(AP, 1/18/08)
1993 Apr 5 North Carolina defeated Michigan 77-71 to win its first NCAA basketball championship in 11 years.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1993 Apr 5 The European Community called for more and tighter sanctions on Serbia to try to force Belgrade's allies in Bosnia to accept a peace plan.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1994 Apr 5, "Jackie Mason Politically Incorrect" opened at the John Golden Theater in NYC for 347 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0495)
1994 Apr 5, President Clinton presided over a 90-minute town hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., in which he called himself the victim of "false charges" in connection with the Whitewater controversy.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1994 Apr 5, A US Navy A-6E bomber jet slammed into the San Francisco Bay killing both the pilot and navigator.
(SSFC, 3/31/19, DB p.39)
1994 Apr 5, Kurt Cobain (b.1967), singer-musician for the grunge band Nirvana, committed suicide in Seattle. His body was found on April 8 at his Lake Washington Boulevard home.
(AP, 4/8/97)(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.52)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain)
1994 Apr 5, Andre Victor Tchelistcheff (b.1901), Russian-born winemaker, died in California. He developed frost-prevention techniques and helped curb vine disease in Napa Valley. Besides managing Beaulieu Vineyards in Napa for 35 years, Tchelistcheff operated a private wine laboratory in St. Helena for 15 years. He also assembled a fabled library of wine literature.
(http://tinyurl.com/8kqmd)
1995 Apr 5, The House of Representatives passed, 246-188, a tax-cut bill, the final major item in the Republicans' "Contract with America."
(AP, 4/5/00)
1995 Apr 5, The Mekong Agreement created the Mekong River Commission with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as members.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.34)(www.kellnielsen.dk/mekong/agreem.htm)
1996 Apr 5, Accompanied by six children who survived the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton bowed his head in silent prayer at the site where 168 people were killed almost a year earlier.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1996 Apr 5, In NYC a gunman wearing a black jacket and a Wu-Tang Clan hat walked past Shdell Lewis on /Staten Island, turned around and opened fire. Lewis was hit several times, collapsed nearby and later died at a hospital. Police soon identified Grant Williams (25) as his killer. Williams was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to life in prison, where he spent 23 years — all for a crime he did not commit. On July 22, 2021, a Richmond County judge vacated Williams’s conviction.
(AP, 7/23/21)
1996 Apr 5, Francis Wood, administrator of the China dept. of the British Library questioned the authenticity of Marco Polo’s travels in a study titled: “Did Marco Polo Go to China?"
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1996 Apr 5, Heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia left 75 people dead, after peace talks broke down between clan leaders Mohamed Farak Aidid and his former backer, Osman Hassan Ali Ato.
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1997 Apr 5, From Serbia it was reported the Pres. Milosevic might step down from Serbian presidency at the end of his 2 terms and try to assume the ceremonial post of president of all of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro).
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5, In Zaire the rebels agreed to allow a UN airlift of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees back to their homeland.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A17)
1998 Apr 5, In Leeds, England, environment chiefs from the world's top eight industrialized nations announced plans to curb the smuggling of hazardous waste, endangered species and substances that damage the ozone layer.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1998 Apr 5, In Indonesia an outbreak of dengue fever killed 125 people since the beginning of the year in South Sumatra.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T13)
1998 Apr 5, Iran and Iraq exchanged 1,589 prisoners of war, bringing the number to over 4,000. Up to 30,000 prisoners were thought to be held by both sides.
(SFC, 4/6/98, p.A16)
1998 Apr 5, In Japan the $3.8 billion, 12,906 foot Akashi Kaikyo Bridge linking the islands of Shikoku and Honshu was opened. It was built to withstand an 8.5 earthquake and took ten years to build.
(SFEC, 4/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Apr 5 South Korea accepted to reopen talks with North Korea on economic aid and other issues. North Korea proposed yesterday that officials at the deputy minister level meet in Beijing for talks.
(SFEC, 4/6/98, p.A12)
1999 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court ruled that police can search the belongings of car passengers while seeking evidence against the driver.
(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, In Laramie, Wyo., Russell Henderson pleaded guilty to kidnapping and felony murder in the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student.
(AP, 4/5/00)
1999 Apr 5, At Newport News, Va., members of local 8888 of the United Steelworkers went on strike. The shipyard offered a $2.49 per hour raise over 3 years as opposed to the union demand for $3.95.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.D1)
1999 Apr 5, In Kansas City, Mo., 5 decomposing bodies were found in the home of Gary Beach (56) and his stepson. Beach was arrested the next day. The 5 dead included his stepson and were thought to have been dead from 2-7 days.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A3)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 5, NATO attacks struck Belgrade, Nis and Novi Sad in the most ferocious attacks for a 13th straight day. The first Kosovo refugees were flown out to Norway and Turkey and the US said it would take some 20,000 to Guantanamo Ari Base in Cuba. Pres. Clinton asked for public donations for the relief effort.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1,8)(AP, 4/5/00)
1999 Apr 5, In Indonesia 2 people were killed during clashes in Liquisa, East Timor. Jose Alexandre Gusmao, under house arrest in Jakarta, called for guerrilla attacks against Indonesian forces. In Maluku province soldiers found some 20 burned bodies in the village of Larat on Kai Besar Island.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Apr 5, In Macedonia ethnic Albanians were blocked at the border due to extremely slow processing by government officials. Political stability was feared and the UN was denied a mandate to process the refugees.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A8)
1999 Apr 5, Iraq claimed that US and British warplanes bombed a control station that delivered oil approved for export on a UN humanitarian program.
(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on Libya.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, Serbia said a dozen civilians were killed by NATO bombs at Aleksinac.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, In Turkey a suicide bomber killed himself and a teenage girl in an apparent attempt on the life of Gov. Suleyman Kamci.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A10)
2000 Apr 5, Ending a two-year investigation, a US independent counsel cleared Labor Secretary Alexis Herman of allegations that she’d solicited $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions.
(AP, 4/5/01)
2000 Apr 5, A 261-page report by the 12-person National Research Council said “it was not aware of any evidence suggesting foods on the market today are unsafe to eat as a result of genetic modification."
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 5, The Netscape 6 browser was introduced.
(WSJ, 4/5/00, p.B1)
2000 Apr 5, The WHO and UNAIDS recommended that the drug trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (or cotrimoxazole) be used to fight AIDS in Africa. The antibiotic, also known as Bactrim, would help victims live longer.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 5, In Brazil Jose Rainha Jr., leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, was acquitted of the 1989 killing of farm owner Jose Machado Neto.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, Yoshiro Mori took over as Japan’s new prime minister, succeeding Keizo Obuchi, who’d been felled by a stroke.
(AP, 4/5/01)
2000 Apr 5, In Mexico Rodolfo Montiel, an imprisoned peasant leader, was awarded the $125,000 Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts to protect the forests of the Sierra Madre. 6 other winners were scheduled for Apr 17.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A16)
2000 Apr 5, In Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to life in prison for hijacking and terrorism due to his Oct 12 refusal to let a passenger plane land with 198 people aboard.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, In Peru Alejandro Toledo (54), the “Cholo," rose dramatically in the polls as opposition candidate to Pres. Alberto Fujimori, the “Chino." Toledo represented the Peru Possible Party.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 5, In Russia the FSB arrested a US businessman for suspected espionage after he allegedly bought information on defense technology from Russian scientists. Edmond Pope was later identified as a retired navy captain working for Pennsylvania State Univ. in applied research. The key witness against Pope recanted his testimony in Nov.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)(USAT, 4/7/00, p.6A)(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A14)
2001 Apr 5, Wang Zhizhi of China, 7 feet and 1 inch tall, made his NBA debut for the Dallas Mavericks. Wang Zhizhi became the first Chinese player to play in the NBA when he took the court for Dallas against Atlanta. He scored six points and grabbed three rebounds as the Mavericks beat the Hawks 108-to-94.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.A17)(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, The United States and China intensified negotiations for the release of an American spy plane's crew; President Bush, in a conciliatory gesture, expressed regret over the plane's Apr 1 in-flight collision with a Chinese fighter that triggered the tense standoff.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A1)(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, The DJIA rose 402 to 9,918, its 2nd largest point gain ever. The Nasdaq rose 146 to 1,785, its 3rd biggest % increase.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A1)
2001 April 5, Michelle Curran (16) was reported missing in Las Vegas. She was kidnapped as she hitchhiked, sexually abused for three weeks, and then shot in the head. In 2006 Michael Thorton (50) and Janeen Snyder (26) were both found guilty of murder, rape with a foreign object, and burglary. The pair were sentenced to death.
(http://tinyurl.com/fww93)(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B2)
2001 cApr 5, Presidents Robert Kocharian of Armenia and Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan met in Key West, Fla., for negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh. A new $2.7 billion oil pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, was expected to pass just north of the area. Halliburton Co., was a finalist in engineering bids for the line and Vice President Chaney was the former chief executive of Halliburton. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice formerly served on the Board of Directors for Chevron, a player in the pipeline bid.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 5, Dutch driver Perry Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his truck in Dover, England.
(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 5, Iyad Hardan, head of Sarai al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, was killed in the explosion of a booby trapped pay phone in the West Bank.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.A16)
2001 Apr 5, In Mexico Brig. Gen. Ricardo Martinez was arrested with aides Capt. Pedro Maya and Lt. Javier Quevedo on drug trafficking charges.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 5, In the Philippines former Pres. Estrada was indicted for allegedly pocketing $82 million in kickbacks and payoffs over his 2 ½ years in office.
(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D6)
2002 Apr 5, US mediator Anthony Zinni met with Yasser Arafat in Ramallah as Israeli forces continued their offensive. At least 35 Palestinians were killed on the bloodiest day of fighting since the beginning of Israel's week-old military offensive.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A1)(AP, 4/5/03)
2002 Apr 5, A new US stamp that featured the SF Bay Area was 1st displayed. It was part of the new 50-state “Greetings from America" series.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A14)
2002 Apr 5, The coffin of the Queen Mother was carried through the heart of London on a gun carriage as Britain honored the woman whose life spanned a tumultuous century of upheaval and change.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2002 Apr 5, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei urged Islamic oil-producing countries to suspend oil exports for a month to countries supporting Israel.
(SFC, 4/6/02, p.A10)
2003 Apr 5, In the 18th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US 3rd Infantry troops entered Baghdad for the first time. Coalition troops took several objectives surrounding the capital in the north and northwest. US warplanes hit Iraqi positions near the commercial center of Mosul. Up to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed as American armored vehicles moved into Baghdad.
(AP, 4/5/03)(AP, 4/6/03)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 5, Ali Hassan al-Majid (king of spades), Saddam Hussein’s 1st cousin and dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents for ordering a 1988 poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, was killed by an airstrike on his house in Basra.
(AP, 4/7/03)(SFC, 4/26/03, A14)
2003 Apr 5, The Belgian Senate approved a measure gutting a 1993 war crimes law.
(AP, 4/6/03)
2003 Apr 5, Croatian police have arrested Ivica Rajic (45), a Bosnian Croat long sought by the UN war crimes tribunal, for allegedly carrying out atrocities against Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 4/6/03)
2003 Apr 5, In East Timor Jose Cardosa Fereira, senior militia leader, was found guilty of murder, rape and torture of civilians in East Timor who supported the territory's 1999 independence from Indonesia. He was sentenced to 12 years.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2003 Apr 5, A prison riot in northern Honduras left 86 prisoners dead and dozens more injured at the 1,600-inmate El Porvenir prison outside of La Ceiba. Soldiers and police searched for escaped inmates. Honduras' 26 prisons were built to house 5,500 inmates but are crammed with 13,000 prisoners. In 2008 a court sentenced 22 soldiers and police to a combined 740 years in prison for the massacre. In 2008 a Honduran court sentenced Dimas Antonio Benitez, a former prison official, to 1,051 years in jail for the deaths in the prison massacre.
(AP, 4/6/03)(SFC, 4/7/03, p.A8)(AP, 6/4/08)(AP, 9/7/08)(AP, 2/16/12)
2003 Apr 5, In Israel Brian Avery (23), a peace activist from Albuquerque, NM, was wounded when Israeli troops opened fire in Jenin.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A8)
2003 Apr 5, In the southern Philippines two bombings killed two people and wounded eight.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2003 Apr 5, Uganda Army troops killed at least 30 LRA rebels in the northern Pader and Gulu districts, days after a three-week cease-fire expired.
