Timeline 1999 October
Return to algis.com
1999 Oct 1, South
Korean activists thanked the US government for promising to investigate
an Associated Press report that US forces allegedly killed several
hundred refugees at the start of the Korean War. But the protesters
also demanded the US punish some of the veterans involved and
compensate the victims’ relatives.
(AP, 10/1/00)
1999 Oct 1, In Thailand the
Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors took 38 diplomats as hostages at the
Burmese Embassy in Bangkok. Two Thai officials were exchanged for the
hostages and 12 [5] students were reported to have flown to the
Thai-Burma border by helicopter, where they were released. The students
demanded the release of political prisoners, dialogue between the
military and Aung San Suu Kyi and an elected parliament.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A25)
1999 Oct 1, In China the
celebration for the 50th anniversary of Communism included 50 approved
slogans for the masses to chant and 61 approved songs to sing. Central
TV had already aired a 16-part documentary on the past 50 years.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 1, In Indonesia the new
national Assembly met for the first time in the post-Suharto period.
The assembly elected Amien Rais as speaker and chose Oct 20 as the date
to select the next president.
(WSJ, 10/1/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 1, Israel planned to
implement the Wye River accord and pull troops from the West Bank.
(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 1, Joao da Silva Tavares,
a militia leader in West Timor, said he planned to lead 12,000 fighters
back to 6 western districts of East Timor.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.C1)
1999 Oct 1, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked Shiites in Karachi and killed 9 people in a mosque. A
retaliatory attack on a Sunni Muslim school left 4 dead. Another 5
people were killed in eastern Punjab.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 1, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin cut ties with the elected government of Chechnya.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 2, The controversial art
show "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection"
opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Mayor Giuliani withheld the
museum's monthly city subsidy and started eviction proceedings. The
show included Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" fashioned with some
elephant dung.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 2, The US and Russia
opened a new video-conferencing center in Moscow to allow real-time
links with the White House.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 2, Bo Mya, leader of the
Karen National Union, said he would grant sanctuary to the Burmese
students who were flown to the Thai-Burma following a 26 hour takeover
of the Burmese Embassy in Thailand.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A25)
1999 Oct 2, In India 6 people,
including 4 police personnel, were killed as national elections began
in Tripura state.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A23)
1999 Oct 2, From Kenya it was
reported that the flamingos of Lake Nakuru had migrated away to other
locations. Environmental stress from industrial refuse and other wastes
was blamed. Fluctuating salinity was also suspect in that flamingoes
feed on the algae spirulina platensis, which blooms in saline waters.
It was later reported that tens of thousands of flamingos on Lake
Bogoria had died since July due to heavy metals.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/4/00, p.A8)
1999 Oct 2, Russian troops engaged
Chechen guerrilla defenders as armored columns rolled into the villages
of Alpatova and Chernokosova.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 2, In the Ukraine Natalia
Vitrenko of the leftist Progressive Socialist Party was wounded in a
grenade attack at a campaign meeting in Inguletsk.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A)
1999 Oct 3, Sony co-founder Akio
Morita, the entrepreneur, engineer and savvy salesman who helped give
new meaning to the words "Made in Japan," died in Tokyo at age 78.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)(AP, 10/3/00)
1999 Oct 3, The far-right Freedom
Party (the Blues) led by Joerg Haider (49) won 2nd place behind the
Social Democrats, who won with 33% of the vote. The conservative
People’s Party (the Blacks) fell to 3rd place with 27%.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(Econ,
11/24/07, SR p.6)
1999 Oct 3, Flooding in Central
America left 21 dead in Honduras, 10 dead in Nicaragua, and 11 dead in
El Salvador and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 3, In India the elections
ended and the Bharatiya Janata Party under PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was
expected to return to power with an alliance of 21 other parties. The
BJP was expected to gain 34 seats to 287. The BJP won a projected 296
of 545 seats. The Congress Party won 114 seats.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/8/99, p.A1)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.45)
1999 Oct 3, In Peru 9 soldiers
were killed in a weekend clash with some 60 Maoist guerrillas in the
central jungle.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 3, Veselin Boskovic, the
brother-in-law of former deputy PM Vuk Draskovic, was killed when a
truck swerved in front of a convoy of cars 25 miles southeast of
Belgrade. A 2nd car with bodyguards hit the truck and exploded. The
truck driver escaped. Draskovic was not injured and called the accident
an assassination attempt.
(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 3, In Sierra Leone Foday
Sankoh returned home with former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma and
met with Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. Sankoh gave a radio speech and
pleaded for forgiveness.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 4, It was reported that
Edmund T. Pratt, an ex-Pfizer executive, planned to donate $35 million
to endow the Duke Univ. School of Engineering.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 4, An Illinois jury
ordered State Farm to pay $456 million to 4.7 million customers in a
lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest car insurer of using inferior
parts for auto body repairs. Four days later, the judge ruled State
Farm had committed fraud, and awarded $730 million in actual and
punitive damages on top of the jury verdict. State Farm appealed.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A3)(AP, 10/4/00)
1999 Oct 4, MCI WorldCom planned
to acquire Sprint Corp. for over $100 billion. The deal was quashed in
2000.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/28/00, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council approved a one-time increase in oil sales for Iraq from $5.26
billion to $8.3 billion.
(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, Israeli PM Ehud Barak
and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed on terms for the first safe
route between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 4, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin planned to resettle thousands of Chechens in areas under
Russian control, an indication that Moscow planned to split Chechnya in
two. Chechen fighters shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24 warplane that was
searching for another downed plane.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 4, In South Korea
radioactive water leaked inside a nuclear power plant in Wolsung and
exposed 22 workers to small amounts of radiation.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 5, It was announced that
MCI WorldCom Incorporated had agreed to pay $115 billion for Sprint
Corporation.
(AP, 10/5/00)
1999 Oct 5, Initial indictments in
the Russian money-laundering scheme were handed up. A former bank of NY
vice president, her husband, and a Russian business associate were
accused of conspiracy to transmit about $7 billion illegally.
