Today in History - January 2
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
17CE Jan 2, Publius Ovidius Naso, Roman poet, died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
69CE Jan 2, Roman Lower Rhine army proclaimed its commander, Vitellius, emperor.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1235 Jan 2, Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews of Galicia, Austria, to adopt family names.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1492 Jan 2, Boabdil, the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. Sultan Muhammad XI surrendered, ending Muslin rule in Spain. The combined Catholic forces of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile drove out the last of the Berbers from Spain. The Moors were expelled. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella took the town of Grenada, the last Moslem kingdom in Spain. The event became marked by an annual festival that began around 1516.
(ATC, p.73,100)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T11)(HN, 1/2/99)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C20)
1557 Jan 2, Jacopo da Pontormo (b.1494), aka Jacopo Carucci, died. He was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School.
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontormo)
1570 Jan 2, Tsar Ivan the Terrible began a march to Novgorod.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1602 Jan 2, Battle at Kinsale, Ireland: English army beat the Spanish.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1647 Jan 2, Nathaniel Bacon (d.1676), leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), Va., was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1727 Jan 2, James Wolfe, commanded British Army (captured Quebec), was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1757 Jan 2, British troops occupied Calcutta, India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive,_1st_Baron_Clive)
1758 Jan 2, The French began bombardment of Madras, India.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1776 Jan 2, 1st US revolutionary flag was displayed.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1780 Jan 2, A blizzard hit Washington's army at the Morristown, NJ, winter encampment.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1780 Jan 2, Johann Ludwig Krebs (b.1713), German composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ludwig_Krebs)
1788 Jan 2, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/2/98)
1807 Jan 2, Lord Grenville presented to British Parliament a “Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade," effective May 1. He introduced it directly to the House of Lords. It passed the House of Lords by 64 votes and cleared the House of Commons on March 25.
(ON, 4/05, p.3)
1811 Jan 2, US Sen Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) of Massachusetts became the 1st US senator to be censured. He had revealed confidential documents communicated by the president of the US.
(http://tinyurl.com/8yj6dmb)
1813 Jan 2, In Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Army head M. Kutuzov announced the end of war in Russia.
(LHC, 1/3/03)
1814 Jan 2, Lord Byron completed "The Corsair."
(MC, 1/2/02)
1818 Jan 2, Lord Byron completed "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (4th canto).
(MC, 1/2/02)
1822 Jan 2, Rudolph J.E. Clausius (d.1888), German physicist (thermodynamics), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clausius)
1837 Jan 2, Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (d.1910), composer (Tamara), was born in Nizhny-Novgorod, Russia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mily_Balakirev)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1842 Jan 2-1842 Jan 12, Akbar Khan, Afghan hero, was victorious against the British. Out of 4,500 (16,500) soldiers and 12,000 dependents only one survivor, of a mixed British-Indian garrison, reached the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling pony. The British retreated from Kabul to Jalalabad. The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel “Flashman" [see Jan 13].
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)(WSJ, 9/20/01, p.A12)
1843 Jan 2, Wagner's opera "Der Fliegende Holländer" premiered in Dresden.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Dutchman_(opera))
1861 Jan 2, Helen Herron Taft, First Lady to President Robert Taft, was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1861 Jan 2, The USS Brooklyn was readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1861 Jan 2, SC seized the inactive Ft. Johnson in Charleston Harbor.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1861 Jan 2, Frederik Willem IV (b.1795), king of Prussia (1840-61) and Germany (1849-61), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_IV_of_Prussia)
1863 Jan 2, In the second day of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeated the Confederates. The battle, which began Dec 31, involved 80,000 troops and left 24,000 casualties.
(HN, 1/2/99)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1866 Jan 2, Gilbert Murray, Australian born scholar who became the chairman of the League of Nations (1923-1928), was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1881 Jan 2, Camille Saint-Saens' 3rd Concerto in B premiered.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1882 Jan 2, Oscar Wilde arrived in New York City and began to tour the US with lectures on the aesthetic movement.
(HT, 3/97, p.16)
1882 Jan 2, Because of anti-monopoly laws, Standard Oil was organized as a trust. Attorney Samuel Dodd of Standard Oil first had the idea of a trust. A board of trustees was set up, and all the Standard properties were placed in its hands.
(www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=51)
1885 Jan 2, Gen. Wolseley received the last distress signal of Gen. Gordon in Khartoum.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1895 Jan 2, Count Folke Bernadotte (d.1948), statesman (Red Cross, UN), was born in Sweden.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte)
1897 Jan 2, The S.S. Commodore, a small American ship used to smuggle weapons to Cuba, sank off the coast of Florida. Writer Stephen Crane was aboard, along with a crew of 11 and 16 Cuban rebel soldiers. Crane based his 1897 short story, “The Open Boat," on his survival experience in a lifeboat.
(ON, 4/10, p.9)
1900 Jan 2, US Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to prompt trade with China. This policy rejected efforts to carve up China or restrict its ports.
(AP, 1/2/98)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1900 Jan 2, The cargo steamship Australia arrived in San Francisco at the end of a voyage from Hawaii. Plague was known to have already hit Honolulu and rats aboard the ship carried the disease. Wong Chut King became the city’s first victim when he was found dead at the Globe Hotel at Jackson and DuPont (later Grant Ave.). A short term rope quarantine was created around the 6-by-2 block area of Chinatown.
(SFC, 9/20/14, p.C2)
1903 Jan 2, President Theodore Roosevelt closed a post office in Indianola, Mississippi for refusing to hire a black postmistress.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1904 Jan 2, U.S. Marines were sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1904 Jan 2, James Longstreet (b.1821), Confederate general, died in Georgia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Longstreet)
1905 Jan 2, After a six-month siege, Russians surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1911 Jan 2, The Terra Nova expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott reached the coast of Antarctica.
(ON, 6/20/11, p.5)
1915 Jan 2, Karl Goldmark (b.1830), Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died in Vienna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark)
1916 Jan 2, The U.S. instructed Ambassador Sharp to tell the Entente in Paris that America would reject the German peace offer.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1917 Jan 2, Pietro Bandini (b.1852), Italian Jesuit missionary and founder of Tontitown, Ark., died at St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of heart failure.
(http://tinyurl.com/ybdnjvsz)
1917 Jan 2, In Florida Sidney Catts (1863-1936), a Baptist anti-Catholic minister from Alabama, became the state’s 22nd governor and served until 1921. He claimed Catholics were storing arms in a Tampa cathedral.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Johnston_Catts)(Econ, 11/28/15, p.25)
1918 Jan 2, Bolsheviks talked about resuming war unless the Germans return occupied territory.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1919 Jan 2, Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was inaugurated as governor of Massachusetts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge)
1920 Jan 2, Isaac Asimov, Prolific American writer of over 300 books including Foundation and I, Robot, was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1920 Jan 2, Some 2,700 arrests were made in raids in 33 American cities as part of a campaign against alleged political radicals and labor agitators spearheaded by the Department of Justice under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. The Palmer Raids were in reaction to the so-called "Red Scare" that followed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the founding in 1919 of the Worker‘s Party (later Communist Party) in the U.S. Mass arrests of political and labor leaders and agitators began in the fall of 1919 and ended in May of 1920.
(HNQ, 2/22/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids)
1921 Jan 2, Religious services were first broadcast on radio when KDKA aired the regular Sunday service of Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1923 Jan 2, A Ku Klux Klan surprise attack on a black residential area of Rosewood, Fla., killed 8 people. The all-black town of Rosewood, a north Florida community of 120 people, was burned to the ground. A white woman fearful of being caught in an affair, falsely claimed that she was raped and beaten by a black man. Violence exploded as a white mob tried to string up a black man for information on an alleged rape. At least 6 black and 2 white died and almost every building was burned. In 1994 the Florida legislature provided up to $2 million in compensation to survivors. Nine survivors won a $2 million settlement in 1995. In 1996 the event was recreated in the film "Rosewood" by John Singleton.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.43)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.C2) (SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(MC, 1/2/02)
1924 Jan 2, Simon & Schuster was originally setup in NYC by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster to publish crossword puzzles.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_%26_Schuster)(Econ., 11/28/20, p.59)
1928 Jan 2, Vaughn Beals, later CEO of Harley Davidson motorcycle, was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(www.definition-of.net/who-is-Vaughn%2BBeals)
1929 Jan 2, The United States and Canada reached agreement on joint action to preserve Niagara Falls.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1929 Jan 2, Evelyn “Bobbi" Trout (d.2003 at 97) shattered the female pilot endurance record of 8 hours with a flight of 12 hours and 11 minutes.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.A18)
1932 Jan 2, Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1935 Jan 2, Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was found guilty but professed his innocence until he was executed.