(AP, 4/8/03)
2004 Apr 5, Univ. of Connecticut won the basketball NCAA finals over Georgia Tech 82-73.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. Edward P. Jones won the fiction award for "The Known World." Steven Hahn won the history award for "A Nation Under Our Feet" Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration." Anne Applebaum won the general non-fiction award for "Gulag: A History."
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 5, A US-Canadian task force investigating the massive power blackout of Aug 14, 2003, called for urgent approval of mandatory reliability rules to govern the electric transmission industry.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2004 Apr 5, Leonard Reed (b.1907), tap dancer extraordinary, died.
(Econ, 4/17/04, p.84)
2004 Apr 5, Rebel attacks across Chechnya killed six Russian soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, China promised $122 million to Pres. Skerritt in return for revoking Dominica’s recognition of Taiwan.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.29)
2004 Apr 5, Six ethnic Croats surrendered to the U.N. war crimes tribunal to face allegations they participated in the torture and massacre of Muslims in Bosnia in 1993.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, The governing coalition of Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean territory, collapsed over allegations that the justice minister gave favors to a political donor convicted of corruption.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, Indonesians voted in legislative elections with Golkar, the party that once supported ex-dictator Suharto, expected to win the most seats. Some 140,000 Indonesians chose between 450,000 candidates competing for 15,276 offices.
(AP, 4/5/04)(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)(Econ, 4/10/04, p.31)
2004 Apr 5, In northeastern Iran an oil tanker truck and a passenger bus collided, killing 30 people and injuring 27.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, declared a radical Shiite cleric an "outlaw" after his supporters rioted in Baghdad and four other cities in fighting that killed at least 52 Iraqis, eight U.S. troops and a Salvadoran soldier. A warrant was issued for al-Sadr related to the murder of a rival Shiite leader in 2003.
(AP, 4/5/04)(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Israeli troops killed 3 Palestinians near a Gaza settlement.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 5, Alexander Lerner (90), an eminent cyberneticist and a leading member of the "refusenik" movement that promoted Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, died in Israel.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Apr 5, A flash flood swept through two border communities in northern Mexico, flooding rivers, washing away houses and killing 15 people. Dozens more were reported missing.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 5, Pakistan gave tribesmen 2 weeks to expel foreign terrorists.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A3)
2004 Apr 5, In Sri Lanka Pres. Kumaratunga appointed Mahinda Rajapakse as PM.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A2)
2005 Apr 5, The US State Dept. toughened passport rules and announced that Americans returning from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere would be required to show their passports in a program to be fully phased in by Dec 31, 2007.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D1)
2005 Apr 5, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former White House official who has served as US ambassador in his native Afghanistan, was named to take over the post in Iraq.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Crude futures prices fell as traders took profits from a recent run-up. The EU cut its economic growth forecast and OPEC began discussions on another output increase.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Peter Jennings (b.1938), Canada-born ABC News anchorman revealed, he had lung cancer. He died in August 2005.
(AP, 4/5/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jennings)
2005 Apr 5, Saul Bellow (89), Nobel winning novelist, died in Brookline, Mass. His books included “The Dangling Man" (1944), “Herzog" (1964), and “Ravelstein" (2000). In 2015 Zachary Leader authored “The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964."
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A1)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.76)(SSFC, 5/10/15, p.N1)
2005 Apr 5, Dale Messick (b.1906), creator of the Brenda Starr cartoon series, died. The strip began in 1940 in Long Island.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.B7)
2005 Apr 5, The IMF warned that the growing market for credit derivatives and other complex securities could suffer a rapid selloff if conditions turned negative.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 5, In Brazil authorities charged eight policemen with murder for the Mar 31 death-squad killings that left 30 people dead on the outskirts of Rio.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Amnesty International said China accounted for the majority of executions reported worldwide last year, but the true frequency of the death penalty is impossible to count because many death sentences are carried out secretly.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, China's top industrial safety official said the number of deaths in China's accident-plagued coal mines surged by nearly 21% to 1,113 in the first three months of this year despite a national safety crackdown.
(AP, 4/5/05)(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 5, In Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood, an abandoned taxi exploded on an expressway near a U.S. patrol, killing a US soldier and wounding four others. A US Marine was killed by an explosion in the sprawling, western province of Anbar.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Rebels opposed to a bus link joining parts of Kashmir controlled by rivals India and Pakistan set off bombs and fought gun battles with troops, two days before the service was due to start.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla (39), radio reporter, was wounded in the chest, abdomen, legs and arms during an attack in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. She died from her wounds April 16.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 5, Saudi police killed 2 more militants, bringing the total to 9, as security forces continued a tense standoff in ar-Rass. Among those killed were Moroccan Kareem Altohami al-Mojati and Saudi Saud Homood Obaid al-Otaibi, who were ranked 4 and 7 respectively on Saudi Arabia's list of 26 most wanted al-Qaida-linked terror suspects.
(AP, 4/5/05)(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 5, Tens of thousands of Sudanese marched through the capital Khartoum against a UN resolution referring war crime suspects to the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, The UN handed prosecutors from the International Criminal Court thousands of documents and a list of 51 people to be investigated for alleged war crimes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/6/05)(Econ, 4/9/05, p.38)
2006 Apr 5, Seattle customs authorities arrested 18 men and 4 women who had arrived from China in a 40-foot cargo container.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 5, Katie Couric announced she was leaving NBC's "Today" show to become anchor of "The CBS Evening News."
(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3 players had raped a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke cancelled the lacrosse season. The rape charges were later dropped, but the players still faced allegations of sexual offense and kidnapping; all maintained their innocence.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Apple Corp. introduced free software to allow users of its latest Mac models to run MS Windows.
(Reuters, 4/5/06)(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 5, SF picked Google and EarthLink to bring free Internet access to the city.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3 players rape a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke cancelled the lacrosse season.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 5, Brown-Forman said it will lay off 76 people and close its Fetzer Vineyards’ Valley Oaks Hospitality Center in Hopland. Brown-Forman acquired Fetzer in 1992.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.F2)
2006 Apr 5, Allan Kaprow (b.1927), an artist who coined the term “happenings" in the late 1950s, died at his home in Encinitas, Ca. In 1966 he published “Assemblage, Environments, and Happenings."
(SFC, 4/11/06, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
2006 Apr 5, Gene Pitney (b.1941), US singer and songwriter and pop music star of the 1960s, died during a tour of Britain. His chart-topping hits included “Town Without Pity" (1961) "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" and "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart."
(AP, 4/5/06)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B7)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.86)
2006 Apr 5, In Afghanistan coalition forces killed an insurgent and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on a band of Taliban.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 5, A Brazilian congressional investigative committee gave its final approval to a report recommending prosecution of over 100 people linked to a campaign finance and corruption scheme run by former members of the governing Workers Party.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain reiterated its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and rejected Argentina's claims in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office began criminal proceedings against nine individuals and five companies it alleges fixed the price of two widely prescribed generic drugs sold to the country's free National Health Service (NHS).
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said London would press for Romania to be granted membership of the European Union "as soon as possible" as he praised the country's work against people trafficking.
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Cuban coast guard officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler and arrested two others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39 migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat. State television later said that the migrant smuggler who was fatally shot had left the island as a migrant himself three weeks earlier, but returned as a crew member on the same boat to repay a debt.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 5, In France demonstrators blocked roads, rail lines and mail delivery trucks in a second straight day of protests to demand the repeal of a divisive jobs law, while unions vowed they would not compromise in talks with President Jacques Chirac's ruling party on the issue.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Indonesia an explosion in the headquarters of the paramilitary police command in the western city of Medan killed two officers and injured several others.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, A video posted on the Internet in the name of an extremist group claimed to show Iraqi insurgents dragging the burning body of a US pilot on the ground after the April 1 crash of an Apache helicopter.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Iraq a Sunni professor was found dead hours after he was abducted in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Nepal police detained dozens of opposition politicians and ordered a night curfew to thwart a planned general strike aiming to pressure King Gyanendra to restore democracy.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Pakistani security forces and suspected Islamic militants battled for a second day near the Afghan border, leaving four soldiers and 16 fighters dead.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, PM Ismail Haniyeh said the new Hamas-led government is broke and missed the April 1 monthly pay date for tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In the Solomon Islands former premier Sir Allan Kemakeza narrowly clung to his seat in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 5, Militants who captured the South Korean fishing vessel off the coast of Somalia denied they were pirates and said they were defending their waters from illegal fishing.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Sudan said it would allow UN Undersecretary Jan Egeland to visit Darfur.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Thailand’s PM Thaksin Shinawatra handed over power to a longtime friend and fellow police officer, less than 24 hours after saying he would step down over allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Actor Michael Douglas presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with an award for his dedication to ridding the world of land mines, marking the first international day to honor the cause.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Venezuela Jorge Aguirre, a photographer for the Caracas daily El Mundo, was shot and killed on the way to an anti-crime protest. He managed to take a picture of his assailant fleeing on a motorcycle. Homicide charges were filed on April 15 against Boris Lenis Blanco (33), a police officer, who was arrested April 13.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2007 Apr 5, The US pressed Ethiopia for details on detainees from 19 nations taken to secret prisons there and interrogated by CIA and FBI agents.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, The US Transportation Dept. said it will require all passenger vehicles to have electronic gear to prevent deadly rollovers by 2012.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, Florida’s Gov. Charlie Crist persuaded 2 of 3 members of the state board of executive clemency that most felons had served their time and should automatically recover the right to vote.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.35)
2007 Apr 5, FBI Special Agent Barry Lee Bush was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow agent as a stakeout team closed in on three suspected bank robbers in Readington, N.J.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, In San Mateo, Ca., Dr. William Ayres (75), a published child psychologist, was arrested on 14 counts of child molestation, which dated back as far as 1969. 4 new charges were added on April 12. In 2013 Ayres was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/7/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/13/07, p.B1)(SFC, 8/27/13, p.C1)
2007 Apr 5, Darryl Stingley (55), a former New England Patriots player paralyzed during an on-field collision in 1978, died in Chicago.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, Australian police charged two men, including an army captain, with stealing military rocket launchers, some of which ended up in the hands of a suspected terrorist.
(AFP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Fifteen British sailors and marines held captive by Iran returned home to a nation relieved at their freedom but also outraged that they were used by Tehran's propaganda machine.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Ramzan Kadyrov was inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya on a blessing from the Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more than a decade of separatist fighting.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, China told banks to increase their reserves for the third time this year, cutting the amount of money available for lending in a new effort to cool an investment boom that Beijing worries could lead to a financial crisis. Chinese celebrated the annual tomb-sweeping festival, but state media said soaring funeral costs were leading to people complaining they can no longer afford to die.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bus carrying passengers on the start of the Easter holiday crashed in northern Colombia, igniting a blaze that killed 27 people, including six children.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Greek cruise ship, the Sea Diamond, sank off the Aegean Sea island of Santorini, forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,600 people.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.E3)
2007 Apr 5, The editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia was acquitted of charges that he violated the Muslim nation's indecency laws by publishing pictures of scantily clothed women.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bomb struck an oil pipeline, cutting off supplies and causing a huge fire in southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait. A US Army helicopter went down south of Baghdad, injuring 4 of the 9 soldiers aboard. A US soldier was killed by small-arms fire while on patrol in eastern Baghdad. 4 British soldiers and a Kuwaiti interpreter were killed in an ambush in southern Iraq. Thaer Ahmed, assistant director of Baghdad TV, was killed when a car bomb struck the television offices in Jami'a, in west Baghdad. 12 people were wounded. Police in west Baghdad found the bullet-riddled body of Khamael Muhsin, a famous television presenter during Saddam Hussein's rule. She was kidnapped two days ago. Gunmen killed 18 Iraqi, British and American soldiers in the past 24 hours in attacks in Baghdad, the southern oil hub of Basra and near the northern city of Mosul.
(AP, 4/5/07)(Reuters, 4/5/07)(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 5, Kosovo's parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a UN plan that proposes internationally supervised independence for the disputed province.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, In eastern Pakistan a speeding tractor plowed into a roadside school, killing nine children and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A British diplomat met with Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh to push for the release of a kidnapped BBC journalist, the first direct meeting between a European Union diplomat and a Hamas official of the Palestinians' new coalition government.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Attackers fired a grenade into a mosque in Thailand's restive south, wounding 16 Muslim worshippers in an act of defiance after authorities imposed a strict curfew to contain escalating violence.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Ugandan court scrapped the nation's adultery law, saying it was unconstitutional and favored men.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2008 Apr 5, Skybus Airlines, a low-cost carrier based in Columbus, Ohio, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.D3)
2008 Apr 5, Charlton Heston (84), film star, died. he won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s.
(AP, 4/6/08)
2008 Apr 5, Afghan and NATO forces killed 15 Taliban insurgents in separate raids in southern Afghanistan, where police also captured Abdul Jabar, a senior Taliban commander.