(WSJ, 10/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 5, In London 2 morning
commuter trains collided near Paddington Station and 31 people were
killed. At least 70 people were later feared dead and some estimates
reached over 100. It was later confirmed that one train ran a red
light. 64 people remained unaccounted for.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)(SFC,
10/9/99, p.A10)(AP, 10/5/04)
1999 Oct 5, In Chechnya Russian
troops seized the northern third of the country. A suspected Russian
artillery shell hit a busload of people and killed 40 people, mostly
women and children.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 5, Kofi Annan presented a
UN plan to take full control of East Timor and guide the territory to
nationhood over 2-3 years.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 5, In Kosovo at least one
Serb was killed when ethnic Albanians attacked a Russian-Serb convoy.
The Albanians had gathered for the funeral of 18-28 countrymen found in
a mass grave the previous week.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 5, In Mexico flooding
from Tropical Depression No. 11 killed at least 83 people in ten states
including 42 in Puebla after 7 rivers overflowed following heavy rains.
The death toll soon reached at least 342. A large mudslide in Teziutlan
left 72 confirmed dead and 30 people missing. The Catholic Church
expected the toll to reach near 600.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)(SFC,
10/8/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A12)(SFC,
10/12/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 6, The US NFL voted to
place an expansion team in Houston after Bob McNair agreed to pay $700
million for a franchise to begin in 2002. This left Los Angeles, the
second-largest TV market in the nation, without a football team.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/6/00)
1999 Oct 6, The US introduced a
resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the seizure of assets
of the Taliban militia and grounding all int'l. flights from
Afghanistan until Osama bin Laden is turned over.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A15)
1999 Oct 6, Five clothing
designers agreed to settle a class action suit over working conditions
in Saipan. They included Ralph Lauren, Philips-Van Heusen, Bryland
L.P., Karan Int'l., and Dress Barn.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 6, The Chechen president
called for a holy war against Russia.
(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 6, In East Timor
Australian peacekeepers killed 2 anti-independence militia-men near the
West Timor border.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, In Ecuador one person
died as the Pichincha volcano dumped 5,000 tons of ash over the city of
Quito.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, In Mexico, furious
rains sent swollen rivers raging through the streets of the Gulf coast
city of Villahermosa and caused mudslides; dozens of deaths were
reported in eastern Mexico’s coastal mountain ranges.
(AP, 10/6/00)
1999 Oct 6, Jon Lech Johansen (15)
of Norway released DeCSS, a program that allows users to copy DVDs onto
computer hard disks.
(WSJ, 10/13/05,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS)
1999 Oct 6, Philippine government
officials and Muslim separatists agreed to halt a series of deadly
clashes in at least 2 southern provinces, Maguindanao and Sultan
Kudarat, and to start formal peace talks.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 6, Amalia Rodrigues
(b.1920), Portuguese actress and fado singer, died at age 79.
(SFC, 10/11/99,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A1lia_Rodrigues)
1999 Oct 7, It was reported that
American fighter jets had begun using non-explosive concrete bombs to
destroy military targets in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C20)
1999 Oct 7, In the US the 9th
annual National Depression Screening Day was coordinated by the
National Mental Health Screening Project.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A6)
1999 Oct 7, American Home Products
agreed to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle claims that its fen-phen
drug combination caused heart valve problems.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A3)(AP, 10/7/00)
1999 Oct 7, In Chechnya Russian
planes bombed the village of Elistanzhi and 32 people were reported
killed with 60 injured and 200 houses destroyed.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 7, In Iran the Asr-e
Azadegan began publishing. It replaced the Neshat, which was closed by
conservative clerics after 149 editions.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.A26)
1999 Oct 7, In Mexico the Nahuatl
village of Acalana was buried under a collapsed mountain killing all
but 30 people. As many as 200 people had lived there.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 7, In Nigeria it was
reported that floodgates were opened on the Niger River at 2 dams,
Jebba and Shiriro, to prevent Shiriro Lake from overflowing its banks.
400 villages were submerged leaving 300,000 people homeless and some
500 people were estimated to have been drowned.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 7, In the Philippines
Typhoon Dan left at least 7 people dead and thousands of homes flooded.
This was the 13th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 7, Rwanda reported that
army troops and Congolese allies had killed over 200 Rwandan Hutu
rebels over a weeklong operation along the border where 4,000 Hutu
rebels had been based.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 8, Laila Ali, the
21-year-old daughter of Muhammad Ali, made her professional boxing
debut by knocking out opponent April Fowler 31 seconds after the
opening bell in Verona, New York.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, Pres. Clinton asked
the US Senate to postpone a vote on the global nuclear test ban treaty
(CTBT) due to insufficient votes for passage [see Oct 13].
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A1)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.64)
1999 Oct 8, President Clinton
dedicated a new US embassy in Ottawa, Canada.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, It was reported that
the US Congress had approved $1 billion over 20 years for 7 luxury
aircraft for the Pentagon's top commanders.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 8, A damage award to
State Farm auto insurance customers swelled to nearly $1.2 billion
after a judge in Illinois ruled that the nation’s largest auto insurer
committed fraud by using generic auto-body repair parts. The $730
million award of actual and punitive damages came on top of a jury’s
$456 million verdict in the same class-action lawsuit.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1999 Oct 8, In Congo Pres. Kabila
ordered foreign businessmen to put down a $500,000 guarantee by Dec. 21
or leave the country. The order came less than a week after he ordered
a crackdown on Congo's illegal foreign exchange market, the shutdown of
the main commercial district and the arrest of currency traders.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 8, In London a court
ruled that Gen'l. Pinochet can be extradited to Spain for trial on
torture and conspiracy charges.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 8, In Venezuela
authorities suspended 122 judges for corruption and incompetence.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 9, In boxing’s
first sanctioned battle of the sexes, Margaret MacGregor defeated Loi
Chow by winning all four rounds on all three judges’ cards in a
promotion held in Seattle.