(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 10/28/99, p.B7)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1936 Jan 2, In Berlin, the Nazi officials claimed that their treatment of the Jews was not any of the League of Nation's business.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1940 Jan 2, Jim Bakker, televangelist (PTL Club), was born in Muskegon, Mich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker)
1941 Jan 2, The Andrews Sisters recorded what became a big hit for them, the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Woogie_Bugle_Boy)
1942 Jan 2, The Philippine capital of Manila and the US Naval base at Cavite were captured by Japanese forces.
(AP, 1/2/98)(HN, 1/2/02)
1943 Jan 2, The Allies captured Buna in New Guinea.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1944 Jan 2, The US under Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to protect the endangered populations of Europe. In June Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden was hired to head the agency’s office in Budapest, where he arrived on July 9.
(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)(Econ, 9/19/15, p.81)
1944 Jan 2, The first Atlantic convoy that used the new antisubmarine helicopter patrol capability sailed from New York to Liverpool, UK, with three HNS-1 helicopters.
(www.gerlecreek.com/coolplaces/pamphlettrial1c.pdf)
1945 Jan 2, Allies made an air raid on Nuremberg. About 90% of the city center was destroyed in only one hour.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg)
1945 Jan 2, The California Supreme Court ruled that demands by the Boilermakers' union of Marinship for blacks to join auxiliaries without full union privileges was "discriminatory and unequal." The case of James vs. Marinship was led by Joseph James, a welder and leader of the San Francisco Committee Against Segregation and Discrimination.
(SFC, 4/4/20, p.B4)
1947 Jan 2, Mahatma Gandhi began a march for peace in East-Bengali.
(http://tinyurl.com/6sn3vf6)
1952 Jan 3, A revived "Pal Joey" opened at Broadhurst Theater, NYC, for 540 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal_Joey_%28musical%29)
1952 Jan 2, In Korea British pilot Desmond Fredrick William Hinton (b.1922) was shot down while on a bombing run targeting railway infrastructure. In 2011 North Korea handed his re-mains over to British officials.
(AP, 5/4/11)(www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KH14Dg01.html)
1954 Jan 2, The "Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1955 Jan 2, Jose Antonio Remon, president of Panama (1952-55), was assassinated.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1960 Jan 2, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1960 Jan 2, John Reynolds set the age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1960 Jan 2, Australia recorded a record temperature of 50.7° C at Oodnadatta.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodnadatta)
1963 Jan 2, Viet Cong downed five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta; 30 were reported to be dead.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1963 Jan 2, In San Francisco a gas pipeline leak at Nevada and Crescent Ave. in Bernal Heights caused a blast that left 9 firefighters injured and led to heart attack death of Battalion Chief Frank Lamey (63).
(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.A1, 16)
1963 Jan 2, Dick Powell (b.1904), American film star, producer and director, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Powell)
1965 Jan 2, The New York Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $427,000.
(AP, 1/2/08)
1965 Jan 2, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr began a drive to register black voters.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1966 Jan 2, The 1st Jewish child was born in Spain since the 1492 expulsion.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1969 Jan 2, The play "To be Young, Gifted & Black," by Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) premiered in NYC.
(www.aetna.com/foundation/aahcalendar/1992gifted.html)
1973 Jan 2, The United States admitted the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1974 Jan 2, President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph. Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995. The legislation was conceived by Claude Brinegar (1926-2009), Nixon’s secretary of transportation.
(AP, 1/2/98)(http://tinyurl.com/45ywak)(SFC, 3/18/09, p.B6)
1974 Jan 2, Coleman Young (1918-1997) was inaugurated as mayor of Detroit. In 1973 he narrowly defeated Police Commissioner John F. Nichols, who would later become Oakland County Sheriff, to become Detroit's first African American mayor. Young won the four subsequent terms by very wide margins and continued in office until December, 1993.
(WSJ, 5/28/98, p.A20)(www.biographybase.com/biography/Young_Coleman.html)
1975 Jan 2, Milton J. Cross (b.1897), TV announcer (Met Opera), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Cross)
1975 Jan 2, Ken Brugger, searching on behalf of Canadian entomologist Dr. Fred A. Urquhart, found that vast numbers of monarch butterflies, wintered at Cerro Pelon, an inactive volcano a hundred miles west of Mexico City. Urquhart had been tagging butterflies and searching for their winter quarters since 1954. In 1986 the Mexican government established some protection over 5 sites where monarchs were known to overwinter.
(ON, 4/07, p.12)
1978 Jan 2, In Sri Lanka Junius Richard Jayewardene (1906-1996) became the first president with true executive powers. He served as president until 1989.
{Sri Lanka}
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junius_Richard_Jayewardene)
1980 Jan 2, President Carter asked the Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1981 Jan 2, "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe (b.1946), murderer of 13 women, was arrested on a traffic violation. On Jan 4 he declared he was the ripper and charges were filed on Jan 6. Stuart Kind (d.2003), a leading forensic biologist, helped British police crack the "Yorkshire Ripper" serial murder case. Sutcliffe was convicted on May 22 on 13 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003 Michael Bilton authored “Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe)(AP, 4/30/03)
1982 Jan 2, The Somali National Movement (SNM) launched its first military operation against the Somali government. Operating from Ethiopian bases.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/somalia1982b.htm)
1983 Jan 2, The musical play "Annie," based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip, closed at Broadway’s Alvin Theater after a run of 2,377 performances.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1983 Jan 2, "Sophisticated Ladies" closed at the Lunt-Fontanne, NYC, after 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4098)
1984 Jan 2, A record 281,981 dominoes were toppled at Furth, W. Germany.
(www.recordholders.org/en/records/domino-toppling.html)
1986 Jan 2, Bill Veeck (71) former baseball owner, died in Chicago. He is remembered for his well-publicized stunts and promotional gimmicks, including an exploding scoreboard and a midget pinch-hitter.
(AP, 1/2/06)
1988 Jan 2, President Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed an agreement to lift trade restrictions between their countries.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1988 Jan 2, An Ashland Oil Company tank collapsed at Floreffe near Elizabeth, Penn., sending more than 700,000 gallons of diesel oil into the Monongahela River.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1989 Jan 2, PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker returned to the television pulpit for the first time in two years, broadcasting from a borrowed house in Pineville, N.C.
(AP, 1/2/99)
1990 Jan 2, On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day above 2,800 for the first time, at 2,810.15.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1990 Jan 2, Alan Hale Jr. (b.1921), Skipper on Gilligan's Island, died of cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hale_Jr.)
1991 Jan 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., becoming the first black woman to head a city of Washington's size and prominence.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1991 Jan 2, European, Soviet and Arab officials pushed for talks to avert war with Iraq.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1992 Jan 2, Military commanders in Croatia agreed to a cease-fire accord, the 15th attempt at a truce.
(AP, 1/2/02)
1992 Jan 2, Russian shoppers experienced their first day of “sticker shock" after President Boris Yeltsin lifted price controls to stimulate production.
(AP, 1/2/02)
1993 Jan 2, President Bush arrived in Moscow to sign a strategic arms treaty with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who hailed the agreement as "our joint gift to the people of the Earth."
(AP, 1/2/98)
1993 Jan 2, Leaders of the three warring ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina met face-to-face in Geneva.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1994 Jan 2, In San Francisco Father Alfred Boeddeker (90), the founder of the city's St. Anthony Dining Room, died. The Tenderloin dining hall for the poor was founded in 1950.
(SSFC, 12/30/18, DB p.50)
1994 Jan 2, The new Republican mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, delivered his inaugural address in which he called for unity while promising to crack down on crime and tackle the city's budget problems. 24,000 homeless people lived in shelters as Giuliani took office.