(AFP, 4/6/08)
2008 Apr 5, British PM Gordon Brown called the current global economic crisis the largest challenge of its kind in centuries while addressing some of the world's key decision makers at a summit on climate change, the economy and global poverty.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 was hit by fresh flights disruption when the baggage system suffered a major software problem.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Croatia President Bush celebrated NATO's expansion into former communist territory and urged further enlargement, highlighting differences with Moscow hours before final talks with outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Iran said it would not make any concession in exchange for incentives offered by the West to halt sensitive atomic activities.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Youssef Adel, an Assyrian Orthodox priest, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus carrying morning commuters on the busy Palestine Street, killing at least four passengers and wounding 15.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Japan G8 development officials began a two-day ministerial meeting in Tokyo on how to ease suffering in Africa and other impoverished states as well as bolster their efforts in foreign development aid.
(AFP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, In Kashmir police fired tear gas to break up a protest by stone-throwing demonstrators against alleged prison abuses as a strike paralyzed life in revolt-hit Srinagar.
(AFP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 5, Electoral officials said Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF took 30 seats in elections for the country's senate, or upper house of parliament, with the combined opposition taking the same number. The president and tribal chiefs are to appoint the remaining 93 seats. Opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai claimed outright victory in presidential elections and warned Robert Mugabe's ruling party would resort to violence to cling to power. 3 cattle ranchers were driven off their land, and equipment and livestock were seized.
(Reuters, 4/5/08)(AFP, 4/5/08)(AP, 4/6/08)
2009 Apr 5, State media said China has reopened Tibet to foreign tourists almost two months after imposing a ban ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In the Czech Rep. President Barack Obama set out his vision for ridding the world of nuclear arms, declaring the US ready to lead steps by all states with atomic weapons to reduce their arsenals. Obama said the US will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of nuclear weapons. Obama also urged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member of the 27-nation bloc, in remarks rejected outright by France and met coolly by Germany.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen (b.1964) began serving as prime minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_L%C3%B8kke_Rasmussen)
2009 Apr 5, In Iraq Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won assurances that Iraqi leaders will protect Palestinians living in Iraq, including thousands stranded in desert refugee camps, during his first visit to the country since the US-led invasion of 2003. Two roadside bombs in Fallujah killed one officer and wounded three other people. Someone threw a grenade at a police patrol in Samarra, killing one policeman and wounding four. 8 people, including seven policemen, were wounded by a bomb that blasted their patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, Macedonia’s conservative candidate Gjorgje Ivanov (49) won the runoff election in a landslide with about two-thirds of the popular vote.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 5, In Moldova the Communist Party won re-election under alleged ballot rigging. The Communists, in power since 2001, won about 50% of the vote in what international observers said was a fair election. With a population of 4.1 million, Moldova was one of Europe's poorest nations with an average monthly salary of $350. Last year Moldovans abroad sent home $1.6 billion, roughly the same amount as the state budget.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen killed a policeman as they kidnapped a Scottish oil-services worker in Port Harcourt. The British worker was released on April 25.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 5, North Korea defied international warnings and sent a rocket hurtling over the Pacific, a launch President Barack Obama called an illicit test of the regime's long-range missile technology that threatened the security of nations "near and far." North Korea said it successfully sent its "Kwangmyongsong-2" satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful bid to develop its space program. South Korea and the US military disputed North Korea's claim of a successful launch into space, saying the rocket fell into the ocean in stages.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Pakistan a suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque in Chakwal city in Punjab province killed 24-26 people. A senior Pakistani Taliban commander promised two more attacks per week in the country if the US does not stop missile strikes on Pakistani territory.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.39)
2009 Apr 5, Rwanda's ambassador said the bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Somalia an overnight mortar attack aimed at troops and peacekeepers in Mogadishu killed a child and wounded six other people, including 4 of the dead child's siblings. Somali pirates hijacked a small Yemeni boat in the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 5, Sri Lanka’s military said 3 days of intense fighting in the northeast has left 525 Tamil Tiger rebels dead and pushed the remaining guerrillas into a small "no-fire" zone crowded with tens of thousands of civilians. Woman rebel commanders Vidusha and Durga were reported to be among those killed.
(AP, 4/5/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.38)
2009 Apr 5, Off the coast of Yemen another smuggling boat carrying 23 Somalis hit rough seas. 13 made it to shore and two were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2010 Apr 5, The Discovery space shuttle launched with 7 astronauts, including 3 women, for a rendezvous with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 5, In NYC 4 people were shot and dozens of people were arrested in a mile-long stretch of Manhattan near Times Square in mayhem following the city's annual auto show.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In West Virginia a huge underground explosion blamed on methane gas killed 25 coal miners at Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine, about 30 miles south of Charleston. It was the worst US mining disaster since 1984. Four missing miners were found dead on April 10. In 2009 the US Mine Safety and health Administration (MHSA) had cited the mine 515 times, often for problems with its ventilation and escape route plans. On Feb 22, 2012, mine superintendent Gary May (43) was charged with conspiracy to defraud the federal government. May became the 2nd employee of Massey to face prosecution in the case. Massey CEO Don Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2015 and one year in prison. In 2020 a documentary play, "Coal Country" by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, opened in Manhattan.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/10/10)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.32)(SFC, 2/23/12, p.A9)(Econ., 3/7/20, p.76)
2010 Apr 5, In Afghanistan NATO forces killed 10 militants in a raid on a compound in Nangarhar province's Khogyani district. Gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in Pul-e Khumri, capital of northern Baghlan province. In Helmand province 4 insurgents and 4 civilians died in a NATO airstrike.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northern Congo UN-backed government forces retook the Mbandaka provincial airport from rebels. In eastern Congo 2 soldiers shot and killed national radio journalist Patient Chebeya Bakome. Bakome's brother said the soldiers shot Bakome in front of his wife and took his phone and money. Beni police arrested the 2 soldiers.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Ethiopia a British geologist (39) working on behalf of the state-run Malaysian energy company Petronas was shot dead near Danot town.
(Reuters, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Iraq a Shiite couple and four of their children were gunned down in their home outside Baghdad.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mexico five men were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car outside a shopping mall in Mazatlan, in the northeastern state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mongolia over 5,000 protesters surged through the center of Ulan Bator demanding that the government of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and the Mongolian Democratic Party fulfill promises from the 2008 elections to crack down on graft and better distribute the country's mining wealth.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Nigeria fresh clashes erupted between groups of Christian and Muslim youths in the central city of Jos, leaving one dead as security forces restored order.
(AFP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Peru a 2nd day of clashes between police and protesting miners left 6 miners dead as the government tried to put restrictions on unregulated gold mining in the southern jingle region of Madre de Dios.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 5, PM Vladimir Putin said Russia may sell $5 billion worth of weapons to Venezuela following his visit to the South American nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northwest Pakistan Islamist militants attacked a US consulate in Peshawar with car bombs and grenades, killing 8 people. 4 militants were killed during the attack. Hours earlier 45 people died in a suicide attack on a political rally in the town of Timergarah in Lower Dir.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AFP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Russia’s Ingushetia region a suicide bomber killed two policemen.
(Reuters, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Thailand thousands of defiant anti-government demonstrators fanned out to other parts of Thailand's capital and threatened businesses with ties to the government after ignoring police orders to leave Bangkok's paralyzed commercial district.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, Turkish police detained 19 officers, including four generals, as part of an investigation into an alleged plot by elements of the fiercely secular military seeking to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Uzbekistan to fulfill its international human rights commitments and take further steps toward improving the repressive political climate in the Central Asian nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2011 Apr 5, A US astronaut and 2 Russian cosmonauts blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station from Russia’s cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 4/5/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 5, In Tennessee crews recovered the bodies of two workers from the rubble of a wastewater-treatment plant wall that collapsed earlier in the day. Officials continued to investigate what caused the breach that released sewage into a rain-swollen river at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Baruch S. Blumberg (b.1925), 1976 Nobel Prize winner in medicine or physiology, died. He had discovered a virus that caused hepatitis and a vaccine to pre-vent it.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.92)
2011 Apr 5, In eastern Afghanistan NATO forces killed seven insurgents who tried to storm their way onto a base in Jalalabad.
(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, The UN weather agency said a protective ozone layer in the Arctic that keeps out the sun's most damaging rays, ultraviolet radiation, has thinned about 40 percent this winter, a record drop.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Bahraini authorities deported two Iraqi journalists working for the opposition's main newspaper. The government had accused Al Wasat newspaper of unethical coverage of the Shiite uprising against the Sunni rulers. At least 27 people have been killed, since the protests began in Bahrain in mid-February.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Two British tabloid journalists were arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting voice-mail messages left on cell phones. Media reports identified Neville Thurlbeck and Ian Edmondson of news of the World in the ongoing phone-hacking scandal.
(SFC, 4/6/11, p.A3)
2011 Apr 5, China’s central bank raised interest rates again.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.84)
2011 Apr 5, Ecuador said it is expelling US Ambassador Heather Hodges over a diplomatic cable divulged by WikiLeaks that accused Jaime Hurtado Vaca, a newly retired police chief, of a long history of corruption and speculates that President Rafael Correa was aware of it.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Ethiopia’s PM Meles Zenawi told lawmakers Ethiopia is ready to help the people of Eritrea topple the regime of Issaias Afeworki, ruling out a military invasion.
(AFP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Iraq's environment ministry says the war-plagued country has an estimated 25 percent of the world's unexploded land mines, making it one of the most contaminated. Most of the land mines were left behind from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein's regime planted them in the desert near the border. There are no existing maps to show where they are located.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Italy and Tunisia signed a deal to choke off the flood of Tunisians heading to Italian shores. Italy agreed to take two flights a day of repatriated migrants.
(SFC, 4/6/11, p.A2)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.58)
2011 Apr 5, In Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo, surrounded by troops backing Alassane Ouattara, huddled in a bunker at his home with his family and tried to negotiate terms of surrender. Ouattara, the democratically elected leader, has urged forces loyal to him to take Gbagbo alive.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, said it had reduced the flow of highly radioactive water out of a reactor. The government set its first radiation safety standards for fish after the nuclear plant reported radioactive contamination in nearby seawater measuring at several million times the legal limit.
(Reuters, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Lebanon several hundred inmates demanding improved conditions at the country’s largest prison took three guards hostage and set fire inside one of the buildings. Police stormed the country's largest prison to halt a dayslong riot by the inmates. Two prisoners died during the operation.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, Libya's government said it is ready to negotiate reforms but only as long as Moamer Kadhafi is not forced out. Government forces unleashed a bombardment of the rebels outside the key oil town of Brega pushing them back, even as the regime said Gadhafi might consider some reforms but would not step down. The ICC's prosecutor said the International Criminal Court has evidence Gaddafi's government planned to put down protests by killing civilians before the uprising in Libya broke out. A group of journalists came under attack by Gaddafi forces near Brega. South African photographer Anton Hammerl was wounded in the attack. Hammerl was initially reported to have been captured by militia, together with Americans Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley, but it was later believed that he died from his wounds.
(AFP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/5/11)(Reuters, 4/5/11)(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 Apr 5, The Pacific nation of Niue has printed unusual commemorative stamps for Britain's royal wedding: an image of Prince William and Kate Middleton with perforations that split the couple down the middle.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, Palestinian authorities said Mohammed Shalha (21) was killed by Israeli fire along Gaza's volatile border. Relatives of Shalha said he was collecting gravel along the border. The Israeli military said the man was armed, and that soldiers opened fire after spotting him.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group acknowledged that its ranks include child soldiers and said its leaders would meet with United Nations representatives for talks on how to wean the youths from war.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Poland the restored synagogue at Zamosc, Renaissance gem looted by the Nazis, was presented to the public in a ceremony attended by Jewish leaders, US and Israeli diplomats and city officials. It will serve occasionally as a house of worship for Jewish tourists who visit death camps in the area.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Sudan an unidentified plane flew in from the Red Sea and fired a missile at a car travelling from the airport to Port Sudan, killing both passengers and destroying the vehicle. The next day Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel of carrying out the air strike.
(AFP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 5, In South Sudan 13 people died in tribal violence. The governor of Western Equatoria, Joseph Bangasi Bakosoro, later said gunmen attacked his village while authorities from the two states were meeting to find ways of ending hostilities between the communities.