(AP, 10/9/00)
1999 Oct 9, The UAW and Ford
reached a tentative contract agreement that included a 3% raise on top
of increases to compensate for inflation.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 9, Sea Launch Co. put a
Direct TV satellite into orbit in the first sea based launch. Partners
included Boeing, Kvaerner Maritime of Norway, and rocket builders from
Russia and the Ukraine.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 9, Milt Jackson,
vibraphonist for the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), died at age 76 in
Manhattan. His compositions included "Bags' Groove," "Bluesology," and
"The Cylinder."
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 10, In Texas 6 college
students of Texas A-and-M University were killed just after midnight as
they got out of their cars for a party at Tau Kappa Epsilon in College
Station. The driver of a pickup had fallen asleep.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A3)(AP, 10/10/00)
1999 Oct 10, Windsor, Nova Scotia,
Canada, held its first pumpkin regatta on Lake Pesaquid. Danny Dill,
son of Howard Dill, had proposed the pumpkin boating event to help the
town capitalize on its history as the birthplace of giant pumpkin
growing. In the 1970s Howard Dill had engineered mammoth pumpkins and
patented the seed as Dill’s Atlantic Giant.
(WSJ, 10/20/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/3y5me4)
1999 Sep 10, It was reported that
Canada has 339 species in serious danger of disappearing and no federal
legislation for protection of endangered animals.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 10, Portugal’s governing
Socialist Party was returned to power by a comfortable margin in a
general election.
(AP, 10/10/00)
1999 Oct 11, Dr. Guenter Blobel, a
German American researcher of Rockefeller Univ., was awarded the Nobel
Prize for medicine or physiology for his work on how the body puts
addresses on individual proteins so that they arrive at a correct
location.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, Gov. Davis signed a
California bill that required set a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:6
beginning Jan 1, 2004. It was the 1st such law in the US. The ratio was
to go to 1:5 in 2005.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.AA1)(SFC, 3/4/05, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Chechnya more
people fled Russian attacks and Moscow rebuffed a peace overture and
demanded that Islamic militants be handed over before any peace
settlement.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Paris riot police
used tear gas against egg-throwing chefs, who demanded that the
government lift a 20.6% tax on restaurant meals.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, In Indonesia the
acting attorney general announced that he was halting a yearlong
investigation into alleged corruption by former Pres. Suharto due to
insufficient evidence for prosecution.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 11, Israel confirmed that
some 400 Jews from Cuba were brought to Israel over the last 5 years in
a secret operation.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 11, In Kosovo a UN
employee, Valentin Krumov (38) of Bulgaria, was beaten and shot to
death by a group of ethnic Albanian teenagers in Pristina.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 11, In Portugal the
Socialist Party returned to power with a 44% vote in the elections
giving them 111 seats in the 230 seat Assembly. The Social Democrats
won 32% and got 79 seats.
(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 11, South Africa and the
European Union signed a free-trade pact.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 12, Professors Gerardus
't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman of the Netherlands won the Nobel
Prize in Physics for the invention of mathematical tools to calculate
properties of fundamental particles. From 1981 to his retirement in
1997, Veltman was an active member of the Univ. of Michigan physics
department.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)(MT, Fall/99, p.7)
1999 Oct 12, Ahmed H. Zewail, an
Egyptian chemist at the California Inst. of Tech., won the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry for finding a way to freeze-frame the private matings of
molecules using ultra fast laser probes.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 12, It was reported that
Calvin Klein would soon begin marketing "dirty jeans" for as much as
$78 retail.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 12, The world population
was projected to reach 6 billion. This day was declared by the UN as
the Day of 6 Billion. The designated 6 billionth baby was born in
Bosnia.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.A19)(SFC,
10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, Wilt Chamberlain,
basketball legend and Hall-of-Famer Wilt "The Stilt," died at age
63 in Bel Air, Ca.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/12/00)
1999 Oct 12, In Burundi Hutu
rebels attacked a UN humanitarian convoy and killed 9 people at the
Muzye refugee camp in Rutana.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, In Hong Kong it was
reported that a $2.6 billion Cyberport was to be developed beginning in
2001.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 12, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Pervez Musharraf led a military coup after PM Shariff tried to fire him
and replace him with Gen'l. Zia Uddin. Musharraf avoided martial law
and left the parliament intact. Sharif refused to let a passenger plane
land in Karachi with 198 people aboard that included Gen. Musharraf.
The coup cut short a Pakistani commando operation set up by the CIA to
get Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. In 2009 the Pakistani Supreme Court
acquitted Sharif of hijacking charges.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A21)(SFC,
4/6/00, p.A12)(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A10)(SFC, 7/18/09, p.A2)
1999 Oct 12, Bjorn Soderberg
(b.1958), a member of a Swedish far-left union, was shot and killed.
Prosecutors said the killing was revenge for the Soderberg's public
denouncement of a co-worker who belonged to a neo-Nazi organization. In
2000 three men, including Hampus Hellekant, were convicted in the fatal
shooting. Hellekant served 7 years in prison and in 2007 was admitted
to the medical school of the Karolinska institute under the name Karl
Svensson. He was expelled after 4 months when his former identity was
revealed.
(AP,
1/25/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_S%C3%B6derberg)
1999 Oct 13, Robert A. Mundell
(66), a Canadian born professor at Columbia Univ., won the Nobel Prize
in Economics for his study of cross-border capital flows, flexible
foreign exchange rates, and supply side economics. A 1961 paper by
Mundell had pioneered the theory of an “optimal currency area,” which
later helped shape the euro zone.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A2)(Econ, 6/13/09, SR p.10)
1999 Oct 13, Pres. Clinton
proposed to place 40 million acres of federal forest beyond the reach
of loggers, miners and road-builders. He urged the forest service to
engage the public in how best to manage and conserve over 50 million
acres of the last roadless tracts.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A1)(SFC, 8/9/00,
p.A21)
1999 Oct 13, The US Senate
rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty 51-48.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/13/00)
1999 Oct 13, Vice Pres. Al Gore
received endorsement from the AFL-CIO for his presidential bid.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 13, In Boulder, Colorado,
the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13 months of work
with prosecutors saying there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone
in the six-year-old’s strangulation.