(AP, 1/2/99)(Econ, 3/25/17, p.25)
1995 Jan 2, Marion Barry was inaugurated as mayor of Washington D.C., four years after leaving office to serve a six-month sentence for misdemeanor drug possession.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1995 Jan 2, Chechen defenders drove Russian troops out of the capital of Grozny.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1996 Jan 2, Former Interior Secretary James Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of attempting to sway a grand jury investigating 1980s influence-peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Watt was later fined and sentenced to five years’ probation.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1996 Jan 2, AT&T announced it would eliminate 40,000 jobs, mostly through layoffs.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1997 Jan 2, In Las Vegas the New York New York casino-hotel hosted a private party prior to opening to the public at 12:35 a.m.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A18)
1997 Jan 2, In the US Northwest a week of heavy rain and melting snow caused many rivers to overflow. Downtown Reno was under water and casinos closed. More than 2,000 visitors were trapped in Yosemite National Park for more than two days as a rockslide swept away a section of Highway 140. The park was closed until March. Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe was closed and expected to be out for a month. The Feather River between Marysville and Yuba City crested at just over 78 feet and 50,000 Californians were forced to evacuate the area.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A13)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A10)
1997 Jan 2, Letter bombs began arriving into the US from Egypt. Four were addressed to the Washington bureau of Al-Hayat, an Arab language daily. Others went to Leavenworth, Kansas. They contained the plastic explosive semtex.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A3)
1997 Jan 2, In India movie theaters in Bombay closed in protest of a state doubling of the ticket tax. Some 120 films are produced annually and theaters provide about half the funding.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A6)
1997 Jan 2, 90 miles off the coast of Japan the Russian oil tanker Nakhodka broke in two. It carried 5 million gallons of fuel oil. The bow of the ship ran aground 5 days later, 110 miles northwest of Tokyo, and much oil was spilled.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 2, In Kazakhstan President Nusultan Nazarbayev was building a new capital 600 miles north of Almaty in swampy Akmola with transfer due to begin in 1998.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 2, In Peru Pres. Fujimori replaced the president of the Supreme Court and six police generals, who were among the hostages held by Tupac Amaru rebels. The hostage count was down to 74.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A16)
1997 Jan 2, The Serbian Orthodox Church issued a criticism of Pres. Milosevic and accused his government of stealing elections and provoking bloodshed.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A16)
1997 Jan 2, In Singapore the ruling party captured all but 2 seats in parliamentary elections. More than 85% of the country’s 3 million live in government-built apartments.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 2, In Zaire rebel troops captured Pres. Seko’s 32,000 sq. mile Kilomoto gold mining region and the town of Mangbwalu.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A18)
1998 Jan 2, The defense in the Terry Nichols trial rested its case in the penalty phase after calling nine witnesses who pleaded for his life. Nichols had already been convicted of conspiracy, which carried a potential death sentence, and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter involving the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. He was later convicted of state murder charges in Oklahoma, and sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences.
(AP, 1/2/99)(AP, 1/2/08)
1998 Jan 2, In Canada Mayor Mel Lastman will begin running the new municipality of greater Toronto.
(SFC,12/897, p.A18)
1998 Jan 2, In the Czech Republic Josef Tosovsky was sworn in as the prime minister. He pledged economic reforms, privatization, and efforts to fight crime and corruption.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 2, Italy pledged to grant political asylum to genuine Kurdish immigrants. Another 1,300 were scheduled to soon arrive from Turkey. German and Austrian officials feared the immigrants would spill over to their countries.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 2, In Mexico Judge Maria Claudia Campuzano freed 5 suspects who were held in connection with the Dec 15 murder of John Peter Zarate. The judge claimed conflicting evidence as grounds for the release.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A10)
1999 Jan 2, In Chicago about 22 inches of snow fell on the city and across the northern Midwest. In Detroit some 4,000 travelers were stranded in planes on the tarmac for as long as 9 hours.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A5)(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 2, Rolf Liebermann, Swiss composer, died in Paris. He led the Hamburg Opera from 1959-1972 and the Paris Opera from 1973-1980. His work included "Eleonore 40/45," "Penelope," "L'Ecole des Femmes" and "La Foret."
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.D2)
1999 Jan 2, In Angola rebel forces shot down a UN plane with 9 people shortly after takeoff from Huambo; there were no survivors. The plane was later found with bullets in the tail section and the flight recorders removed.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.A23)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)(AP, 1/2/00)
1999 Jan 2, In Egypt police arrested 71 suspected Muslim militants over the last 3 days on suspicion of plotting to kill senior government officials.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.A19)
1999 Jan 2, In the Philippines rebels lobbed a grenade into a crowd watching firemen fight a fire on Jolo Island and at least 10 people were killed and 74 injured. The Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were believed to be responsible.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A22)(WSJ, 1/4/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 2, Steven Ray Thacker (29) of Oklahoma was arrested in Tennessee following a 3-state crime spree that left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)
2000 Jan 2, Elmo Russell Zumwalt Jr., former US Navy commander, died at age 79. He and his son authored "My Father, My Son" in 1986 and his son died shortly thereafter from cancer that they attributed to Agent Orange. In 1976 Adm Zumwalt authored "My Watch."
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)(AP, 1/2/01)
2000 Jan 2, Patrick O'Brian, (born in England as Richard Patrick Russ), celebrated novelist, died at age 85 in Ireland while writing his 21st novel set during the Napoleonic wars. His 1st Aubrey and Maturin novel was "Master and Commander," begun in 1969 was published in 1970. His first novel was "The Golden Ocean" written in 1956.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A19)(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.W15)
2000 Jan 2 In Somalia Shuab Mohamed Hussein, a CARE engineer, was killed during an ambush north of Mogadishu.
(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A12)
2001 Jan 2, Pres. Clinton met with Yasser Arafat and coaxed Arafat to curb the Middle East violence.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 2, Pres.-elect Bush chose Spencer Abraham of Michigan as Sec. of Energy; Linda Chavez as Sec. of labor; and Norm Mineta, Pres. Clinton’s Commerce Sec., as Sec. of Transportation. Chavez ended up withdrawing after it was disclosed she had given money and shelter to an illegal immigrant who once did chores around Chavez's house.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A1)(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, Former Attorney General and Secretary of State William P. Rogers died in Bethesda, Md., at age 87.
(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, Ships made the first legal and direct crossing between China and Taiwan in more than half a century.
(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, In Afghanistan opposition troops captured Ghalmin in central Ghor province.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 2, In Cambodia the legislature voted to create a special tribunal to try leaders of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A9)
2001 Jan 2, In Indonesia Ryaas Rasyid, the Administrative Reform Minister, resigned and said the government was moving too slowly to decentralize administrative policies.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A10)
2002 Jan 2, The No. 5 Florida Gators crushed No. 6 Maryland 56-23 in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2002 Jan 2, The new Afghan government confirmed that American bombs had killed the Taliban's intelligence chief, Qari Ahmadullah.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2002 Jan 2, In Argentina Eduardo Duhalde was sworn in as president.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 2, In Australia fires continued near Sydney and almost 160 houses were lost. 21 arson suspects had been arrested since the fires began Christmas eve. Arson bombs were found in Sydney’s northern suburbs.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A4)
2002 Jan 2, In India, Kashmir, militants detonated 2 grenades near the legislature killing 1 police officer and wounding at least 24. 2 soldiers were later killed by militants at an Indian military post in Darhal.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 2, Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan shook hands at a regional summit in Nepal.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 2, Anil Agarwal, founder and leader of India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), died of cancer. Leadership passed to Sunita Narain.