(AP, 4/7/11)
2011 Apr 5, The southern Syrian town of Daraa, the center of pro-democracy protests, was hit by a general strike and braced for fresh rallies after midday prayers.
(AFP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 5, In Yemen tribesmen loyal to Pres. Saleh clashed with a group of soldiers whose commander has sided with the opposition. Fighting in a suburb of Sanaa left 3 tribesmen dead. In Taiz dozens of protesters were treated from breathing problems after police fired tear gas as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a 3rd consecutive day. Security forces shot dead two protesters in the western city of Hudaydah during demonstrations.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AFP, 4/5/11)
2012 Apr 5, Pres. Obama signed the “Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups" aka Jobs Act. The Republican crafted bill to loosen securities regulations was passed by Congress on March 27.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A1)(Econ, 3/31/12, p.16)
2012 Apr 5, US President Barack Obama dropped in on a meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and Massud Barzani, the visiting leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Barzani, also met with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In NYC Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout (45), dubbed the Merchant of Death, received the mandatory minimum 25 years in prison in a case that demonstrated the US government's determination to bring him to justice. The judge also ordered a $15 million forfeiture.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, The Montana Attorney General’s office said Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute and author of “Three Cups of Tea" (2006), mismanaged the organization and misspent its money. He would remain the face of the charity, but would have to repay $1 million.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A7)
2012 Apr 5, Buford, Wyoming, was purchased by Vietnamese businessman Pham Dinh Nguyen (38). He bid $900,000 for Buford, which consists of a gas station and convenience store, a 1905 schoolhouse, a cabin, a garage and a three-bedroom house on 10 acres between Cheyenne and Laramie. The town was formed as the Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1860s. It was sold by Don Sammons, the self-proclaimed "mayor" who owned it for the past two decades and was its sole inhabitant.
(AP, 4/13/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck a bazaar in a northeastern district, killing two people and wounding 16 others in the Kishim district of Badakhshan province. A NATO service member died in a roadside bomb explosion in the south.
(AP, 4/5/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Argentina a strong overnight storm in Buenos Aires blew down trees and destroyed roofs, killing at least 13 people in the region and leaving more than 20 injured.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Bangladesh police discovered the badly injured body of Aminul Islam (40) dumped by the roadside northwest of Dhaka, leading his supporters to point the finger at Bangladesh's security forces. He had led a top union that organized protests to increase the wages of the three million workers in the garment sector. Top global retail associations soon demanded a swift and impartial probe into his murder.
(AFP, 4/25/12)(AP, 5/9/12)
2012 Apr 5, Britain broadcaster Sky News admitted it had authorized a journalist to access emails belonging to John Darwin and his wife Anne, who had faked his death in a canoe accident before moving to Panama to start a new life with the insurance payout.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Around 20 million Britons were banned from using garden hoses, after one of the driest two-year periods on record.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In England a Chinese student (24) died after he was knocked down by an unmarked British police car in Birmingham.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Jaguar Land Rover, owned by India's Tata Motors, announced that it plans to build its new Jaguar F-Type sports car in Britain.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Egyptian security forces and military aircraft searched south-eastern Sinai for militants believed to be behind a rocket launch against Israel. A rocket fired from Egypt's Sinai desert hit the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat early today There were no injuries.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Italy Umberto Bossi (70), the firebrand founder of a populist anti-immigrant party, whose crucial support kept Silvio Berlusconi in power in three governments, resigned as Northern League secretary amid a widening corruption scandal over party funds.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Japan passed a 90.3 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) budget, with about half the spending expected to be financed by new bonds that will add to its massive debt mountain.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika (78) died after a heart attack. Under the constitution, Vice President Joyce Banda (b.1950) is next in line. But that succession is politically fraught because Mutharika kicked her out of the ruling party in 2010 as he chose to groom his brother as heir apparent instead of her.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Malaysian police arrested 137 people, mostly from China and Taiwan, in a raid in the city of Kajang on a crime ring that bet on English football, arranged Internet gambling and carried out online scams.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Mali the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, a rebel group that recently seized control of the remote north, announced a cease-fire saying they had reached their military goal. Ansar Dine kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats in Gao. The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) later demanded 15 million euros for the diplomats and 30 million for 3 aid workers kidnapped last Oct 23. On Sep 2 MUJAO said Tahar Touati, one of the diplomats, has been executed.
(AP, 4/5/12)(AFP, 4/5/12)(AFP, 5/2/12)(AFP, 9/2/12)
2012 Apr 5, Nigerian authorities said they have recovered a cache of arms, including explosives and rocket launchers, in two separate raids in the restive northern city of Gombe and arrested six suspects.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, Dutch PM Mark Rutte denounced Suriname's decision to grant amnesty to President Desi Bouterse for crimes committed under his earlier military dictatorship as "totally unacceptable" and recalled the country's ambassador from its former colony in protest.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a vehicle carrying a senior police official in the southern port city of Karachi, killing four people.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Papua New Guinea's parliament voted to postpone national polls for six months, sparking public outrage.
(AFP, 4/10/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Peru 9 miners were trapped after a horizontal mining shaft collapsed not very deep under the surface. The miners were behind debris about six meters (20 feet) wide that collapsed when they set off an explosion to dislodge copper ore. On April 11 the miners walked free through a newly built tunnel.
(AP, 4/7/12)(AFP, 4/11/12)
2012 Apr 5, Alexei Kudrin, Russia's former finance minister (2000-2011), announced the creation of an independent committee to shape policies alternative to those of the government.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Somalia African Union troops deployed in the city of Baidoa, the first time the force has dispatched troops outside Mogadishu since it was set up five years ago. Baidoa, located 250 km (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, was the seat of Somalia's transitional parliament until the hardline Shebab captured it three years ago.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In Syria fierce clashes between government forces and rebels erupted near Damascus ahead of an agreed truce. Some 2,500 crossed the border today, bringing to 24,000 the number of Syrian refugees now in Turkey.
(AFP, 4/5/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 5, A team led by a Norwegian major general arrived in Damascus to negotiate the possible deployment of a UN team that would monitor a cease-fire agreement between Syrian government troops and rebel forces.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, In south-eastern Turkey overnight blasts temporarily shut down a pipeline pumping oil from Iraq. Kurdish rebels were suspected to be behind the explosions.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Pope Benedict XVI denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, A Vietnamese survey reported that nearly a third of pre-school children in Vietnam suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth, while in urban areas rates of childhood obesity are rising. The study by the National Institute of Nutrition was based on research in 2009 and 2010.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 5, Yemen’s interior minister said government troops have killed over 100 Al-Qaida fighters in the past two days.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 5, Zimbabwe said it had taken over majority shares from foreign mining firms which had not sold 51 percent of their equity to black Zimbabweans, without specifying which or how many firms were affected. The announcement will be implemented retrospectively from September 25, 2011, when companies had to hand in plans on how they intend to sell their majority shares.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2013 Apr 5, A US federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age and criticized the Obama administration for interfering with the process for political purposes.
(Reuters, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, A data leak was reported orchestrated this week by a Washington-based group called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It involved tens of thousands of offshore bank accounts, mainly form the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore, and named dozens of prominent figures around the world. New details were being released by the day. The leak allegedly involved records from 10 tax havens.
(AP, 4/6/13)(SFC, 4/5/13, p.A4)
2013 Apr 5, US Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, one of the American military's most seasoned combat leaders, took charge of US Africa Command. The AC’s No. 1 mission is to work with allies to neutralize the continent's widening web of Islamic extremist groups, including those affiliated with al-Qaida.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Oakland, Ca., Lionel Fluker (54), a former freelance photographer for the Oakland Tribune, was shot a killed by a stray bullet as he drove home from a gym. Donel Poston (37) was arrested on June 14 on suspicion of attempting to murder Anthony Lister (38). On Sep 12 prosecutors filed murder charges against Lister.
(SFC, 9/13/13, p.D7)
2013 Apr 5, In Florida the parents of Travon Martin, the teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer last year, settled a wrongful-death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida subdivision where their son was killed.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a bomb attached to a donkey exploded, killing a policeman and wounded three civilians in Laghman province.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Afghanistan American contractor David Gordon (38), detained in a contract dispute on April 3, was released. 3 US congressmen, who complained about his detention, said he had been seized without charges and beaten.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Brazil’s Public Ministry announced an investigation into a report connecting former Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to a vast vote-buying scheme that involved the channeling of funds to the governing Workers’ Party.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A6)
2013 Apr 5, Britain's most high-profile entertainment retailer HMV was handed a lifeline when Hilco, a turnaround group bought it in a deal worth about 50 million pound, ensuring a future for a firm which gave the Beatles one of their first big breaks.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Chile the Ultraport company managing the Angamos port agreed to compensate workers with a bonus following negotiations mediated by Chile's work minister.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Indonesia’s in North Sumatra province Buddhist fishermen and Rohingya Muslim asylum seekers from Myanmar brawled with knives and rocks at an immigration detention center, leaving 8 dead and another 15 injured. On Dec 5 a court in medan sentenced 14 Rohingya to nine months in jail for the role in the deadly brawl.
(AP, 4/5/13)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 5, In Iran a road accident killed 18 people, including 15 Afghans, after a truck smuggling fuel slammed into a sedan packed with Afghans who were being brought illegally into the country.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Iraq attackers detonated a bomb as an army jeep was driving through the western Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Ghraib, killing 3 soldiers. Another bomb exploded near a vegetable stand, killing 3 civilians and wounding 15 in the Shiite-dominated city of Hillah. In Baqouba a roadside bomb exploded as worshippers left a Sunni mosque, killing two and wounding a dozen people.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Israel forces took Mohammad Khalek (14) into custody. 8 assault-rifle wielding soldiers shackled and blindfolded the boy as his five siblings watched. The military said Mohammad hurled rocks at Israeli vehicles on April 2 and at Israeli forces on several occasions. On April 17 the Palestinian-American teenager was sentenced to two weeks in prison for throwing rocks at Israeli forces.
(AP, 4/11/13)(AP, 4/17/13)
2013 Apr 5, Italy's Pres. Giorgio Napolitano pardoned Joseph Romano, a US Air Force colonel, convicted in absentia by Italian courts in the CIA-conducted abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street. He hoped the move would keep American-Italian relations strong, especially on security matters.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto visited Hong Kong, and said "I am convinced that Mexican products should take advantage of the dynamism of China's markets." A report by a chief economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch this week estimated that Mexico's labor costs are now 19.6 percent lower than China's.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, In southwest Nigeria at least 36 people were killed in a bus crash in which a gasoline tanker exploded in Edo state.
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 5, North Korea warned it could not guarantee the safety of diplomats after next Wednesday and asked embassies to consider moving staff out of the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Pakistan 4 soldiers and 14 militants were killed as the army launched a ground offensive in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber tribal area.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Portugal’s constitutional court struck down previously planned cuts in public sector pay, pensions and benefits.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.54)
2013 Apr 5, Russia's foreign minister said Moscow doesn't understand why North Korea has suggested that Moscow and other countries close their embassies in Pyongyang, and he says he's concerned about the high tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, South Korean media reported that North Korea had placed two of its intermediate-range missiles on mobile launchers and hidden them on the east coast of the country in a move that could threaten Japan or US Pacific bases.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Syria a barrage of rockets slammed into a contested district on the northeastern edge of Damascus, killing at least five people and trapping others under the rubble, while violence raged around suburbs of the capital.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, Activists said Tanzania's government is preparing to kick Maasai tribesmen off their land near to allow a company from the United Arab Emirates to use the land for hunting. Tanzania's Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism announced last week it is shrinking the size of the Loliondo Game Controlled Areas.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2014 Apr 5, Atlanta’s Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton Gregory, in an effort to appease angry parishioners, said that he will sell a $2.2 million mansion just three months after he moved in.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Peter Matthiessen (b.1927), a co-founder of the Paris Review (1953) and two-time winner of the National Book Award, died at a hospital on Long Island. His books included “The Snow Leopard" (1978) and “Shadow Country" (2008).
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A18)
2014 Apr 5, Afghans voted nationwide, defying a threat of violence by the Taliban to cast ballots in what promises to be the nation's first democratic transfer of power. Around 60 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots. Rocket attacks and gunbattles forced authorities to close some 211 polling centers, raising the total number that weren't opened because of security concerns to 959. 6,212 polling centers were opened.