(AP, 10/13/00)
1999 Oct 13, In Texas 3 Pleasanton
law officers, Mark Stephenson, Thomas Monse and Terry Miller were shot
and killed by Jeremiah Engleton (21), who had been arrested earlier for
beating his wife.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 13, In Colombia drug
police arrested 30 cocaine traffickers including Medellin cartel leader
Fabio Ochoa and reputed distribution boss Alejandro Bernal-Madrigal.
Some 1,290 traffickers were also arrested in Mexico, Ecuador, the US
and other countries over the last 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A1,22)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 13, France legalized same
sex unions under legislation called "civil solidarity pacts" pushed
through by the Socialist-dominated National Assembly.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 13, In Georgia gunmen
seized 6 UN observers and a translator as they delivered aid to
Abkhazia. 4 of the observers were released the next day and the ransom
was raised to $350,000. The last of the hostages were released 2 days
later.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)(SFC,
10/16/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 13, In Indonesia the
military chief, Gen'l. Wiranto, was picked by Golkar as the running
mate to Pres. Habibie.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A1,23)
1999 Oct 14, President Clinton
accused Senate Republicans of recklessness and irresponsibility for
defeating the nuclear test ban treaty, and pledged the United States
would refrain from testing despite the treaty’s rejection.
(AP, 10/14/00)
1999 Oct 14, At Cape Canaveral,
Florida, Launch Complex 41, built in 1945, was destroyed to make way
for Atlas V rockets.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 14, Hurricane Irene
drenched Cuba and proceeded to the Florida keys.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 14, In Bosnia 4 NATO
soldiers were injured as they attempted to seize weapons in the divided
city of Mostar.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 14, In Chechnya the
Russians pressed an offensive below the Terek River as the Chechens
rallied in Grozny.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 14, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie gave a speech lauding his accomplishments as security forces
fought back demonstrators.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 14, Israel released 151
Palestinian prisoners as part of the interim peace accord signed Sept.
4.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 14, Japan’s Sumitomo and
Sakura Banks announced merger plans. In 2001 they fused into Sumitomo
Mitsui.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A10)(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey p.22)
1999 Oct 14, Former Tanzanian
Pres. Julius Nyerere (77) died in London from a massive stroke. He was
called Mwalimu, the Swahili word for teacher.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D7)
1999 Oct 15, The US stock market
Dow Jones average dropped 266.9 points, 2.6%, to 10,019.71. It was the
largest % drop since Oct 13, 1989.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 15, The French
organization "Doctors Without Borders" (Medecins Sans Frontieres) won
the Nobel Peace Prize.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 15, Hurricane Irene hit
southern Florida and 5 people were electrocuted by down power lines in
Miami.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 15, In China The People's
Daily published an order that demanded that "foreign organizations or
individuals using encryption products or equipment containing
encryption technology in China must apply" for permission by Jan 31.
(WSJ, 1/25/00, p.A10)
1999 Oct 15, In Indonesia
thousands of anti-Habibie demonstrators fought police and pressured the
official assembly to go forward with reforms.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 15, Irish tenor Josef
Locke, whose life inspired the 1992 film "Hear My Song," died in County
Kildare, Ireland, at age 82.
(AP, 10/15/00)
1999 Oct 15, In Kosovo Some 100
people were injured as they tried to force their way against NATO
forces across a bridge in Mitrovica to the Serb half of town.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 15, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the
constitution.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, A New York Air
National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole
research center after she’d spent five months isolated by the Antarctic
winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast lump.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, Hurricane Irene
rumbled up the US East Coast.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, A 7.0 earthquake,
centered near Joshua Tree, Ca., struck in the Mohave Desert. An Amtrak
train was derailed, but there were no deaths.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, Jean Shepherd, radio
personality, died in Sanibel, Florida, at age 78. His syndicated PBS TV
programs included "Jean Shepherd's America" and "Shepherd's Pie."
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.D10)(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, In Afghanistan the
Taliban rejected the UN ultimatum to surrender Osama bin Laden and
castigated the UN for threatening sanctions.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 16, The 1st graduate
class of the Kosovo Police Service School was honored in Pristina.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A21)
1999 Oct 17, US negotiators
proposed to Russia an alteration to the 1972 ABM treaty to allow
construction of defensive systems.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 17, The FBI reported that
serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in
1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, Former nurse Orville
Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western
Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. Major is
serving a 360-year prison sentence.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, In Niger the 1st
round of the presidential election was held.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 17, In Pakistan Gen'l.
Musharraf announced a unilateral reduction of troops on the India
border, the establishment of a military-technocrat ruling council, and
an eventual return to civilian rule. He unveiled a 7-point agenda to
save the nation.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/ruuth)
1999 Oct 17, In Yemen Abu Hassan,
"a nom de guerre" for the head of the Islamic Army of Aden and Abyan,
was executed.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A10)
1999 Oct 18, The New York Yankees
won a record 36th pennant, beating the Boston Red Sox 6-to-1 in Game
Five of the American League Championship Series.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/18/00)
1999 Oct 18, Career prosecutor
Robert Ray was sworn in as the Whitewater Prosecutor to replace
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and wrap up the wide-ranging
investigation of President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/18/00)
1999 Oct 18, A US presidential
panel recommended that Navy gunnery on the Vieques Island of Puerto
Rico be reduced and abandoned in 5 years.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 18, In Botswana election
results showed the ruling Botswana Democratic Party of Pres. Festus
Mogae won 30 of 40 seats in the National Assembly.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 18, In Indonesia Gen.