(www.cseindia.org/aboutus/anilji/anilji.htm)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.51)
2002 Jan 2, In Zambia Levy Mwanawasa (1948-2008) of the ruling Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was sworn in as president despite protests of ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. An appeal for a recount was rejected. Nearly 85% of the country’s 10 million people lived on less than $1 a day. Unrest closed much of Lusaka. Zambia’s inflation at this time was 21.7%.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/3/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/08, p.B4)
2003 Jan 2, President Bush, seeking to counter Democratic criticisms that his economic policies favored the rich, said the economic-stimulus plan he was going to unveil the following week would focus on jobs and the unemployed.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2003 Jan 2, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2003 Jan 2, Sydney Omarr (76), the astrologer to the stars whose horoscopes appeared in more than 200 newspapers, died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2003 Jan 2, It was reported that scientists had mapped chromosome 14, the 4th of 24 and longest sequenced to date.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 2, A Palestinian gunman was killed several hours after he tried to shoot an Israeli couple and then holed up inside their house in the Israeli village of Maor.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 2, A motorized rubber boat carrying 41 illegal immigrants sank off the southern coast of Spain, and six passengers drowned.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2004 Jan 2, The NASA Stardust spacecraft took pictures of the Wild-2 comet tail and collected particles on "aerogel," a silica foam 99.8% air, the lightest material ever made.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A8)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.A8)
2004 Jan 2, The Fort Pierre Livestock Auction in South Dakota managed to auction beef calves at around 92.5 cents a pound. This was 15-20% below mid-December prices due to the recent mad cow scare.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 2, In Argentina near Buenos Aires an explosion at a supermarket that sold illegal fireworks left five people dead and injured more than a dozen others. A gas leak was blamed.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 2, British flights to Washington and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were canceled as a security precaution.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2004 Jan 2, Bulgaria reported that more than two dozen Bulgarian soldiers are refusing deployment in Iraq, following the deaths of five countrymen.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, Ecuadorian authorities captured Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, aka Simon Trinidad, one of the 7 members who make up the ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He was arrested at dawn in a medical clinic in Ecuador.
(AP, 1/3/04)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.30)
2004 Jan 2, Kemal el-Sheik (85), Egyptian film director celebrated for a career that spanned nearly five decades, died.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, A U.S. military helicopter crashed west of Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, In central Iraq insurgents hit a U.S. base with mortar shells, killing one American soldier and wounding two others. A US helicopter was shot down near Fallujah killing one American soldier.
(AP, 1/3/04)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A5)
2004 Jan 2, Norwegian police arrested Mullah Krekar, Muslim Kurd leader of Ansar al-Islam, on charges connected to 2 suicide bombings in Iraq 2 years ago. Norway ordered Krekar deported in 2005 after declaring him a national security threat, but postponed the move because of worries he could face execution or torture in Iraq.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A3)(AP, 2/14/12)
2004 Jan 2, Philippine movie star Fernando Po Jr. filed his candidacy for the presidency.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A2)
2005 Jan 2, US professional football teams (NFL) joined Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and other sports figures around the world in assisting the relief mission for the tsunami-earthquake catastrophe in southern Asia.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2005 Jan 2, The death toll from the Dec 26 Tsunami was expected to hit 150,000.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2005 Jan 2, In El Dorada, Ark., firefighters evacuated hundreds of residents as they fought a blaze in a hazardous waste warehouse.
(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 2, H. David Dalquist (86), creator of the aluminum Bundt pan (1950), the top-selling cake pan in the world, died at his home in Edina, Minn. He founded St. Louis Park-based Nordic Ware, which has sold more than 50 million Bundt pans.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 2, In western Afghanistan a US soldier and a former Afghan militia leader were killed when American troops clashed with gunmen while searching the leader's compound.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2005 Jan 2, Canada confirmed that a 2nd case of mad cow disease has been discovered, just days after the United States said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 2, In Croatia Pres. Stipe Mesic won about 49 percent of the votes, compared with 20 percent for his closest rival, conservative government minister Jadranka Kosor, the popular incumbent narrowly failed to win the absolute majority required for a first-round victory. Voters will return to the polls later this month for a presidential runoff.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 2, A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb north of Baghdad, killing at least 22 Iraqi soldiers. 10 Iraqis were killed in attacks elsewhere.
(AP, 1/2/05)(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 2, Some 1,500 people inhabited the artificial Maldive island of Hulhumale. Some $60 million had already been spent on its creation and completion was expected in 2040.
(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A10)
2005 Jan 2 Shin Dong-hyuk (b.1982) escaped from a prison camp in North Korea and made his way to China. In 2012 former Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden authored "Escape from Camp 14," an account of Shin’s escape. In 2015 Shin apologized for misleading people after changing key parts of his story.
(Reuters, 1/18/15)
2005 Jan 2, Thailand's confirmed death toll from the Dec 26 tidal wave disaster approached 5,000, including more than 2,400 foreign holidaymakers.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2006 Jan 2, No. 4 Ohio State beat No. 5 Notre Dame 34-20 in the Fiesta Bowl.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2006 Jan 2, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in 7 northern counties making them eligible for disaster aid. The aid was soon extended to 16 more counties.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A1)(SFC, 1/4/06, p.B1)
2006 Jan 2, Grass fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas left at least 4 people dead with over 250 structures burned.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 2, In Tallmansville, West Virginia, an explosion at the Sago coal mine trapped 13 miners more than a mile underground. After 1½ days 12 miners were found dead. Randal McCloy (27) was the lone survivor.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 2, Independence Air, formerly known as Atlantic Coast Airlines, said it will shut down on Jan 5. The DC based carrier only began operations Jun 16, 2004.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.E1)
2006 Jan 2, The Afghan government said it has ordered the US Embassy, the UN and other organizations to remove security barriers that are blocking streets in Afghanistan's capital and causing traffic jams.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Afghanistan a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car near a US military convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, killing himself and wounding an American soldier and two passers-by. Suspected Taliban gunmen killed an Afghan aid worker who was praying in a mosque in southern Afghanistan. A policeman was killed in a separate firefight with militants.
(AP, 1/2/06)(AFP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In eastern Australia 5 people were killed when a plane carrying a group of skydivers plunged into a dam near Brisbane.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, China’s Xinhua News reported that the nation’s GDP grew 9.8% in 2005.
(WSJ, 1/3/06, p.A14)
2006 Jan 2, The roof of an ice rink with about 50 people inside collapsed after a heavy snowfall in a town in the Bavarian Alps killing 15 people, most of them teens and children.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 2, In India’s Orissa state police shot and killed 12 tribals who were seeking to block construction of a steel plant in Kalinga Nagar. Tensions were heightened after the "tribals hacked to death a senior constable." Hundreds of protesters, some armed with bows and arrows, soon blocked a highway to protest the police shooting.
(AFP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In central Indonesia flash floods swept away hundreds houses and schools, killing at least 57 people.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Iraq the main Sunni Arab group, the Iraqi Accordance Front, and Kurdish regional Pres. Massoud Barzani agreed on broad outlines for a coalition government.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 2, A suicide car bomber targeted a busload of police recruits north of Baghdad, killing seven people, and gunmen in the capital killed five workers.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, US aircraft bombed a house in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding four. Iraqis claimed an innocent family was killed. US military said a recon drone had recorded men planting a roadside bomb and traced them to the building.
(AP, 1/3/06)(SFC, 1/4/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 2, An Israeli intelligence report said Palestinians have smuggled anti-aircraft missiles into the Gaza Strip along with tons of other military hardware since Israel withdrew in September.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A car exploded in northern Gaza after nightfall, killing at least one Palestinian. Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft was overhead.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, More than 130 Libyan political prisoners, mostly members of the banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood group, started a hunger strike in a Tripoli prison, saying the government broke its promise to release them.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, The leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebels, wearing a ski mask to protect his identity, railed against the country's government and free trade to kick off a six-month tour of Mexico aimed at reshaping the nation's politics.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Communist rebels in Nepal announced they would end a four-month cease-fire, saying they had to take up arms to defend themselves against government attacks.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly accused Ukraine of diverting about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other customers, a day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute whose effects were spreading across Europe.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A heavily-criticized Russia promised to restore full gas supplies to Europe after Germany warned that its dispute with Ukraine over deliveries could hurt its long-term credibility as an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Sri Lanka 5 civilians suspected of working for separatist rebels were allegedly killed when their grenades exploded before they could hurl them at troops. Forensic tests showed that the victims had been shot dead. The incident referred to as Trincomalee massacre happened when 5 minority Sri Lankan Tamil high school students playing by the beach were briefly detained and then shot dead.