(AP, 4/5/14)(Reuters, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Brazil more than 2,000 soldiers stormed into the Mare slum complex of Rio de Janeiro with armored personnel carriers and helicopters in a bid to improve security two months before the start of the World Cup.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In northern Cameroon two Italian priests and a Canadian nun working as missionaries were abducted before dawn in their residences by two armed groups. On June 1 the Vatican and Italy’s foreign ministry said Gianantonio Allegri, Giampaolo Marta and Gilberte Bussier have been released.
(AP, 4/5/14)(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Apr 5, Chinese state media reported that kindergarten headmaster Shi Haixia and a man were sentenced to death in a poisoning case that left two girls dead. Haixia was upset that a rival school had better enrollments and injected rat poison into a bottle of yogurt. She then asked her accomplice to place it on the road in late April 2013, with a notebook and a pencil in a plastic bag on the way to the other kindergarten in Pingshan County, Hebei province.
(AP, 4/5/14)(AFP, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In China workers in Guangdong province walked out of factories owned by Yue Yuen, a Taiwanese maker of branded shoes. The walkout grew to involve tens of thousands of workers.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.41)
2014 Apr 5, In Egypt at least 23 people were killed in overnight clashes between rival families in the southern city of Aswan.
(Reuters, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, The European Union said it plans to set up an international court in Kosovo to deal with alleged crimes committed by ethnic-Albanian guerrillas during the war with Serbia.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In France Anne Hidalgo (54), the first female mayor of Paris, took office, hailing a "great advance for all women" and saying she feels the weight of responsibility in her new job.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Iraq an explosion at a booby-trapped house near Fallujah, ensuing clashes with militants and roadside bombings killed 21 soldiers.
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A2)
2014 Apr 5, In Mali former planning minister Moussa Mara (39) was promoted to the premiership after Mali's first post-war PM Oumar Tatam Ly (50) quit just six months into office. Ly had reportedly become frustrated over being unable to enact reforms in the administration.
(AFP, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 5, In northern Nigeria gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen stormed a meeting in Yar Galadima, Zamfara state. The clashes between suspected Fulani cattle rustlers mounted on motorbikes and local youth vigilantes left 72 people dead.
(AFP, 4/6/14)(Reuters, 4/7/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Nigeria Umar Sani (35) hosted a small wedding celebration at his home in the small Kano village of Unguwar Yansoro. Wasila Tasi'u was 14 when she married Umar Sani. Prosecutors later claimed that Tasi'u prepared food and laced it with rat poison before serving it to her guests. Four people, including Sani, died within hours of eating the meal.
(AFP, 5/20/15)
2014 Apr 5, Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli inaugurated Central America's first subway system, the most-emblematic project of a five-year term marked by fast economic growth and more than a hint of hubris.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir arrived in Khartoum to meet Sudanese President Omar Bashir.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, In Spain British millionaire Andrew Bush (48) was shot and killed in his home on Spain's Costa del Sol. In 2016 his former girlfriend, Slovakian model Maria Kukucova (26), was found guilty of the murder.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2014 Apr 5, In Syria mortar shells continued to hit Damascus and the central city of Homs amid heavy fighting. A rocket hit Homs and struck a market in the western neighborhood of Inshaat, killing six people.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Thousands of Thai pro-government "Red Shirts" massed in a show of support for PM Yingluck Shinawatra, warning that they would resist attempts to oust her through the courts.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Ukraine rejected Russia's latest gas price hike and threatened to take its energy-rich neighbor to arbitration court over a dispute that could imperil deliveries to western Europe.
(AFP, 4/5/14)
2014 Apr 5, Ukraine’s security service said it has detained a 15-strong armed gang planning to seize power in Luhansk province. Weapons seized included 300 machine guns, an anti-tank grenade launcher and a large number of grenades.
(SSFC, 4/6/14, p.A5)
2014 Apr 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Central African Republic for the first time since the country erupted into sectarian bloodshed four months ago. Ban has urged council members to act quickly on his recommendation for a 12,000-member peacekeeping mission.
(AP, 4/5/14)
2015 Apr 5, Rolling Stone magazine withdrew and apologized for a discredited story last November about a gang rape on a US college campus in Virginia, publishing a review of the debacle that found "avoidable" failures in basic journalism practices.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, Fredric Brandt (b.1949)), celebrity dermatologist, died in Florida. Brandt, dubbed the “Baron of Botox," was the author of two books about the skin aging process and retention of youthful appearance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Brandt)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.86)
2015 Apr 5, The Afghan Taliban published a descriptive biography of their "charismatic" supreme leader Mullah Omar, in a surprise move apparently aimed at countering the creeping influence of the Islamic State group within insurgent ranks.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Bangladesh’s former premier and main opposition leader Khaleda Zia was granted bail in two graft cases after she appeared before a special court.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Bangladesh a severe storm killed at least 24 people and injured dozens more, mostly in Bogra district in the northern part of the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, British army Sgt. Emile Cilliers sabotaged the parachute of his wife by damaging her main and reserve parachutes in order to collect insurance money. Virginia Cilliers survived by landing in a newly plowed field. In 2018 jurors convicted Emile (38) of two attempted murder charges and damaging a home gas valve.
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, In southern China 7 members of a family on a holiday outing drowned when a 17-year-old girl fell into a reservoir and several relatives dove in after her in a deadly attempt to rescue her in Shantou, Guangdong province.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Egypt a bomb blast on a bridge leading to an upscale neighborhood in central Cairo killed a policeman and wounded at least two passers-by. The group Ajnad Misr claimed responsibility. Security forces said Hamam Mohamed Attia, the founder and leader of Ajnad Misr, was killed by security forces early today.
(AP, 4/5/15)(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In France an 18-day-old dispute at Radio France stemmed from concerns over job losses and service reductions aimed at reining in a budget deficit. The longest strike in a decade at France's public radio broadcaster has left paralyzed news stations playing music and shows no sign of ending after weekend talks failed to defuse a standoff over cost cuts.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Germany Israeli citizen Yosi Damari was found killed in the ruins of a Berlin church with massive injuries to his head. On April 10 an Albanian man was arrested in the Czech Republic on suspicion of beating Damari to death.
(AP, 4/8/15)(AFP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 5, Indian police arrested former nightclub bouncer Raminder Singh (28) wanted in connection with two sex attacks in Britain. He was arrested in New Delhi after three years on the run.
(AFP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Iraq three separate attacks in Baghdad killed at least 9 people and wounded others.
(AP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Kenya identified one of the al Shabaab gunmen who massacred students at Garissa University as Abdirahim Abdullahi, a university of Nairobi law graduate and the son of government official in Mandera county.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Libya a suicide bomber killed at least 6 people outside the militia-controlled third city Misrata in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
(AFP, 4/5/15)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.44)
2015 Apr 5, Malawi’s police chief ordered police this weekend to shoot "dangerous criminals" who attack albinos in order to sell their body parts for witchcraft.
(AFP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, Malaysian police detained 17 suspected militants. Authorities the next day said the militants had planned to attack police stations and army camps to acquire weapons and carry out terrorist attacks in Kuala Lumpur and that two of the militants had just returned from Syria.
(SFC, 4/7/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, In northern Mali one person was killed and three injured as unidentified assailants shelled the city of Gao.
(AP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In northeastern Nigeria suspected Boko Haram gunmen opened fire on villagers and torched a number of buildings in a new attack in Kwajaffa, Borno state.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In northwest Pakistan Mir Ahmad Shah (25) gunned down his former fiancée and nine of her relatives, six months after murdering his own parents and two brothers for refusing to pay his dowry.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas threatened to turn to the International Criminal Court over Israel's refusal to fully release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies owed the Palestinian Authority. He rejected an Israeli transfer of millions because of deductions for utility debts owed to Israel.
(AFP, 4/5/15)(SFC, 4/6/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, A Palestinian official said around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus after the Islamic State group seized large parts of it.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In eastern Saudi Arabia a policeman was killed and three were wounded during a raid in al-Awamiya, a predominantly Shiite town.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In South Africa statue of Afrikaner hero Paul Kruger was defaced in Pretoria, the latest in a series of anti-colonial protests that has forced the country to square its racist past with the spirit of reconciliation championed by Nelson Mandela.
(AFP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Spain Denise Thiem (41) of Arizona was last seen walking along the St. James Way pilgrimage route at the town of Astorga. On Sep 11 suspect Miguel Angel Munoz (39) led police to her body and was arrested in Asturias.
(AP, 9/12/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Switzerland CERN said the world's largest particle smasher has restarted after a two-year upgrade that will allow physicists to explore uncharted corners of the matter that makes up the universe.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In eastern Ukraine 6 soldiers were killed in two separate incidents as isolated clashes continue to violate a fragile ceasefire to end the year-long war.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 5, In Yemen warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition bombed Sanaa overnight on the eleventh day of a campaign against Iran-allied Houthi. A senior Houthi member said Yemen's Houthis are ready to sit down for peace talks as long as a Saudi-led air campaign is halted and the negotiations are overseen by "non-aggressive" parties. Armed tribesmen deployed in the streets of Mukalla, pushing al Qaeda fighters out of much of the eastern port town three days after the militants overran it. Houthis, along with allied security forces loyal to the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, carried out a number of overnight raids arresting leading Islah Party members Mohammed Qahtan and Hassan al-Yaeri, along with more than 120 others. Houthi militiamen, supported by army units, gained ground in the southern city of Aden.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)(AP, 4/5/15)
2016 Apr 5, The United States and its allies conducted 23 strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
(Reuters, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, San Francisco became the first US city to require six weeks of paid leave for new parents. The SF Board of Supervisors enacted expansive anti-eviction protections for tenants who work in SF schools.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A1)
2016 Apr 5, Mississippi’s Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 allowing religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples based on religious beliefs. On May 9 a suit was filed against the measure due to become law on July 1.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A12)(SFC, 5/10/16, p.A6)
2016 Apr 5, PayPal became the first and only prominent tech company to commit moving operations out of North Carolina, whose governor last week signed into law a bill that bars local governments from passing antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.C1)
2016 Apr 5, In Texas the body of Haruka Weiser (18), a dance major from Portland, Oregon, was discovered in a creek near the Univ. of Texas alumni center and football stadium in the heart of campus. On April 8 police announced the arrest of a suspect. On June 10 Meechaiel Criner (17), a runaway from the state’s foster care system, was indicted on a capital murder charge.
(AP, 4/8/16)(SFC, 6/11/16, p.A5)
2016 Apr 5, In Wisconsin Ted Cruz beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump soundly, winning most of the state’s delegates and raising the probability of a contested GOP convention in July. Upstart senator Bernie Sanders also beat Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton, bolstering his claim to be a viable alternative standard-bearer to the former secretary of state and first lady.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, Ford announced plans for a new $1.6 billion auto assembly plant in Mexico, creating about 2,800 jobs and shifting small car production from the US.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.C6)
2016 Apr 5, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated his explosives near a busy bazaar in northern Parwan province, killing at least 6 people.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists in Nagorny Karabakh said they had halted fighting after four days of bloodshed, as international powers scramble to resolve the worst violence in decades over the disputed region. The ceasefire was brokered in Moscow. The 4-day war left an estimated 200 people dead.
(AFP, 4/5/16)(Econ, 4/9/16, p.53)(Econ, 5/21/16, p.46)
2016 Apr 5, In Brazil a Supreme Court judge ruled that the lower house of Congress must open impeachment proceedings against Vice-President Michel Temer because he faces the same allegations of breaking fiscal rules as Pres. Rousseff.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 5, In Brazil a gas explosion ripped through an apartment complex north of Rio de Janeiro early today, killing 5 people and injuring 13.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, China banned most imports of North Korean coal and iron ore, the country's main exports, in a significant increase in pressure on the North under UN sanctions against its nuclear and missile tests.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, China denounced accusations arising from a massive leak from a Panamanian law firm as "groundless" and moved to limit coverage of documents that may have exposed financial wrongdoing by some of the world's rich and powerful.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, French finance minister Michel Sapin said France will put Panama back on its blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions, after media revelations about a Panamanian law firm specialised in setting up offshore firms.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Paris riot police fired tear gas and charged youths throwing stones, bottles and eggs during fresh protests against France's proposed labor reforms, making over 100 arrests.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Germany plans to introduce a new national transparency register to make offshore companies disclose their owners' identity, as part of the fight against tax evasion and the financing of terrorism.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Iceland's PM Sigurdur David Gunnlaugsson (41) asked Pres. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to dissolve parliament as his government reeled from a political crisis over the so-called Panama Papers, but the president refused. Gunnlaugsson stepped down, the first major political casualty to emerge from the massive leak of 11.5 million documents detailing hidden offshore accounts held by world leaders and celebrities.