Wiranto turned down Pres. Habibie's offer for the vice-presidency.
(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 18, Nelson Mandela
visited Israel for the 1st time in an effort to end enmity between the
Jewish state and the African National Congress. Israel had supported
the apartheid government in South Africa.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 18, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, an explosion in a candy store that sold illegal fireworks
killed at least 5 people.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 18, In Sierra Leone US
Sec. Albright paid a visit and promised $55 million in US aid and $65
million in debt forgiveness, conditioned on the implementation of an
IMF economic program.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 19, The Atlanta Braves
won the National League pennant by beating the New York Mets, 10-to-9,
in Game Six of their championship series.
(AP, 10/19/00)
1999 Oct 19, Legislation to
overhaul US campaign finance laws fell to a filibuster by Senate
Republicans for the fourth straight year.
(AP, 10/19/00)
1999 Oct 19, Martha Stewart Living
Omnimedia began trading on Wall Street with 7.2 million shares at 18.
It closed at 35.56. World Wrestling also made its debut with 10 million
shares at 17. It closed at 25.25.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, A 2-year Rand
analysis concluded that the drug pyridostigmine bromide could not be
excluded as a contributor to Gulf War syndrome. The drug was an
experimental nerve gas antidote given to as many as 300,000 US troops
during the Persian gulf war.
(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, In Cambodia Prime
Minister Hun Sen reportedly gave his approval for a tribunal to hear
genocide charges against the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 19, In East Timor
refugees were returning at the rate of 500 per hour and 17,000 were
expected by the end of the day.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 19, In Germany tens of
thousands of workers marched through Berlin to protest the government's
austerity budget and the pay gap between workers in the east and west.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, In eastern India
residents of the state of Orissa cleaned up after a cyclone killed at
least 79 people and injured over 1000.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, In Indonesia the
People's Consultative Assembly relinquished the national claim to East
Timor.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 19, In Nigeria US Sec. of
State Albright recommended that US aid to the country be increase 4
times the current level. The extradition of drug lords as also
discussed with Pres. Obasanjo.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.B3)
1999 Oct 19, Puerto Rico Gov.
Pedro Rossello told a US congressional committee that live firing
exercises on Vieques could not be resumed.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 20, The US government
laid out new rules to protect children’s privacy on the Internet and to
shield them from commercial e-mail.
(AP, 10/20/00)
1999 Oct 20, Elizabeth Dole quit
the US presidential race and her Republican bid to be America’s first
woman president due to insufficient campaign funds.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/20/00)
1999 Oct 20, The Cold War
(1951-1977) locations of nuclear weapons minus their nuclear charges
was partly revealed in a 1978 top secret Pentagon document titled
"History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons."
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 20, In France it was
reported that Maurice Papon (89), convicted for collaboration with the
Nazis, had fled the country.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 20, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie withdrew his bid for re-election. The People's Consultative
Assembly voted Abdurrahhman Wahid as the new president. Followers of
Megawati Sukarnoputri immediately rioted.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 20, In Israel Netanyahu's
home was raided by police as part of a corruption inquiry.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, Organizers called for
a "Jam Echelon Day," an effort to overload US National Security Agency
(NSA) supercomputers with e-mail containing words such as "bomb."
Echelon was a worldwide surveillance network run by the NSA and
partners in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A7)
1999 Oct 21, The US Justice Dept.
sued the city of Columbus, Ohio, for a pattern of civil rights
violations by the police.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Chechnya Russian
rockets hit and market and 2 other sites in Grozny and as many as 140
people were killed.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 21, In East Timor Jose
Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, the exiled guerrilla leader, returned to
Dili.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 21, France’s highest
court upheld the conviction of Maurice Papon, the former Vichy official
who had fled France rather than face prison for his role in sending
Jews to Nazi death camps; Papon was captured in Switzerland and
deported the following day to begin a 10-year sentence.
(AP, 10/21/00)(AP, 9/18/02)
1999 Oct 21, It was reported that
a French-led expedition chopped clear the fully preserved carcass of a
20 thousand-year-old woolly mammoth, the "Jarkov Mammoth," from the
permafrost of Siberia at Khatanga, Russia.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Indonesia the
People's Consultative Assembly voted 396 to 284 for Megawati
Sukarnoputri as vice president over Hamzah Haz. The vote came after
Gen. Wiranto dropped his candidacy.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 21, In Palestine a West
Bank fire killed 16 women making cigarette lighters in an unlicensed
Hebron facility.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Taiwan a 6.4
earthquake was centered near Chiayi.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B4)(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 21, In Turkey Ahmet Taner
Kislali (60), a columnist for the pro-secular newspaper Cumhuriyet,
died from a bomb placed on his car windshield.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B6)
1999 Oct 21, In Venezuela
corruption cases against 2 former presidents, Carlos Andres Perez and
Jaime Lusinchi, were reopened.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 22, The book "Fortunate
Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President," by J.H.
Hatfield (d.2001), was recalled by St. Martin's Press after the
publisher learned that the author was a convicted felon in a 1987 car
bombing attempt. A 2nd edition was published in 2001.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A5)(SSFC, 8/5/01, DB p.60)
1999 Oct 22, Five of the 7
Republican presidential hopefuls met in New Hampshire for their first
debate of the 2000 nomination race, with front-runner George W. Bush
notably absent.
(AP, 10/22/04)
1999 Oct 22, The US government
announced one of the biggest toys recalls ever, advising parents to
remove the batteries from their kids’ "Power Wheels" cars and trucks,
made by Fisher-Price, because of faulty wiring that could cause them to
erupt into flame.