(AP, 1/3/06)(AP, 2/14/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Trincomalee_massacre)
2006 Jan 2, Kizza Besigye, Uganda's main opposition leader, was released on bail, and greeted some 12,000 cheering supporters outside the courthouse where he is on trial for charges he says were fabricated to keep him out of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Yemeni tribal and state officials said 3 Italian women kidnapped in north Yemen have refused to go free until their abductors release two Italian men held with them.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2007 Jan 2, The Wall Street Journal introduced a new print format.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, US markets and federal agencies closed in respect for funeral rites for former Pres. Gerald Ford. Ford’s body was flown to Michigan for burial following services in the National Cathedral.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, New York City commuter Wesley Autrey Sr. saved a 19-year-old student who had fallen onto subway tracks by leaping down and pulling the teen and himself into the trough between the tracks as a train passed over them.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Garry Betty (49), chief executive of EarthLink Inc., died of cancer. Betty had led the company from 1995, one year after Sky Dayton founded the Internet service provider.
(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 2, An Australian Aborigine tribe was granted joint management rights over several state and national parks under a deal that recognizes its traditional ownership of the land.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, In Brazil an explosion in Sao Paulo ripped through a state police warehouse used to store guns and ammunition, killing one officer and injuring five.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, China's foreign minister continued his whistle-stop African tour in Equatorial Guinea, where he cancelled debt, promised aid and opened a new Chinese-built media centre.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Ethiopian helicopters pursuing Somali Islamists missed their target and bombed a Kenyan border post, prompting Kenyan fighter planes to rush to the area. The gun collection program in Mogadishu began with little response. 2 Ethiopian soldiers were shot dead.
(AFP, 1/2/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.41)
2007 Jan 2, In France prisoner Nicolas Cocaign (b.1971) killed his cellmate killed Thierry Baudry. In 2010 Cocaign, who was in jail for armed robbery and was awaiting trial for attempted rape at the time, said he proceeded to eat part of the lung raw before frying the rest with onions on a camping stove and dining on the dish.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2007 Jan 2, Gunmen attacked the car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the official and three relatives. A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded seven others in eastern Baghdad. US troops killed a suspected al-Qaida weapons dealer and two other people in Baghdad raids. Police found 15 bodies dumped in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Teddy Kollek (b.1911), the legendary mayor of Jerusalem, died. He was born in Hungary, but was brought up mostly in Vienna. Kollek arrived in Palestine in 1934 and in 1965 was elected mayor of Jerusalem and served to 1993. He presided over the reunification of the city after the 1967 Mideast war and tried to balance the needs of its split Jewish and Arab populations.
(AP, 1/2/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.78)
2007 Jan 2, Mexico said it is sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the United States.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 2, In South Africa Oprah Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls south of Johannesburg, fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 students a chance for a better future. The school later became embroiled in allegations of abuse; Winfrey apologized and promised an overhaul.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Tamilnet.com said at least 15 civilians were killed and dozens more wounded when Sri Lankan air force jets "carpet bombed" territory held by the Tamil Tigers.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, New UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment should be a decision of individual countries.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said the UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and child rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Rival gangs battled for control of Uribana Prison in eastern Venezuela, killing 16 inmates and injuring 13. National Guard troops restored order after the riot broke out overnight. The death toll in riots this week rose to 22.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/3/07)
2008 Jan 2, California led 15 other states and 5 environmental groups into federal court to challenge the Bush administration’s refusal to let the state limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming.
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 2, Gold prices swept to a record high of $861.10 above the key $850-an-ounce mark, driven by surging oil, a weaker dollar and simmering geopolitical tensions. It later backtracked slightly to $855.70/$856.50 in New York at 2:25 p.m. EST.
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Oil futures hit an intraday high of $100 per barrel and closed at a record $99.62.
(WSJ, 1/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 2, US researchers said a married couple who sailed to America from England around 1630 are the reason why thousands of people in the United States are at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer.
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Becton, Dickinson and Co said it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for a test to identify the presence of two deadly healthcare-associated infections: Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Algeria a car bomb exploded near a police station in Naciria east of Algiers, killing at least four people and ripping off the building's façade.
(AFP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Sterling slumped to a record low against the euro after the release of weak British economic data that raised expectations of further interest rate cuts by the Bank of England.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, George MacDonald Fraser (82), English author of the "Flashman" series of historical adventure yarns, died. "Flashman," published in 1969, introduced readers to an enduring literary antihero: the roguish, irrepressible Harry Flashman. Fraser’s work also included over 30 movie scripts including “The Three Musketeers" (1973).
(AP, 1/3/08)(WSJ, 1/17/08, p.D7)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.78)
2008 Jan 2, In southern Chile hundreds of people fled their homes overnight as the Llaima volcano erupted, rocking the area with explosions and spewing lava and ash.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Egypt allowed more than 2,000 Palestinian pilgrims to enter the Gaza Strip, drawing a fierce rebuke from Israel, which had tried to prevent top members of the militant Hamas from returning home.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, France's most drastic measure to curb smoking went into effect with a full ban on lighting up in cafes, restaurants and discotheques.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In northern India an unusually fierce cold snap has killed nine people over the past two days, bringing the death toll from weeks of unusually chilly weather to 38.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bombing in Baqouba killed seven people, including Abu Sadjat, a local tribal chief, and wounded 22 others.
(AP, 1/2/08)(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A11)
2008 Jan 2, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinian militants in a clash before dawn, pressing its war against armed groups in the Gaza Strip days before President Bush arrives to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, International pressure mounted on Kenya's leaders to end postelection violence that has killed more than 300 people. Vice President Moody Awori told a local television station that the violence has cost the country $31 million a day.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Lebanon Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader Hezbollah, declared no president will be elected unless his opposition party gets veto power in the future government.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Myanmar's military junta dramatically raised the annual fee for TV satellite dishes, an apparent move to block the foreign news channels that beamed in global criticism of its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Authorities said Pakistan's elections will be delayed six weeks until Feb. 18 because of unrest following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Opponents condemned the postponement but said they would take part in the vote anyway. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said that he had requested a team of investigators from Britain's Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation into the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, The Sri Lankan government decided to withdraw from an internationally brokered cease-fire with the insurgents. Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a bomb near a bus carrying wounded soldiers through a busy commercial district in Sri Lanka's capital, killing one soldier and three civilians and wounding 24 other people. Air force jets launched two airstrikes in the north, one targeting a Tamil Tiger naval base in Mannar district and the other a logistics base in Mullaitivu district. Some 5,000 people had died over the last two years of the cease-fire.
(AP, 1/3/08)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.36)
2008 Jan 2, Darfur rebels in Sudan said they had taken a town around Geneina, the main city of west Darfur which they claim to have surrounded.
(AFP, 1/2/08)
2009 Jan 2, In SF the AsianWeek newspaper, founded in 1979, published its final print edition. It planned to continue a presence online at www.asianweek.com.
(SFC, 1/1/09, p.C1)
2009 Jan 2, Idaho investors met with Daren Palmer of Idaho Falls and were informed that as much as $100 million in their investments was gone. State security regulators soon launched an investigation into Palmer (40) and his Trigon Group Inc. under allegations that he had operated a long running Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 1/17/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 2, In Britain 2 people were feared dead after a light aircraft crashed into a major railway line, causing severe disruption to train services between Rugeley and Stafford.
(AFP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In Burundi an 8-year-old albino boy was hacked to death in front of his mother and made off with his arms and legs. The body parts of a single albino, to be used in witch doctor potions, fetched about $1000. This attack followed another on a 6-year-old girl.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.50)
2009 Jan 2, Ghana's leader appealed for calm and urged his people to accept the results of a tight presidential election as voters in a single district cast ballots that could decide the West African nation's next president. Election results from all other districts showed opposition leader John Atta Mills ahead of his ruling party rival Nana Akufo-Addo by only around 23,000 votes out of more than 9 million cast.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, India eased foreign borrowing for real estate and certain other companies and allowed additional liquidity for non-banking financial firms to boost growth.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bomber sneaked into a luncheon gathering called by the leader of a local tribe in Youssifiyah, killing at least 23 people and wounding 110. Gunmen killed two people when they opened fire on a checkpoint manned by members of the Sons of Iraq in Jurf al-Sakhar. Four other people were reported wounded in the attack 40 miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/09)(SFC, 1/3/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 2, Israel bombed a mosque it claimed was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza. Thus far more than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded. Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in the rocket attacks.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Kenya's Pres. Mwai Kibaki signed into law a media bill that opponents say threatens the country's hard-fought reputation for having one of Africa's most vigorous press. A controversial part of the bill, which parliament passed last month, allows the government to shut down media outlets by declaring a state of emergency. Kibaki said that part was not included in the bill he signed.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, Mexican Federal prosecutors said they placed three municipal policemen in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez under house arrest on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers. In the northern city of Monterrey, prosecutors accused former Nuevo Leon state policeman Aldo Perales (34) of leading a gang of bank robbers and participating in more than 30 robberies.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, In southern Nigeria an oil pipeline was blown up with dynamite.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, Pakistan reopened the main supply route for US and NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan after blocking it for three days during a military operation against militants who have been attacking convoys.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Luis Fortuno (48), Puerto Rico's new governor was sworn, inheriting an island government that is battling a recession, a soaring murder rate and a deficit of more than $1 billion.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Singapore said its GDP had contracted at an adjusted annualized pace of 12.5% in the 4th quarter. Its biggest contraction since it began publishing data in 1976.