(AFP, 4/5/16)(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, The Indian state of Bihar completely banned the sale of alcohol in a surprise move, including liquor at bars and hotels.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, The Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) terminated the case against Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto saying there was insufficient evidence he was involved in violence following presidential elections in 2007.
(SFC, 4/6/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 5, In Nigeria angry motorists queued overnight at petrol stations across the country and lines of cars blocked traffic in the commercial capital Lagos as the worst fuel shortages for years hit Africa's top oil producer.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Thirteen North Koreans working at a restaurant in China defected. They traveled to a Southeast Asian country before being flown to South Korea.
(AP, 4/8/16)(AP, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 5, President Vladimir Putin said Russia is creating a national guard to fight terrorism and organized crime.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Saudi police Colonel Kattab Majid al-Hammadi was shot dead in the Riyadh region in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, South Africa's parliament began a debate on a motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma after the constitutional court ruled that he breached the constitution by ignoring an order to repay some of the $16 million in state funds spent on his private home.
(Reuters, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, In Sweden Meg Rosoff (59) was named the winner of the 5 million kronor ($615,000) Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for literature aimed at children and young adults. A Boston native living in London, Rosoff's novels include "How I Live Now" (2004), "Just in Case" (2006) and "What I Was" (2007).
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Syrian insurgents shot down a government warplane in the north of the country and shelled a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood in the city of Aleppo. A pregnant woman and three children were among 18 civilians killed when Syrian rebels shelled a Kurdish neighborhood in Aleppo.
(AP, 4/5/16)(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 5, In Syria Rifai Ahmad Taha, a senior Egyptian al-Qaida figure, was killed along with several others in a US drone strike. Before joining al-Qaida, Taha was a top figure in Egypt's notorious militant group Gamaa Islamiya, which massacred 58 foreign tourists in the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor in 1997.
(AP, 4/8/16)
2016 Apr 5, Turkish police detained almost 70 businessmen, local officials and teachers in a new nationwide sweep against supporters of Pres. Erdogan's arch foe.
(AFP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 5, Shelling from Yemen killed two people in a Saudi town, in a rare breach of a calm in the border area agreed with Iran-backed rebels early last month.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2017 Apr 5, US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said parents and children caught crossing the Mexican border illegally won't be separated unless the "situation at the time requires it."
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Basque political parties said they hoped a pledge by militant separatist group ETA to disarm this weekend would draw a line under a decades-long campaign that killed more than 800 people across Spain.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Britain said it would help Saudi Arabia to diversify its oil-dependent economy as PM Theresa May visited the Gulf kingdom.
(AFP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, London police on behalf of the Kuwaiti authorities arrested Fahad al-Rajaan (68), the former head of Kuwait's social security fund convicted in his home country of corruption and embezzling public money.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, China and Finland will increase cooperation under the China-European Union framework, President Xi Jinping said after arriving in Finland for his first visit as head of state.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, European Union lawmakers adopted a resolution setting their red lines for the two-year divorce talks with Britain and rejected attempts by British MEPs to recognize Gibraltar's pro-EU stance in the Brexit referendum.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, German conglomerate JAB, owner of Krispy Cream and other food brands, announced that it was taking over the St. Louis-based Panera Bread bakery chain for $7.5 billion.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.26)
2017 Apr 5, Kuwait said it has signed a new a multi-billion-dollar deal to supply Egypt with crude oil and petroleum products for the next three years.
(AFP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, North Korea conducted another ballistic missile test in defiance of UN sanctions. The projectile went about 37 miles into the East Sea.
(SFC, 4/5/17, p.A4)
2017 Apr 5, Norway said it plans to build a 5,610-foot tunnel for ships. The Stad Ship Tunnel was expected to open in 2023 at a cost of $314 million.
(SFC, 4/7/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr 5, In Poland opposition lawmakers called for the dismissal of Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, saying he is undermining the nation's armed forces with dismissals and demotions of high-ranking officers who aren't his allies.
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Somalia a massive car bomb blast at a restaurant in Mogadishu killed at least seven people.
(AP, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, Hundreds of South Sudanese refugees fled into Uganda for a second day, bearing further grim testimony of an attack by government forces on the border town of Pajok in which at least 17 people were killed.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Switzerland Geneva's regional council voted to modify a 1929 ordinance that banned women from swimming topless in the city's main natural waterways. The change doesn't apply to public swimming pools or swimming totally naked.
(AP, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, In Syria US-backed fighters laid siege to the northern town of Tabqa, an Islamic State stronghold. IS militants killed 33 young men in eastern Syria, close to the border with Iraq, according to Syrian opposition activists.
(AP, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 5, Venezuela's opposition's lawmakers gathered from dawn, some carrying injuries from protests, to seek the dismissal of Supreme Court judges whom they accuse of propping up a dictatorship.
(Reuters, 4/5/17)
2018 Apr 5, The Trump administration told Congress that it plans to approve the sale of more than $1.3 billion in artillery to Saudi Arabia.
(SFC, 4/6/18, p.A2)
2018 Apr 5, California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education ordered San Jose-based Silicon Valley Univ. to provide a closure plan. The school, founded in 1997 by husband and wife team Feng-Min Shiao and Mei Hsin Cheng, had lost its accreditation last December 7. It was seen as a vias mill and cited with 15 violations.
(SSFC, 4/22/18, p.A14)
2018 Apr 5, In southern California police in Barstow fired what sounded like more than 30 bullets at a packed car in a shopping store parking lot, killing Diante Yarber, a black father of three, and injuring a young woman in the latest US law enforcement shooting to spark backlash.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6uenu4o)(SFC, 4/25/18, p.A4)
2018 Apr 5, In NYC Ultimate fighting star Conor McGregor threw a hand truck at a bus full of fighters after a news conference for UFC 223 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. McGregor faced criminal charges after the backstage melee injured two fighters and forced the removal of three bouts on April 6 from UFC's biggest card this year.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, A US federal immigration raid took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant, as part of an employment crackdown under President Donald Trump's administration. Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Afghan air strike in Jawzjan province killed Qari Hekmat, an important Islamic State (IS) commander, one year after he defected from the Taliban and established a new Islamic State foothold in the country. Mawlavi Habib Ur Rahman was soon appointed as his IS successor in the north of the country.
(Reuters, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, Albania's opposition blocked the country's main highway junctions in an anti-government protest, accusing officials of links to organized crime and of increasing both taxes and poverty.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Antarctica German scientists said they have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Australian judge ruled that Frenchman Smail Ayad will not be tried for killing two British backpackers at a hostel in Home Hill, Queensland state, in August, 2016, because of mental illness.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Brazil's Supreme Court rejected former Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's plea to remain free until he exhausts all his appeals clearing the way for his imprisonment.
(Reuters, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, Britain opened its first permanent military base in the Middle East in more than four decades in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Forty-three Cambodians deported by the United States arrived in Phnom Penh, the largest batch yet under a controversial deal that enables America to expel legal residents with criminal records. More than 600 US-based Cambodian convicts have been forcibly returned to the Southeast Asian country since 2002.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Cyprus said it will lodge protests over the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant a few dozen kilometers from the island nation. One worry raised is that the Akkuyu area, where the plant is to be built, is earthquake-prone.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In France PM Edouard Philippe said the government would not back down in a shake-up of the state-owned SNCF railways, prompting accusations of arrogance from unions who said further strikes would go ahead as planned.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a long-awaited, 300 million-euro autism plan for a country that is shockingly behind the curve on providing basic education and care for people on the autism spectrum.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was convicted of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago and sentenced to five years in prison.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Subhabrata Majumdar (46) was arrested after his mother's body was found in the large freezer during a police raid on their home in the city of Kolkata. He allegedly kept his mother's body in the freezer for almost three years while collecting her monthly pension payments, about $460.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India a girl (11) was sexually assaulted and murdered in the western Gujarat city of Surat. Her body was found the next day. The case was made public on April 15.
(Reuters, 4/15/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Indonesian energy ministry official said a coal ship that dropped anchor off the coast of the port city of Balikpapan on Borneo island was likely to blame for an oil spill, after dragging a pipeline more than 100 meters and causing it to crack. The spill and fire killed five fishermen.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed a Palestinian, while a second man died from wounds sustained in last week's mass protest along the Gaza-Israel border.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announced a 35 billion yen ($330 million) loan for irrigation projects in Iraq during talks with PM Haider al-Abadi and pledged Japan's continuing support.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Students protesting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir clashed with government forces after authorities reopened schools following the killings of 13 rebels and five civilians. Government forces fired tear gas to stop students from marching at several colleges in Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city of Srinagar.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A Kenyan court sentenced a policeman to 15 years in prison, after he was found guilty of killing a man in 2013 he suspected of stealing a mobile phone. Titus Musila was last month convicted of murder for shooting Kenneth Mwangi three times in the head instead of arresting him.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Kenya started marking rhinos and aimed to tag and identify 22 of them in two weeks at a cost of $600,000, as part of conserving their dwindling numbers.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Malaysian authorities ordered former PM Mahathir Mohamad's political party to temporarily disband in a blow to the opposition ahead of expected general elections.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Mali two Chadian peacekeepers were killed and at least 10 others were wounded when a UN camp came under mortar fire in the northern Kidal region. The French army said that French and Malian troops had killed about 30 Islamist insurgents during a gun battle near the border with Niger.
(Reuters, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 5, Nigerian officials said at least 1,200 of the more than 100,000 people displaced by Boko Haram violence in the northeastern town of Bama have returned after the town was partly re-built.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) said Lassa fever has killed 142 people in Nigeria since the start of the year, reporting a rise of 32 fatalities in a month.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Poland Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said politicians' salaries will be reduced and bonuses recently paid to government ministers will go to charity, following a public outcry.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Russian gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev, who has exhumed Stalin-era mass graves, was found not guilty of child pornography charges and released following a trial that supporters have denounced as a sham.
(AFP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A Saudi soldier was killed during a raid against suspected militants in the town of al-Awamiya in the kingdom's eastern Qatif province.
(Reuters, 4/8/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Slovakia nearly 50,000 people marched through the capital Bratislava and other cities in a fresh sign of anger over a cozy political system many say turns a blind eye to graft.
(Reuters, 4/8/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Somalia the US military killed three militants after launching an air strike near the town of Jilib against al Shabaab, a militant Islamist group allied with al Qaeda.
(Reuters, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 5, A South Korean pilot was killed when his F-15K fighter jet crashed into a mountain in the country's rural south. The co-pilot remained missing and was also presumed dead.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Spain's High Court released Swiss bank whistleblower Herve Falciani from custody but ordered him to remain in Spain while it considers an extradition request from Switzerland which wants to jail him for industrial sabotage. In 2008 Falciani, a French citizen who worked for HSBC's Swiss private bank, leaked details of thousands of clients many of whom he suspected were using their accounts to evade tax at home.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Syria evacuations from the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus were suspended, days after hundreds of opposition fighters and their relatives left for areas of the country's north as part of a surrender deal following a massive government offensive. State news agency SANA said the suspension was the result of disagreements within the Army of Islam rebel group.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, In Turkey a gunman shot dead four academics at their university whom he saw as supporters of a Muslim cleric accused by the government of being behind a failed coup in 2016.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, A top Turkish official said the country's intelligence agency has snatched around 80 Turkish citizens who the government wanted for alleged links to the country's 2016 failed coup in covert operations in 18 countries.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Shares in Turkey's majority state-owned Halkbank rose as much as 18 percent after US prosecutors sought a 20 year jail term for a Halkbank executive convicted of helping Iran evade US sanctions.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, The United Nations said it is beefing up its inspections of ships bringing humanitarian aid to Yemen to ensure that no military items are being smuggled and to speed delivery of desperately-needed relief supplies.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Vietnamese human rights lawyer and activist Nguyen Van Dai was (48) jailed for 15 years, along with five other activists who were given prison terms of 7-12 years. Dai was charged in a Hanoi court with activities "aimed at overthrowing the people's administration".