(AP, 10/22/00)
1999 Oct 22, It was reported that
dinosaur fossils, found 4 years ago in Madagascar, may be the oldest
known. The creatures were long-necked prosauropods from about 230
million years ago.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, In California Jan
Davis (60), co-owner of an aerial photography business in Santa
Barbara, plunged to her death during a skydiving stunt from El Capitan
in Yosemite. The stunt was to protest the banning of sport parachuting
from cliffs in national parks.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, In Bosnia Zeljko
Kopanja, editor-in-chief of Nezavisne Novine, lost both legs due to a
bomb attack as he opened his car door. He had recently published a
series of war time atrocities committed against non-Serbs by Bosnian
and Serb forces.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, The Italian
missionary news agency MISNA reported that the bodies of 61 civilians
were reported found near the Congo village of Kashambi.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, Maurice Papon (89),
was arrested in Gstaad, Switzerland, and turned over to French police.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 22, US Sec. of State
Albright visited Kenya and discussed efforts to curb AIDS which was
claiming 500 Kenyans a day.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, In Mexico police
arrested Jacobo Silva Nogales (41), aka Commandante Antonio, leader of
the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People, ERPI.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 22, In Peru 28 school
children died near Cuzco after a breakfast of cereal that doctors
suspect was prepared in a vat once used to mix pesticides.
(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 22, The UN Security
Council voted to send a 6,000 member peacekeeping force to Sierra Leone
to safeguard the July 7 peace deal.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 23, The New York Yankees
won the first game of the World Series, beating the Atlanta Braves,
4-to-1. The Yankees went on to sweep the series.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1999 Oct 23, Rev. Falwell and 200
members of his Baptist Church were scheduled to meet with 200 gay and
lesbian religious leaders in Lynchburg, Va.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 23, A Ku Klux Klan rally
was allowed to proceed in NYC with no masks as thousands of
counter-demonstrators jeered them. 16 Klansmen and 2 Klan women
appeared at Foley Square along with some 6,000 protestors and 2,000
tourists.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A26)(SFEC,
10/24/99, p.A2)(AP, 10/23/00)
1999 Oct 23, Pres. Jiang Zemin of
China visited France and signed a $2.5 billion deal that included an
order for 28 Airbus planes.
(SFEC, 10/27/99, p.A28)
1999 Oct 23, In Palermo, Italy,
Giulio Andreotti (80), 7 times prime minister, was acquitted of charges
that he was the Sicilian Mafia's protector in Rome.
(SFEC, 10/24/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 23, In Mexico the first
monarch butterflies arrived at sanctuaries in Michoacan in their annual
migration.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A24)
1999 Oct 23, Palestine planned to
issue a national currency and the IMF estimated that 2 years of
preparations would be needed.
(SFEC, 10/27/99, p.A28)
1999 Oct 24, The New York Yankees
took game two of the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves,
7-to-2.
(AP, 10/24/00)
1999 Oct 24, Pat Buchanan and
Donald Trump announced that they would seek the Reform Party nomination
for president.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, Senator John Chafee
(Republican, Rhode Island) died in Maryland at age 77. He was first
elected to the state Legislature in 1956 and served 3 terms as
governor. He was also a veteran of the Korean War and served as
Secretary of the Navy.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A5)(SFEC, 6/25/00, Par p.4)
1999 Oct 24, In Argentina
Elections were scheduled with Buenos Aires Gov. Eduardo Duhalde as the
candidate for the ruling Peronists. Fernando de la Rua (62) of the
center-left Alliance led with a 48% to 38% margin.
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC,
10/25/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, In Chechnya Russian
artillery and jet bombers killed at least 27 people during a dawn
attack at Serzhen-Yurt.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 24, In Colombia the
government began formal negotiations with the Marxist FARC guerrilla
group as millions marched to demand an end to civil war.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 24, An Israeli court
sentenced American teen-ager Samuel Sheinbein to 24 years in prison for
killing an acquaintance in Maryland in 1997.
(AP, 10/24/00)
1999 Oct 24, In Sierra Leone some
100 soldiers were killed over the weekend as the Revolutionary United
Front battled former junta soldiers between Makeni and Lunsar.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 24, In Swiss
parliamentary elections the right wing People's Party gained 14 seats
in the 200 member lower house for a total of 44.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 25, The 31st Booker Prize
in Literature was won by J.M. Coetzee of South Africa for his novel
"Disgrace." He became the 1st author to win the prize twice. He won in
1983 for the novel "Live and Times of Michael K."
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.G2)
1999 Oct 25, Pres. Clinton signed
a $267.7 billion Pentagon spending bill.
(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 25, Republican
presidential candidate Pat Buchanan bolted the GOP to mount a bid for
the Reform Party nomination.
(AP, 10/25/00)
1999 Oct 25, Intel introduced its
code-named Coppermine chip as the new Pentium III with speeds up to 500
megahertz. The internal circuitry was squeezed to .18 micron.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.B1)
1999 Oct 25, It was reported that
the chiru, a goat from the high Tibetan plateau, was seriously
endangered and down to some 75,000. The animal's hide is used to make
expensive shahtoosh shawls.
(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1,15)
1999 Oct 25, Payne Stewart (42), a
professional golfer, was killed with 2 agents and 2 pilots when their
Lear Jet crashed near Mina, South Dakota. The plane had flown for hours
on autopilot before it crashed.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 25, In Albania Prime
Minister Pandeli Majko planned to resign due to his loss to become the
Socialist Party leader earlier in the month.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, In Bosnia some 30,000
people streamed into Serajevo to protest for job protection and an end
to corruption.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, Mladen Vuksanovic,
author of "Pale, a Diary, April-July 1992," written during the first
100 days of Bosnia rule by Radowan Karadzic, died at age 57 in Croatia.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 25, Iraq reported that 2
civilians were killed and 7 people wounded when US and British jets
attacked sites in the northern no-fly zone.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, Israel opened a
34-mile safe-passage corridor from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank as
Pres. Barak visited Turkey to boost military cooperation and economic
ties.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A10,B2)
1999 Oct 25, An Israeli soldier
shot and killed a Palestinian souvenir vendor, Mousa Abu Hilail, near
Rachel's tomb. Two days of rioting followed.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 25, In Kashmir Indian
troops killed 4 Pakistani soldiers with artillery and small arms in the
mountainous Uri sector.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 25, In Kyrgyzstan 4
Japanese geologists were freed after 2 months of captivity. A $2-5
million ransom was suspected.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 25, In Pakistan Gen.