(WSJ, 1/3/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 2, Crewmen fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates trying to board a Greek oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden in the fourth such attack since the start of the year. A Chinese cargo ship evaded two pirate boats chasing it in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 1/2/09)(AFP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In northern Sri Lanka government forces captured the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital, dealing a devastating blow to the rebels' quarter-century fight for an independent state. A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide attacker on a motorcycle detonated a bomb near the air force headquarters in the heart of Colombo during the afternoon rush hour, killing two airmen.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels killed two wildlife rangers and six other people in a remote national park in northeastern Congo.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ukraine sought support in European capitals a day after Russia cut off gas supplies and hardened its stance on prices. The cutoff came after Ukraine made a $1.5 billion overdue payment, but Russia demanded another $600 million, including $450 million penalties for the late payment for gas shipped in November and December. The two sides also have not agreed on prices for 2009. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas destined for the rest of Europe.
(AP, 1/2/09)(Reuters, 1/2/09)
2010 Jan 2, In North Carolina, the nation's leading tobacco producer, a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars went into effect. This made it least the 29th state to ban smoking in restaurants and 24th for bars.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, Afghanistan's parliament dealt a stinging rebuke to President Hamid Karzai by rejecting 17 out of 24 of his nominees for a new cabinet, including a regionally powerful warlord and the country's only female minister.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Australia Indian accounting graduate Nitin Garg (21) was stabbed by unknown attackers before collapsing in the Melbourne burger restaurant where he worked. On June 17 a 15-year-old Australian boy was charged with the stabbing murder. On June 18 the boy (16) was charged with accessory to the killing. On April 20, 2011, the boy (16) pleaded guilty to the murder and one count of attempted armed robbery. On Dec 22 the boy was sentenced to up to 13 years in jail.
(AFP, 1/4/10)(AFP, 6/17/10)(AFP, 6/18/10)(AP, 4/20/11)(Reuters, 12/22/11)
2010 Jan 2, French police said about 30 works of art, including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, have been stolen from the home of a private collector in southern La Cadiere-d'Azur, near Marseilles. The theft comes days after a drawing by Impressionist Edgar Degas worth euro800,000 ($1.15 million) was stolen from the Cantini Museum in Marseilles.
(AP, 1/3/10)
2010 Jan 2, In northern India 4 trains collided in two separate accidents caused by dense winter fog, killing 10 people and injuring 47 others.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, Israeli warplanes struck and destroyed two tunnels under Gaza's border with Israel. The Israeli military says Gaza militants had planned to use the tunnels to enter Israel and carry out attacks.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In northern Mexico a bus carrying farm workers and their families home plunged off a cliff, killing 14 people and injuring 21. Hugo Hernandez (36) was kidnapped in Sonora state and taken to neighboring Sinaloa state where assailants skinned his face and stitched it onto a soccer ball. His body was later left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces.
(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 2, Tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in the capital to support the communist government's policies for the new year, including improved relations with the US and South Korea and a higher standard of living.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Somalia Al-Shabab attacked Dusamareb, 500km north of the capital Mogadishu, and captured it from Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, a traditional Sufi group, for a short while before being forced out again. At least 50 people died in the fighting.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycmkkye)(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 2, In southern Sudan armed Nuer tribesmen killed at least 139 members of a rival tribe in an attack in Tonj, one of the most remote parts of the oil-producing south.
(Reuters, 1/7/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Tajikistan a magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck the Pamir Mountains. Some 783 people were left homeless. 98 houses were completely destroyed and nearly 1,000 others damaged by the quake that hit several villages in the Gorno-Badakhshansky region.
(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 2, Yemen security officials said they deployed several hundred extra troops to two mountainous eastern provinces that are al-Qaida's main strongholds in the country and where the suspected would-be Christmas airplane bomber may have visited.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2011 Jan 2, Pres .Obama signed a $4.3 billion measure covering the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others sickened by toxic fumes following the 9/11 attack in NYC.
(SFC, 1/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 2, Anne Francis (80), film and TV star, died. She played a sexy private eye in the TV series “Honey West," which aired from 1965-1966. Her films included “Bad Day at Black Rock" (1954) and “Blackboard Jungle" (1956).
(SFC, 1/4/11, p.C5)
2011 Jan 2, In Afghanistan gunmen entered a mosque in Baghlan province's Markazi district, killing four civilians and wounding two. A fifth person was killed in a bombing outside a butcher's shop in Herat.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Four Argentines were arrested in Spain for allegedly transporting almost a ton of cocaine in a private plane. They included Gustavo and Eduardo Julia, sons of the late former head of the Air Force Jose Julia, and Gaston Miret, son of Jose Miret, the former Air Force brigadier who was secretary of planning during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. The cocaine was almost pure with a value of more than 30 million euros (about $39 million).
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 2, British actor Pete Postlethwaite (b.1946) died following a lengthy illness. He had earned an Oscar nomination for his role in "In the Name of the Father" (1994).
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, In China seven crew members were missing and feared drowned after their fishing boat sank in the Xijiang River in the southern province of Guangdong.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Hong Kong democracy activist Szeto Wah (b.1931) died. He was a leading campaigner for the victims of Beijing's 1989 crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square, a voice for mainland dissidents, and founder of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
(AFP, 2/27/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szeto_Wah)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 2, Across Iraq bomb and gun attacks killed at least 9 people, including six members of the Iraqi security forces and a city engineer. Two American soldiers were killed during operations in central Iraq.
(AFP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/3/11)(SFC, 1/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 2, Israel's PM Netanyahu said that he's ready to sit down with the Palestinian president for continuous one-on-one talks until they reach a peace deal. Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian security sources said Mohammed Daraghmeh was trying to pass through the checkpoint on his way to work at a West Bank settlement and a row broke out with troops when they refused him passage.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, In Israel Eugene Perchikov, an Israeli doctor accused of killing two women in New York, bled to death in a Jerusalem jail after cutting himself with a prison-issued razor blade as his cellmates slept. US authorities believed he poisoned two women to death in order to collect their life insurance. Larysa Vasserman of Brooklyn, was slain in 2002, and Tatiana Korkhova of Manhattan, was murdered in 2004.
(AP, 1/4/11)(http://tinyurl.com/25a9wh4)
2011 Jan 2, Mexican officials announced plans to shake-up of the corruption-ridden immigration institute, after a year that saw some of the worst atrocities against illegal migrants trekking through the country. Two boys ages 14 and 17 were shot to death in the remote mountain town of Alcozahuca, near the Oaxaca state line. 2 men dressed up in clown costumes were found executed in the city of Cardenas, Tabasco.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 2, In the Philippines a bus has collided with a passenger jeep in a province south of Manila, killing 7 members of a family who were returning home from a Christmas vacation. Landslides and floods, after days of heavy rain, killed at least 17 people including 8 children.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 2, In South Africa 7 people from neighboring families have been killed in a lightning strike in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal province. In neighboring Eastern Cape province, four others were killed and 20 injured in a New Year's Day lightning strike.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Off southern Yemen at least one boat of African migrants capsized and dozens were feared drowned. The boat capsized near the Bab al-Mandab strait which links the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. 5 migrants survived.
(AFP, 1/4/11)
2012 Jan 2, In Los Angeles Harry Burkhart, a Germany citizen, was arrested in West Hollywood following 4 nights of arson fires around the city.