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2019 Apr 5, US Vice President Mike Pence stepped up efforts to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office by imposing new sanctions on its oil shipments, and promising "stronger action" against Cuba for helping to keep the regime afloat.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southern California Lenrey Briones (19) was charged with slashing nine people in the face with a knife in a series of random attacks around South Los Angeles, Lynwood and South Gate from March 20 to April 1.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3as74k9)(SSFC, 4/7/19, p.A10)
2019 Apr 5, In western Afghanistan the Taliban besieged a government and army compound in remote Badghis province for a second day, killing at least 12 more troops. Roughly 2,000 Taliban fighters were involved in the attack, with about 600 Afghan troops and members of the security forces inside.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, An international climate conference in Albania was disrupted over tensions between Kosovo and Serbia. The conference proceeded, but only with technical experts.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Algeria a vast crowd of protestors flooded the streets of Algiers, the first mass demonstrations since the resignation of ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and a show of strength by those pushing demands for reform. Private Ennahar TV reported that Algeria's spy chief has been fired.
(AFP, 4/5/19) (Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Armenia Lilit Martirosian, a transgender woman, told members of parliament's human rights committee that the group she founded, Right Side, had recorded 283 cases of transgender rights violations. The next day, hundreds of people protested outside the parliament building, demanding fumigation of the podium at which Martirosian spoke. Death threats soon followed.
(AP, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 5, PM Theresa May asked the EU to delay Britain's departure until June 30 while Brussels suggested that it might be best to postpone the split for up to a year.
(AFP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Britain Arif Naqvi, the chief executive of the collapsed Dubai private equity firm Abraaj Capital Ltd, was arrested on US charges for defrauding investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Managing partner Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel on April 11.
(Reuters, 4/12/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jason Kakaire (29) was charged with five counts of attempted murder following a series of stabbings in north London which have heightened public concern about rising knife crime in Britain.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Cuba newsprint shortages forced the Communist daily to run a trimmed-down edition. Amid shortages, the government is being forced to ration basics like flour, cooking oil and chicken, leading to long lines outside stores.
(AFP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 5, European Union authorities said that German automakers BMW, Daimler and VW colluded to limit the development of emissions-cleaning technology in cars.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, President Emmanuel Macron appointed nine researchers to carry out a two-year investigation into the role of the French army in the Rwandan genocide that is still a source of tension between Paris and Kigali 25 years later.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In France G7 foreign ministers ended a 2-day meeting. They adopted joint commitments to better handle the world's top security challenges. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen stayed at home citing domestic duties and Washington sent lower-ranking officials instead.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, France said it will airlift 12 tons of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Greek authorities said they have arrested and charged a Bulgarian man over the suspected contract killing of John Macris (46), a Greek-Australian, who was fatally shot outside his home in an Athens seaside suburb last year. The suspect's brother was also wanted on suspicion of having helped plan the murder.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Greek police fired tear gas to disperse migrants who had gathered in a field near the country's border with Northern Macedonia in the hope of making their way illegally up through the Balkans toward northern Europe. Migrants in Athens also blocked the city's main train station in demonstrations that authorities said had been triggered by false reports on social media that restrictions on travel to northern Europe had been lifted.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Honduras thousands of people marched through the streets of the Tegucigalpa demanding the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez and an investigation of him and his family.
(AFP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Japanese court approved the detention of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn through April 14 after his latest arrest over financial misconduct allegations, a move that has raised questions among legal experts.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Japan's space agency said an explosive dropped from its Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully blasted the surface of an asteroid for the first time to form a crater and pave the way for the collection of underground samples for possible clues to the origin of the solar system.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Libyan commander said forces allied to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli have taken 145 troops prisoner from the Eastern forces and that 60 vehicles had been confiscated..
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southeastern Mexico electric power returned to three states on the Yucatan peninsula late today, including tourist hot spots Cancun and Tulum, after a partial blackout left 1.6 million customers without energy.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, In Morocco dozens of activists linked to the Hirak protest movement that rocked northern Morocco in 2016 and 2017 had prison sentences of up to 20 years upheld by a court of appeal.
(AFP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 5, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said officials will release 360 Indian prisoners detained for fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian sea. The anglers will be freed in four batches starting April 15.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Russia won a dispute about "national security" at the World Trade Organization, in a ruling over a Ukrainian transit dispute because it had invoked national security. The WTO ruling, the first ever on national security, can be appealed.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A small Russian bank owned by former US congressman Charles Taylor was stripped of its license after allegedly breaking anti-money laundering rules. Taylor, a Republican widely considered a hard-line conservative, was a congressman from North Carolina between 1991 and 2007. Taylor bought CBI in 2003 alongside his business partner Boris Bolshakov, a former KGB agent and Supreme Soviet deputy who is listed as the bank's second-largest shareholder.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society arrived in Russia's Far East on a mission to inspect 97 belugas and orcas and help create conditions for them to be released. Environmentalists said four animals likely died because of cramped conditions and low temperatures.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, A Serbian court sentenced four former state security members to up to 30 years in prison for the April 11, 1999, killing of Slavko Curuvija, a prominent journalist, who was a critic of then-leader Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, South Korean firefighters managed to extinguish most of a massive forest fire that ripped through the mountainous northern coast, destroying 135 homes and forcing more than 4,000 to flee the region that hosted the 2018 Winter Olympics. Two deaths were reported.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Marek Falenta, a fugitive businessman convicted in an eavesdropping case that led to the fall of the Polish government, was captured in Spain. He was convicted of organizing the secret recordings of top Polish politicians in 2013 and 2014, creating a scandal that contributed to the defeat in 2015 of a pro-EU government and the election of a populist right-wing party.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 5, Physicians for Human Rights said Sudan's security forces have killed at least 60 people in more than three months of street protests.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Thailand election officials said that 66 winning candidates in last month's elections face possible disqualification because of complaints filed against them.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, In southern Thailand two Border Patrol Police officers were killed while praying in a mosque in the latest violence believed linked to a Muslim separatist insurgency.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey's official news agency said prosecutors have launched a terror propaganda investigation into Adnan Selcuk Mizrakl, the newly-elected mayor of Turkey's predominantly Kurdish Diyarbakir province.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey began the relocation of Ataturk International Airport to Istanbul Airport on the Black Sea shores. The move is expected to end tomorrow.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 5, It was reported that cholera is surging once more in Yemen, with more than 76,000 suspected new cases and 195 deaths in March, double the number in the previous two months.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2020 Apr 5, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper defended the US Navy's controversial decision to remove the commander of a coronavirus-stricken US aircraft carrier, saying it was a "tough call" but that ultimately it was "a chain of command issue".
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Hawaii reported 351 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and four deaths.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A4)
2020 Apr 5, The death toll in New Jersey has so far reached 846 with 34,124 positive cases of the coronavirus. Ravinder Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, announced in a statement that all employees of essential businesses still operating in the city are now required to wear face covers or masks while working.
(ABC News, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, New York state reported 594 deaths from the coronavirus and 8,327 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, increasing the numbers to 4,159 dead and 122,000 cases since the outbreak began. As of this morning more than 8,500 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. Global cases of the coronavirus pass 1.2 million and deaths top 66,000.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)(ABC News, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, US federal and local zoo officials said a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Nine Wisconsin mayors, including those representing the state's five largest cities, urged the state's top public health official to postpone the April 7 primary election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)(NY Times, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 5, Albania reported 28 new cases of the new coronavirus and said a failure to respect social distancing had led to the highest numbers of infections over the last three days. The COVID-19 disease has killed 20 and infected 361.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Austria reported that the number of new coronavirus infections rose to 11,897. The country also reported more newly recovered than newly diagnosed patients and a declining number of people in intensive care. Some 204 people in Austria have died of the pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Britain's PM Boris Johnson, infected with the coronavirus, went to St. Thomas’s hospital in central London as a precaution.
(Bloomberg, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 5, Leading Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang (44) was released from prison after almost five years behind bars. Wang's initial detention in 2015 came as part of the so-called "709" crackdown, nicknamed as such because it began on July 9 that year.
(AFP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Denmark's confirmed cases of the coronavirus rose to 4,369, with 179 deaths.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Ethiopia reported its first death from the virus and announced five more cases bringing its total to 43, most of them imported by travelers. A number of regional states have implemented bans on movement of people and vehicles, but not yet in the capital Addis Ababa.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In France the coronavirus that killed 7,560. France, like other countries, has confined its residents to home since March 17 to curb the spread of the virus. The measures have been extended until April 15, and are likely to be extended again.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Germany's confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 5,936 in the past 24 hours to 91,714, the third straight drop in the daily rate of new cases.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Hungary the number of coronavirus infections climbed to 733, with 34 people dead. Officials said the figure of 313 registered infections in Budapest could rise fast as some were losing patience with restrictions, gathering in parks and using the almost empty streets for illegal drag racing.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Indian soldiers killed five suspected militants in the Keran sector of Kashmir. Three Indian soldiers were also killed. Another clash a day earlier in Kulgam town killed 4 rebels.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 5, In Indonesia commuters in Jakarta are now barred from using public transit if they aren’t wearing face masks. The country's numbers of coronavirus infections rose to 2,273.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Indonesia a transgender woman (43) died from burns sustained in the incident a day earlier. Police identified six suspects, three of whom were arrested. On April 8 police said they would not bring murder charges against suspects because they believed the suspects who set the fire had not burned her intentionally.
(NBC News, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 5, Iran’s fatalities from coronavirus rose to 3,603 after 151 deaths and 2,483 new cases in the past 24 hours. Total infections reached 58,226.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Israel a small group of Franciscan monks and Roman Catholic faithful took to the streets of Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter in the Old City to distribute olive branches after the traditional Palm Sunday procession was cancelled due to restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. More than 8,000 people in Israel have contracted the coronavirus and 46 have died. In the West Bank, nearly 200 cases have been reported, including a large outbreak in the biblical town of Bethlehem.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Tokyo reported more than 130 new coronavirus infections, bringing the number of cases in the Japanese capital to more than 1,000.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Lebanon a government decree limited car travel six days a week and forbade it on Sundays. Lebanon has reported 520 cases of coronavirus and 18 deaths since the first case was reported in late February.
(AP, 4/5/20)(Econ, 4/11/20, p.38)
2020 Apr 5, Malawi's President Peter Mutharika announced that he and all government ministers are taking a 10% wage cut for three months to raise money to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Malawi has reported four confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far. All have all been linked to people travelling from the UK.
(BBC, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Malaysia reported 179 new coronavirus cases, raising the cumulative total to 3,662. The new cases included 4 deaths, raising the tally to 61 people as of noon.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In the Netherlands the number of deaths caused by the new coronavirus increased by 115 to 1,766. Confirmed infections increased by 1,224 to 17,851.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, The Philippine health ministry reported 8 additional coronavirus deaths and 152 newly confirmed cases. Positive cases rose to 3,246, while the death toll rose to 152.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Rwanda authorities reported that a valley dam has been discovered that could contain about 30,000 bodies, more than a quarter-century after the country’s genocide.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, Singapore reported 120 new cases of the coronavirus, the most in a day, bringing the total to 1,309. Of the new cases, only four involved patients with recent travel history.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In South Africa all 50 wedding guests, the pastor who conducted the ceremony, and the newlyweds themselves were promptly arrested and taken to a police station outside Richards Bay due to a country-wide ban on all public gatherings because of coronavirus.
(BBC, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 5, Officials in South Sudan said the country has its first case of COVID-19, making it the 51st of Africa's 54 countries to have the disease. President Salva Kiir last week imposed a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for six weeks and closed borders, airports, schools, churches and mosques.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, In Spain deaths from the coronavirus fell for a third day. The Health Ministry reported 674 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 12,418. The number of confirmed cases rose to 130,759.
(Bloomberg, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 5, The United Nations urged governments around the world to fight the rise in domestic violence as abuse soared since stay-at-home orders have been imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
(The Week, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 5, Yemeni government officials said shelling by Houthi rebels hit a prison for women in a southwestern province, killing at least six prisoners.
(AP, 4/6/20)
2021 Apr 5, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged the adoption of a minimum global corporate income tax, an effort to offset any disadvantages that might arise from the Biden administration's proposed increase in the US corporate tax rate.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, A White House official said the US government's removal of AstraZeneca PLC's COVID-19 shot production from Emergent BioSolutions Inc's Baltimore manufacturing facility does not suggest it has any concerns about the vaccine's safety or effectiveness and will not impact its output of doses. The US Department of Health and Human Services ordered Johnson & Johnson to take charge of production at Emergent and for Emergent to stop making AstraZeneca's shots after the contract manufacturer made an error that ruined 15 million J&J COVID-19 vaccine doses.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, A nonpartisan US Senate official ruled that Democrats can pass multiple bills over the next two years with a straight Senate majority rather than a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
(NY Times, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court brought an end to a legal fight over former President Donald Trump's effort to block critics from following his now-frozen Twitter account, deciding the dispute was moot and throwing out a lower court's decision that found he had violated constitutional free speech rights.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The US Supreme Court handed Alphabet Inc's Google a major victory, ruling 6-2 that its use of Oracle Corp's software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones did not violate federal copyright law.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was announced that novelist James McBride, former US poet laureate Natasha Trethewey and science fiction great Samuel R. Delaney are among this year's winners of Anisfield-Wolf awards for books that confront racism and help promote diversity. The Anisfield-Wolf awards were founded in 1935 and are managed by the nonprofit Cleveland Foundation.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Strong economic data boosted the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 to record highs. The Dow gained 1.1 percent to close at 33,527. The S&P 500 rose by 1.4 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped by 1.7 percent.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas broke with other Republicans and vetoed a bill that would have banned some medications and surgery for transgender minors.