Musharraf announced that he would head the formation of a 7-person
National Security Council to run the country until elections.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 25, In Tunisia Pres. Zine
al-Abidine Ben Ali won a 3rd term in office with over 99% of the vote.
It was the nation's first multiparty presidential vote.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B2)
1999 Oct 25, The UN Security
Council voted to send 8,950 peacekeepers, 1,640 police officers and 200
military observers to oversee the East Timor transition to independence.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 26, The New York Yankees
beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-to-5, to take a three-games-to-none lead in
the World Series.
(AP, 10/26/00)
1999 Oct 26, The US CIA agreed to
give Germany copies of some 32,000 files that belonged to the Stasi,
the former East German intelligence service. The CIA acquired the files
in 1989.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 26, The WSJ replaced
Chevron, Good Year, Union Carbide and Sears with Intel, Microsoft, Home
Depot and SBC Communications in the Dow Jones Index effective Nov 1.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 26, The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention released a study which said the number
of Americans considered obese soared from about one in eight in 1991 to
nearly one in five in 1998.
(AP, 10/26/00)
1999 Oct 26, Stanford Univ.
announced that James H. Clark, co-founder of Netscape, had donated $150
million for biomedical engineering research.
(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.B4)
1999 Oct 26, In Britain the upper
house of Parliament agreed to abolish the right of over 700 hereditary
peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. By 2006 the total number
of Lords had fallen from 1,300 to 700.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A12)(Econ, 2/11/06, p.51)
1999 Oct 26, In China police
arrested Falun Gong protestors in Tiananmen Square during a 2nd day of
protests by the spiritual group.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 26, In the Netherlands
the Parliament overturned a 1912 ban on brothels.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 27, The New York Yankees
won their second straight World Series sweep, defeating the Atlanta
Braves in game four, 4-to-1.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, The Clinton
administration authorized the first direct military training for
opponents of Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 27, The US federal budget
surplus was put at $122.7 billion in 1998, marking the first
back-to-back surpluses since the 1950’s.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A6)(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, In the first debate
of the Democratic presidential race, Al Gore sought to stem his decline
in the polls by attacking rival Bill Bradley’s health care and spending
plans.
(AP, 10/27/00)
1999 Oct 27, In Afghanistan
opposition soldiers advanced on Mazar-e-Sharif following the desertion
of a Taliban commander and 500 men.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)
1999 Oct 27, In Armenia gunmen
burst into the parliament and killed Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian
and 7 other officials. They then took a number of hostages and declared
their intent to topple the government.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes and artillery closed in on Grozny and 100 people were killed
and some 200 wounded.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 27, In China members of
the Falun Gong continued to descend on Beijing in an effort to press
the government to reverse its condemnation.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 27, In Indonesia Marzuki
Darusman, the new attorney general, announced a new corruption inquiry
into former Pres. Suharto.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)
1999 Oct 27, In Kazakstan a
Proton-K booster rocket with a Russian communications satellite crashed
during takeoff at the Baikonur cosmodrome and all launches were
cancelled.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 27, In Pec, Kosovo,
Albanians attacked a convoy of Serbs trying to leave the province and
set vehicles afire. Several Serbs were missing.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Lithuania Prime
Minister Rolandas Paksas resigned in protest over the Cabinet’s 11-3
vote in favor of the sale of Mazeikiai Oil to US based Williams Int'l.
Williams spent $75 million for a 33% stake and operating control of the
gas refinery at Mazeikiai. Williams transferred its interest to a
Russian firm.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.D14)(WSJ, 8/2/01, p.A10)(Econ,
1/17/04, p.57)
1999 Oct 27, Serb police seized a
large cache of forged dinars and claimed that a US sponsored "monetary
coup" was foiled.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, Five Republican
presidential hopefuls debated such issues as abortion, health care and
taxes in their second meeting in less than a week; once again,
front-runner George W. Bush was absent from the gathering in New
Hampshire.
(AP, 10/28/00)
1999 Oct 28, The House passed,
218-to-211, the last spending bill of the year, which President Clinton
said he would veto.
(AP, 10/28/00)
1999 Oct 28, A new $970 million
Harrah's casino opened in New Orleans with no hotel and just one
250-seat eatery. Some of the costs included funds for a failed
temporary operation. A $100 million annual tax payment to the state was
part of the operating deal. Bankruptcy threatened operations one year
later.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.B1)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.B12)
1999 Oct 28, Two Navy Blue Angel
aviators, Kieron O'Connor (35) and Kevin Colling (32), were killed when
their F/A-18 Hornet crashed during a training flight near Moody Air
Force Base in Georgia. 23 pilots have died at shows or training since
the group was formed in 1946.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, Harvard Medical
School reported that drug resistant TB had been found in 104 countries
and required $1 billion for control. In Russia some 100,000 inmates had
TB with 40% drug-resistant.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A9)
1999 Oct 28, In Armenia the
assassins of the prime minister surrendered following negotiations with
Pres. Robert Kocharian. Nairi Unanian, his younger brother Karen, their
uncle Vram Galstian were 3 of the 5 arrested.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/29/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 28, China Netcom Corp.
began operations. It was formed earlier in the year by several
government agencies as a competitor to the state-owned telecom
monopoly, China Telecom Corp. Jiang Mianheng, the son of Jiang Zemin,
was one of the 5-member board of directors.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A21)(WSJ, 11/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 28, In Kashmir separatist
militants fired 6 rocket-propelled grenades at the main government
building in the capital and 3 people were killed and 28 injured.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 28, Mauritania
established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Oct 28, Russian soldiers
battled Chechen fighters for control of Yastrebinaya Hill, which
overlooked Grozny. Chechen Pres. Makhashev said that 223 civilians had
been killed in the last 2 days.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D4)
1999 Oct 28, In Yemen 3 Americans,
Marta R. Colburn and her parents, were freed after being held for 2
days by tribesmen, who demanded the release of 25 suspects held for an
attack on an oil pipeline.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 29, In Cleveland, Ohio, 4
white 9th grade students at South High, ages 14-15, were arrested for
planning a Columbine-styled racial massacre.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A3)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 29, Some 3,000 people
attended a memorial service in Orlando, Florida, for golfer Payne
Stewart, who was killed along with 5 other people in the crash of their
Learjet.