(SFC, 1/3/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 2, An Algerian court sentenced Abdelhamid Abou Zeid (Mohamed Ghdir), one of the most radical leaders of Al-Qaeda's north Africa branch, in his absence to life in prison for creating "an international terror group." Four other co-accused were each sentenced to five years in jail. Algerian security forces shot dead Mohand Ouramdane, a senior operative of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
(AFP, 1/2/12)(AFP, 1/3/12)
2012 Jan 2, The Arab League chief said Syria's government has withdrawn heavy weapons from inside cities and freed about 3,500 prisoners but security forces continue to kill protesters even with foreign monitors in the country. Syrian security forces fired on protesters in Hama province.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Burkina Faso's president fired the country's customs chief after his detention over the seizure of nearly three million euros ($3.8 million) in trunks carried by a relative.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile called Ghader during a drill that the country's navy chief said proved Tehran was in complete control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-sixth of the world's oil supply.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Three Iranian border guards were arrested in southwestern Baluchistan province along after they allegedly crossed the frontier and shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. On Jan 14 Pakistan deported the 3 guards after they were pardoned in court by the family of the man killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 2, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators headed to Jordan for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly 16 months, although both sides stressed it did not mark a renewal of talks.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Security forces in Indian Kashmir opened fire and killed a protester during a demonstration by hundreds of residents angry about mid-winter power cuts.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Myanmar's government announced that it is reducing the sentences of many prisoners, but stopped short of declaring an amnesty that had been expected by many people.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Nigeria prices at many stations more than doubled to 140 naira or more per liter in a country where most of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. The country's main labor unions threatened mass action.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Pakistani protesters clashed with police and major cities were paralyzed as thousands of people demonstrated over severe gas shortages and price hikes.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia said it will begin enforcing a law that allows only females to work in women's lingerie and apparel stores, effective December 5. The 2006 law banning men from working in female apparel and cosmetic stores has never been put into effect.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Senegal thousands of Dakar residents found themselves stranded as bus and taxi drivers took part in a two-day strike over high fuel prices, leaving some to turn to horse-drawn carts to get around. A paramilitary officer was killed, five injured and another left missing in the Casamance region village of Affiniam.
(AFP, 1/2/12)(AP, 1/4/12)
2012 Jan 2, Sudanese authorities shut down Rai al-Shaab, the newspaper of the opposition Popular Congress Party, just months after it started publishing again following an earlier raid.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Yemen a French journalist was found strangled with an electrical wire in his hotel room in Sanaa.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2013 Jan 2, President Obama signed the "fiscal cliff" legislation into law via autopen from Hawaii, where he is vacationing with his family.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Al Jazeera said it will buy Current TV, the struggling cable channel founded by Al Gore and partners, in a move that will boost the Qatar-based broadcaster's footprint in the United States.
(Reuters, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, Avis Budget Group agreed to buy Zipcar Inc., a rent by the hour car agency, for $491 million.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.C3)
2013 Jan 2, Jon Fromer (b.1946), musician, activist and television producer, died at his home in Mill Valley, Ca. He was the founder of Freedom Song Network, a coalition of Bay Area musicians dedicated to promoting human rights.
(SFC, 1/9/13, p.E8)
2013 Jan 2, Algerian security forces killed two radical Islamist insurgents in the same locality east of the capital where seven were killed a day earlier.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said more than 1.1 million people in Britain have succumbed to the norovirus winter vomiting disease so far this season.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Colombia's chief prosecutor's office opened a preliminary criminal investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe over allegations he sponsored a killer far-right militia as a regional governor in the 1990s.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 2, Ethiopian security forces announced the arrest of 15 people alleged to be members of a terror cell linked with al-Qaida. Authorities said the suspects were trained by al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia and Kenya.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, Iranian media reported that Iran has captured 2 US RQ11 Raven surveillance drones over the last 17 months and that much of the data has been decoded by the army.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 2, Myanmar's military acknowledged launching airstrikes against ethnic Kachin rebels in the north and said it captured a hilltop post on Dec 29 from where the insurgents had attacked government supply convoys.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, In Pakistan Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir was among nine people killed in a missile strike on a house in Angoor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region. Nazir had a truce with the Pakistani military.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, In Switzerland a man armed with an old military rifle and a handgun shot and killed three women and wounded two men in the village of Daillon. Police shot and wounded the suspect after he threatened to also shoot officers.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, A Syrian warplane blasted a gas station near Damascus, killing and wounding dozens of people and igniting a huge fire in one of the bloodiest attacks in weeks during the 22-month civil war. Rebels attacked the sprawling Taftanaz air base. Rebels bombarded the Mannagh air base, which has been subjected to almost daily attacks since late last month.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, The UN said more than 60,000 people have killed in the 21-months of the Syrian conflict.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2014 Jan 2, The influential New York Times and Britain’s Guardian newspapers hailed fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden as a "whistleblower" and threw its weight behind calls for him to be shown clemency.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, British author Elizabeth Jane Howard (b.1923) died. She was best known for "The Cazalet Chronicles," which followed the tangled lives and loves of several generations of an aristocratic household in the run-up to World War II.
(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Chinese helicopter rescued all 52 passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy Russian research ship that has been trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve after weather conditions finally cleared enough for the operation. The passengers were all transported to an Australian icebreaker in the area.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Cameroon secutiry official said 7 people, including two Cameroonian soldiers, have been killed in an attack in the east by an armed group from the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Canadian lawmaker Rathika Sitsabaiesan said she was intimidated and warned she could be deported during an ongoing visit to her birthplace of Jaffna, the war-battered Tamil heartland of Sri Lanka.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In CongoDRC Colonel Mamadou Ndala (34), the commander of government troops fighting Ugandan Islamist rebels in the restive east of country, was killed along with two bodyguards in an ambush.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(AP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 2, Egyptian authorities produced what they said was a confession by the son of a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood. An Alexandria court sentenced seven activists to two years in prison on several charges including protesting without a permit and clashing with police last month.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In western India a bus plunged into a 120m (400-feet) deep gorge, splitting open on the rocky ground below, killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Iraqi security forces arrested a controversial Shiite cleric who leads an Iranian-backed militia, a move apparently aimed at bolstering Sunni support as the Shiite-led government and allied tribes battled Islamic militants who rose up in multiple Sunni-dominated cities. Fighting continued in Fallujah and Ramadi. A truck packed with explosives blew up in Balad Ruz, killing at least 19 people. At least 35 people were reported killed in Anbar province. Militants bombed a major oil pipeline in the north, causing a fire and forcing pumping to be suspended.
(AP, 1/2/14)(AFP, 1/2/14)(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 2, Italy-based Fiat secured full ownership of Chrysler in a $4.35 billion agreement.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.C4)
2014 Jan 2, In Kenya 10 people were wounded when attackers hurled a grenade into a restaurant in Diani, a popular coastal tourist resort town.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In Lebanon a large car bomb killed 5 people and wounded at least 20 in a Hezbollah bastion in south Beirut. The al Qaeda-linked militant group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS aka ISIL)) soon claimed responsibility. On Jan 6 an employee of Hezbollah's Al-Manar television died from wounds sustained in a suicide bombing.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(Reuters, 1/4/14)(AFP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 2, Libyan troops found the bodies of Mark De Salis, a British man, and a New Zealand woman shot dead southwest of Tripoli.
(AFP, 1/3/14)(AP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 2, Islamic authorities in Malaysia seized 321 Bibles from a Christian group because they used the word Allah to refer to God.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Morocco launched an operation to give residency permits to tens of thousands of immigrants living in the country illegally, after the king expressed concern about their harsh treatment by the police.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Myanmar's Pres. Thein Sein gave his backing for amending a military drafted constitution and indicated support for changes that would make Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi eligible to lead the country.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Palestinian man (85) died after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli army to disperse local protesters landed in his home in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, South Korea's military said it would fight a court ruling quashing its move to kick an officer candidate out of the elite Army Academy for having sex with his girlfriend while on leave.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A South Sudanese military official says rebels are trying to march on Juba from Bor, a town under the control of rebel forces. South Sudan's army (SPLA) advanced towards Bor.