(NY Times, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, California to date had 3,656,939 cases of coronavirus and 59,293 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 424,657 cases and 5,975 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 30,775,094 with the death toll at 555,381.
(sfist.com, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said that he would not resign from Congress in the face of allegations that he "slept with" a 17-year-old girl.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has tested positive for COVID-19 a few days after receiving his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, Texas-based Baylor Univ. won its first men’s college basketball championship, handing Gonzaga its first loss of the season, 86 to 70.
(NY Times, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, In Texas six people were found dead in an apparent murder-cuicide in a suburban Dallas home.
(SFC, 4/7/21, p.A4)
2021 Apr 5, Bangladesh began a one-week lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
(SFC, 4/5/21, p.A5)
2021 Apr 5, The UN mission in Bosnia called for urgent action to stop violent pushbacks and collective expulsions of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants along the Croatian border following an incident last week involving 50 “visibly exhausted" men. The men said they had their cellphones, money and belongings taken away when they tried to cross the border and that they were beaten with sticks back into Bosnia.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, East Timor received its first batch of coronavirus vaccine, arranged by the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX. The former Portuguese colony has detected 714 cases of the coronavirus, most of which it said were imported, and no casualty so far.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that authorities in Ghana are trying to find out what has caused more than 60 dead dolphins to wash up on several beaches.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Retail stores across most of Greece were allowed to reopen despite an ongoing surge in COVID-19 infections, as the country battles to emerge from deep recession.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections, becoming the second country after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day, as politicians stage massive election rallies raising fears of further spreading the virus.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, India's Cadila Healthcare Ltd said it has sought approval from local regulators to use Pegylated Interferon alpha-2b, a Hepatitis C drug, as a treatment for COVID-19 following promising interim results from a late-stage trial.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Iran's state TV announced that authorities arrested several people on charges of spying for Israel and other nations.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, In southwestern Iran a man (50) shot to death his 9-year-old son and seven relatives of his two wives before killing himself in the city of Ahvaz.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Japan's Subaru Corp said that the automaker will shut its Yajima plant between April 10 and 27 due to a chip shortage, affecting 10,000 vehicles.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Jordan's estranged Prince Hamza said in a voice recording released today that he would disobey orders by the army not to communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest and accused of trying to destabilize the country. Prince Hamzah issued a statement hours after mediation, saying he was committed to the constitution.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Mozambique's military said it has regained full control of the coastal town of Palma, more than a week after it was raided by militant Islamists.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The Eemslift Hendrika, a Netherlands-registered special ship designed to carry boats on its deck, went adrift in an area where the North Sea and Norwegian Sea meet, some 40-50 km (25-31 miles) off the shore and the city of Alesund. The crew of 12 was evacuated to shore by helicopter after the ship sent a distress call following a power outage in its main engine in heavy seas.
(AP, 4/7/21)
2021 Apr 5, In Nigeria 1,844 inmates escaped from a prison after it was attacked by gunmen in the south-eastern town of Owerri, Imo state.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Police and politicians in Northern Ireland appealed for calm after a third night of violence that saw Protestant youths start fires and pelt officers with bricks and gasoline bombs.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in last year's popular vote.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Russia said it would extend a punitive slowdown of Twitter until May 15 though it acknowledged the US social media company had speeded up deletion of banned content.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Spain reported 2,247 new cases and 85 deaths. In total, there’s been 3.3 million cases and more than 75,000 confirmed deaths.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, The Sudanese doctors’ committee in West Darfur said at least 18 people were killed and 54 wounded in clashes this weekend between Arabs and non-Arabs. Clashes continued today.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, Turkish authorities detained 10 former admirals after a group of 103 retired top navy officers issued a midnight statement that government officials tied to Turkey’s history of military coups. The retired naval officers had signed a statement declaring their commitment to the 1936 international treaty that regulates shipping through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.
(AP, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 5, The UN said a fierce attack on a UN peacekeeping base in northern Mali last week killed four peacekeepers and at least 23 attackers, and injured another 34 peacekeepers.
(AP, 4/6/21)
2021 Apr 5, Venezuela's main academies of medicine and science urged renewed efforts to vaccinate the South American nation's population against the coronavirus amid a spike in infections that has led the government to extend lockdown measures. Venezuela reported 15 deaths and 1,786 new infections, the highest since the start of the pandemic. It has reported 166,123 cases and 1,662 associated deaths.
(Reuters, 4/5/21)
2022 Apr 5, The US the Treasury Department said the Internal Revenue Service has suspended information exchanges with Russia's tax authorities in a bid to hamper Moscow's ability to collect taxes and fund its war against Ukraine.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 80,181,869 with the death toll at 982,161.
(sfist.com, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Nehemiah Persoff, character actor, died in San Luis Obispo, Ca. His work included roles in numerous TV series and films included "Voyage of the Damned" (1976) and "Yentl" (1983).
(SSFC, 4/10/22, p.F1)
2022 Apr 6, In Florida thousands of crypto-currency enthusiasts gathered for the 4-day Bitcoin 2022 conference opening in Miami.
(SFC, 4/7/22, p.C2)
2022 Apr 5, Lawmakers in Oklahoma approved a near-total ban on abortion, making it the latest Republican-led state to forge ahead with stringent abortion legislation. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt vowed in September to sign “every piece of pro-life legislation" that came to his desk.
(NY Times, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Bobby Rydell (79), a Philadelphia-born singer who became a teenage idol in the late 1950s died in Abington, Pa. Over the course of his recording career he placed 19 singles in the Billboard Top 40 and 34 in the Hot 100.
(NY Times, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, General Motors and Honda Motor Co said they will co-develop a series of electric vehicles based on a new joint platform, allowing production of millions of cars starting in 2027.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said conflict, climate change and rising food and fuel prices are pushing about a quarter of Africans towards hunger.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Airbus has revoked the contract for a third A350 ordered by Qatar Airways after the Gulf carrier rejected delivery in an ongoing dispute over damage to the surface of the long-haul jets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, UK PM Boris Johnson's office said Britain, the United States and Australia have agreed to cooperate on hypersonic weapons and electronic warfare capabilities.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Britain attributed malign cyber activity to parts of three Russian intelligence services: the FSV, SVR and GRU, publishing a factsheet that set out what it said were organizational details of Russia's cyber capabilities.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Chinese authorities extended a lockdown in Shanghai to cover all of the financial center's 26 million people, despite growing anger over quarantine rules in the city, where latest results show only 268 symptomatic daily COVID-19 cases.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that the Czech Republic has sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Denmark said it would expel 15 Russian diplomats, in line with steps taken by other European Union countries, after reports of mass graves being found and of civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, El Salvador's Congress passed a bill criminalizing the publication of gang messages, including by news outlets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Estonia and Latvia said they have each ordered the closure of two Russian consulates and told staff to leave their countries.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, The European Union's executive proposed sweeping new sanctions against Russia, including a ban on coal imports, as the West responds to evidence of civilian killings in a Ukrainian town seized from Russian invaders.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, European and international donors agreed to extend 695 million euros ($762 million) in aid to Moldova, Europe's poorest country, which is hosting more than 100,000 refugees from Ukraine at a time of soaring energy prices.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Hong Kong health authorities reported 3,254 new COVID-19 infections, up from 3,138 a day earlier, and 87 deaths as cases in the global financial center continue a broader downward trend.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, In southern Hungary five people were killed and more than 10 injured when a pick-up truck crashed into a train, derailing a carriage in Mindszent.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, India's government said it has banned 22 YouTube channels, including four of Pakistani origin, for disinformation on subjects concerning national security and public order, the latest such federal crackdown in the country.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that India has harvested a record rapeseed-mustard crop, but crushing could lose momentum in the coming months as many farmers were holding back from selling to oilseed processors in the hope prices will rally further.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, India condemned the killings of civilians in Ukraine's Bucha and called for an independent investigation, having earlier declined to explicitly criticize the invasion of Ukraine by its long-time partner Russia.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, A video was released that showed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri praising Muskan Khan, who defied a ban on the wearing of the hijab in India's Karnataka state.
(SFC, 4/7/22, p.A4)
2022 Apr 5, In Iran an assailant stabbed three clerics at the revered Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, killing one and injuring two before he was arrested. The motive for the attack remained unclear. Four other suspects were arrested in connection with the case. A 2nd cleric soon died of wounds from the attack.
(AP, 4/5/22)(AP, 4/7/22)
2022 Apr 5, A large study in Israel found that a fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Italian PM Mario Draghi said that "war crimes" carried out in Ukraine must be punished, while Rome said it was expelling 30 Russian diplomats on national security grounds.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Kuwait's government submitted its resignation ahead of a no-confidence vote against PM Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid in parliament, amid a lengthy political feud that has hindered fiscal reform in the Gulf oil producer.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that violence against the press in Mexico rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration, up 85% from the first half of his predecessor's term.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, In the Netherlands Ali Kushayb, an alleged Janjaweed militia leader, went on trial at the Int'l. Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in more than 300 murders the Darfur region of Sudan in 2003-2004.
(SFC, 4/6/22, p.A6)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Nigeria has repeated its demand for telecom companies to bar calls from unregistered phone lines, part of the government's policy to boost security amid an Islamist insurgency and a spate of kidnappings.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Nigerian atheist Mubarak Bala (37), in detention since 2020, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a high court in the northern state of Kano after being convicted of blaspheming Islam.
(BBC, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Shell oil company said the volume of crude oil spills caused by sabotage in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta more than doubled to 3,300 tons last year, a level last seen in 2016.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Pakistan's Supreme Court adjourned for a 2nd day a hearing to decide the legality of PM Imran Khan's blocking of an opposition bid to oust him, a dispute that has led to political turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo lifted a curfew order following widespread defiance on the streets, as protests spiraled against rising fuel and fertilizer prices triggered by the Ukraine conflict.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Romania said it would expel 10 Russian diplomats who are not acting in accordance with international rules.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia must keep a close eye on its food exports to hostile countries because the West's sanctions had fomented a global food crisis and spiraling energy prices.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Russia is turning to microchip manufactures in China to circumvent western sanctions which have boosted demand for bank cards linked to the Mir payment system.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that thousands of auto workers have been furloughed and food prices are soaring as Western sanctions pummel the small Russian city of Kaluga and its flagship foreign carmakers, with more sanctions likely to come.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, Russian aluminium giant Rusal, whose global operations have been hobbled by the war in Ukraine, exported its first bauxite shipment from its mines in Guinea in nearly a month. Bauxite exported by Rusal, founded by Oleg Deripaska, typically feeds the company's Aughinish refinery in Ireland.
(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, In Sri Lanka at least 41 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition, leaving President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government in a minority in parliament as it struggled to quell protests amid the country's worst economic crisis in decades. Finance Minister Ali Sabry resigned a day after his appointment and ahead of crucial talks scheduled with the International Monetary Fund for a loan program.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)(Reuters, 4/6/22)
2022 Apr 5, Jimmy Wang Yu (79), early martial arts film star, died in Taipei. His films included: "One-Armed Swordsman" (1967), "Golden Swallow" (1968), "The Sword of Swords" (1968), "The Chinese Boxer" (1970) and "The Man from Hong Kong" (1975), whih was released in the US as "The Dragon Flies".
(SSFC, 4/24/22, p.F1)
2022 Apr 5, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the United Nations to act and reform its system which gives Security Council permanent member Russia a veto, saying everything must be done to ensure the international body works effectively. In a televised interview with local media Zelenskiy said Ukraine's efforts to push back Russian troops from Mariupol were facing difficulties.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that the United Arab Emirates has sentenced Fida Kiwan (43), an Israeli woman, to death for cocaine possession. Kiwan was arrested on March 21, 2021, with half a kilogram (over 1 pound) of cocaine that she claimed did not belong to her.
(AP, 4/5/22)
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