(AP, 10/29/00)
1999 Oct 29, In Upper Austria
police arrested 8 unidentified ringleaders of a neo-Nazi group that
planned a political coup.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 29, In eastern India
hundreds of people in Orissa state and the Bay of Bengal region were
feared dead from 05B, the 2nd cyclone in 2 weeks. The number of dead
was estimated to reach 3,000 and 1.5 million people were homeless. The
official dead toll reached 924 on Nov 4. At least 8,000 people were
killed around the port city of Paradeep, where the storm made first
landfall. The death toll was predicted to climb past 10,000. 9,813
death were recorded and the government stopped free rice distribution
after about 3 weeks.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/5/99, p.D4)(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/25/99, p.D6)
1999 Oct 29, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes and artillery launched fierce strikes and 25 refugees were
killed while trying to flee the assaults.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A26)
1999 Oct 29, In Chile a court
charged 7 retired military officers, including Gen. Hugo Salas, for the
kidnapping and killing of 7 leftists of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic
Front during the rule of Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 29, In Colombia it was
reported that Luis Eduardo Garavito (42) had confessed to the abduction
and killing of some 140 children over a 5-year period. In Dec. Garavito
was convicted and sentenced to 52 years in prison for the 1996 murder
of one boy and raping another.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A20)
1999 Oct 29, A EU Commission ruled
that British beef was safe to eat despite French arguments for a ban to
guard against mad cow disease.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 29, In Lebanon Israeli
warplanes and artillery blasted the southern region after Guerrilla
attacks killed 2 Israeli-allied militiamen.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 30, In China the
government approved new laws against superstitious sects and secret
societies with prison terms of 7 years or more.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 30, In Kenya it was
reported that thousands of residents were feared to have been exposed
to radiation from a thorium compound used in roadway construction
materials in Msambweni.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 30, In Mexico police
reported that Juan Jose Quintero Payan (57), a Juarez Cartel boss, was
arrested in Guadalajara.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 30, In Inchon, South
Korea, a fire killed 54 young people, mostly teenagers, at a karaoke
bar. Another 75 were injured.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 31, Jesse Martin of
Australia became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe,
sailing solo, non-stop and unsupported. He sailed from Melbourne,
Australia, on December 8, 1998 aged 18 years 104 days and returned on
October 31 1999, taking 327 days 12 hours 52 minutes.
(AP, 8/27/09)
1999 Oct 31, The pagan Celts of
Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of the
season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was
believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited their homes.
Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the Romans conquered
Britain in the first century A.D., their fall harvest festival, Poloma
Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain to form a major fall festival
at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
1999 Oct 31, An EgyptAir jetliner,
Flight 990, enroute from New York to Cairo crashed off Nantucket Island
and all 217 people aboard were killed. Captains Ahmed al-Habashy and
Raouf Noureldin were at the controls. Relief pilot Gamil al-Batouti
(59), the father of five, was suspected to have caused the crash. In
2002 the National Transportation Safety Board reported that el-Batouty
was solely responsible for the crash.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A3)(SFC,
11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C5)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A3)
1999 Oct 31, In East Timor the
last 900 Indonesian soldiers departed. Indonesian forces had burned
about 80% of East Timor’s government buildings and infrastructure
following the vote for independence.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/10/04, p.A1)
1999 Oct 31, In Augsburg, Germany,
leaders of the Roman Catholic and modern Lutheran Churches signed the
Augsburg Accord, a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification," in a step toward reconciliation. The accord gave weight
to the Lutheran position on salvation through faith and embraced the
Catholic ethic of earthly service.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11,12)
1999 Oct 31, In Macedonia
elections Tito Petkovski, representing the former communist Social
Democratic Party, led with 38% of the vote vs. Boris Trajkovski (VMRO)
with 24.6%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 cOct 31, In Sudan 25 Sudanese
fighters were massacred by rival militiamen when they arrived for talks
with Paulino Matep at Benitu.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 31, In Ukraine elections
were held and Pres. Kuchma was favored. Kuchma came in 1st with 36.5%
of the vote vs. Communist leader Petro Symonenko with 22.2%. A runoff
was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)(SFC,
11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 31, In Uruguay Tabare
Vazquez, the former mayor of Montevideo, led the presidential vote with
38% against 31% for Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party. A runoff
Nov 28 runoff was planned.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct, The plum pox virus made
its first appearance in North America in Pennsylvania orchards.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A20)
1999 Oct, In Iraq religious
vigilantes killed a college student as he chatted with his girlfriend
at a Tigris River promenade in northern Baghdad. Over the next 3 months
18 more young men were killed with one bullet to the head. In Jan
police arrested 4 men for the slayings.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A14)
1999 Oct, In Nigeria hundreds of
civilians were killed by soldiers in Benue. In 2002 Pres. Obasanjo
acknowledged that he ordered the military operations.
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A4)
1999 Oct, Igor Sutyagin, a Russian
scholar, was arrested on charges that he sold information on nuclear
submarines and missile warning systems to a British company, that
Russian investigators said was a CIA cover. Sutyagin was found guilty
of espionage in 2004.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A6)
1999 Oct, The policy manual for
South Africa’s national prosecuting authority was released. The
authority took over cases that left over from the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
(www.iss.co.za/Pubs/Monographs/No53/Chap4.html)(Econ, 8/4/07,
p.41)
Go to November
1999