(AP, 1/2/14)(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 8 people held by the Syrian government in Aleppo's central prison have died over the past two days from malnutrition. Five staffers of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) were taken from a house they were using in Syria.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(AFP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 2, Tunisia says four Ansar al-Shariah militants have been arrested after late-night gunbattles between militants and security forces in the southern city that was the cradle for the Arab Spring revolutions.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2015 Jan 2, The United States imposed new sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for a cyber attack on Hollywood studio Sony Pictures.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Andrew Marshall (93), head of the US Office of Net Assessment (ONA), known as the Pentagon’s internal think tank, retired. He had led the office since its inception in 1973.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.28)
2015 Jan 2, In California hundreds of people lined up in early morning cold as the state began taking driver's license applications from the largest population of immigrants living in the US illegally.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, A judge in Alameda, Ca., approved a $9.87 million settlement against Safeway Inc. for improperly disposing of hazardous material and customers’ medical records.
(SFC, 1/6/15, p.C4)
2015 Jan 2, In Kentucky Sailor Gutzler, a seven-year-old girl, walked free from the wreckage of a private plane that crashed in a wooded area killing her parents, a sister (9) and a cousin (14). She walked three-quarters of a mile in near freezing temperatures before finding a residence and directing emergency workers to the crash.
(AP, 1/3/15)(SFC, 1/5/15, p.A4)
2015 Jan 2, Little Jimmy Dickens (b.1920), former singer with the Grand Ole Opry, died in Nashville. His hit songs included "Take an Old Cold Tater" (1949), “Out Behind the Barn" (1954) and “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose" (1965).
(SSFC, 1/4/15, p.A10)
2015 Jan 2, In Afghanistan a civilian man was killed after a rocket fired from an army checkpoint struck a house in southern Helmand province.
(AP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, Egyptian troops opened fire on six Gazans who had illegally crossed into the Egyptian Sinai, where the army has created a buffer zone to prevent the movement of militants. Ashraf al-Qudra (17) was killed.
(AFP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, The Eurasian Economic Union, a trade bloc of former Soviet states, expanded to four nations when Armenia formally joined, a day after the union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan began.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Greece a couple and their 12-year-old son were stabbed to death in their apartment in Thessaloniki. The alleged attacker (60) was arrested after being injured by falling from a balcony of the building.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Hungary some 5000 thousand people protested at what they see as the country's move towards Russia in the latest demonstration against the government of controversial PM Viktor Orban.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, The Icelandic Coast Guard ship Tyr towed a cargo vessel to Italy with about 450 migrants after Italian rescue teams managed to secure the wave-tossed Ezadeen for towing toward the southern Calabrian region. The migrants were abandoned by smugglers, leaving the vessel in rough seas without a crew.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Rescue teams battling monsoon rains recovered 21 more bodies from Indonesia’s AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed on Dec 28. To date 30 of 162 bodies were recovered.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In northern Iraq militants linked to the Islamic State group rounded up dozens of men from the villages of al-Shajara and al-Ghariba following a quarrel that led to the burning of the extremist group's flag.
(AP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, Kenya's High Court suspended key parts of a controversial new national security law that the opposition had warned risked turning the east African nation into a dictatorship.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Libya armed militants shot and killed 17 soldiers and one civilian at a checkpoint in the central district of Jufra.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Mexico armed men seized Moises Sanchez Cerezo (49), a journalist and activist, from his home in the eastern state of Veracruz. His decapitated body was found on January 24.
(AP, 1/3/15)(SSFC, 5/21/17, p.E7)
2015 Jan 2, Nigerian Islamist militants overran an army base in the remote northeastern town of Baga. Scores of soldiers and civilians were killed, while others drowned in Lake Chad. The death toll was later said to have killed as many as 2,000 civilians. Boko Haram claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 1/4/15)(AP, 1/5/15)(SFC, 1/13/15, p.A4)(SFC, 1/22/15, p.A4)(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Pakistan Moeen Yasin, a six-year-old boy, was found strangled and dumped in a mosque after being sexually abused. Police soon apprehended up to seven people including local cleric Qari Saqib, a prime suspect in the case.
(AFP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Sweden hundreds of demonstrators marched in three cities to condemn recent arson attacks against mosques.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 2, in northeastern Syria US-led coalition warplanes carried out at least 13 airstrikes overnight in and around Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital. At least 19 people were killed overnight by Syrian rebel fire on government-controlled parts of the northern city of Aleppo.
(AP, 1/2/15)(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Turkey the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group opened a three-day meeting to discuss a range of issues, including a Russian initiative to hold peace talks in Moscow to broker a resolution to Syria's civil war.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Ukraine reported its first military death of 2015 in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists, saying a soldier had been killed and five others wounded in attacks by the rebels.
(Reuters, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, The World Health Organization said deaths last year from Ebola had reached 7,989 with 2,827 from Sierra Leone, 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2016 Jan 2, The United States and its allies conducted 26 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 1/3/16)
2016 Jan 2, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began arresting immigrants targeting Central American families who came to the country illegally since 2014. Over the next two days 121 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico were arrested primarily in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.
(SFC, 1/15/16, p.A8)
2016 Jan 2, The population of the nine-county SF Bay Area was said to be about 7.5 million.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A1)
2016 Jan 2, In Oregon an armed group of citizens, members of the Oath Keepers, seized control of a federal building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Group leader Ammon Bundy claimed ranchers, loggers and farmers should have control of federal land. Ex-serviceman Elmer Stewart Rhodes, who opposed the occupation, had founded Oath Keepers after working on Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A5,10)(Econ, 2/27/16, p.23)
2016 Jan 2, Afghan officials said special forces have freed 59 prisoners from a Taliban jail in Helmand, as government troops redouble their efforts to drive back the insurgents who have seized large parts of the volatile southern province.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Honduras said the US has requested the extradition of former vice president Jaime Rosenthal, one of the country's biggest tycoons, whom it accuses of drug trafficking and money laundering. The extradition request was received before December 24, but had been waiting for the document to be translated into Spanish.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In northern India 6 gunmen launched a deadly attack on an Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab state, exchanging fire with Indian forces who, backed by tanks and helicopters, battled for over 15 hours before wresting back control of the compound. All the attackers and at least 7 Indian soldiers were killed. India blamed militants from Pakistan.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)(SSFC, 1/3/16, p.A6)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.34)
2016 Jan 2, The Israeli air force carried out attacks on Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip early today, just hours after rockets from the enclave hit southern Israel.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In Mexico the newly installed mayor of the city of Temixco was killed. Gisela Mota formally took office with the new year. She was attacked at her home by armed gunmen. Police killed 2 and captured three.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.30)
2016 Jan 2, North Korea arrested Otto Frederick Warmbier from the University of Virginia as his tour group was set to return to Beijing. North Korea later said it had arrested Wambier for engaging in an unspecified "hostile act" under orders from Washington.
(AFP, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 2, A Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing the Houthi movement in Yemen for nine months announced the end of a ceasefire that began on Dec. 15, in a setback to attempts to end the conflict.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Somali police said a suicide bomber killed himself and one civilian in a bombing of a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In Syria 16 jihadists were reported killed and 19 wounded in clashes with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near Ain Issa.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Tonga was raked by Category-2 Cyclone Ula with widespread damage.
(http://tinyurl.com/hoj775m)(SSFC, 1/10/16, p.C18)
2016 Jan 2, The Vatican announced that its first accord with the Palestinians -- an agreement that Israel has attacked as counter-productive to the Middle East peace process -- has come into force.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Vietnam formally accused China of violating its sovereignty and a recent confidence-building pact by landing a plane on an airstrip Beijing has built in a contested part of the South China Sea. Late last year China completed an airfield on Fiery Cross Reef that security experts say could accommodate most Chinese military aircraft.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2017 Jan 2, US House Republicans voted 119-74 in a secret caucus meeting to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers following several bribery and corruption scandals.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A5)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A1)
2017 Jan 2, A powerful storm across the US south left four people dead when a tree fell on their mobile home in Rehobeth, Alabama. A woman in Georgia and a man in Florida were also killed.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A12)
2017 Jan 2, In the SF Bay Area electric bus maker Proterra of Burlingame raised $140 million in its latest funding round. The company said it has sold more than 300 buses to transit agencies across North America.
(SFC, 1/3/17, pad)
2017 Jan 2, In Maine Sister Frances Carr, the last lifelong Shaker, died in Sabbathday Lake. The offshoot of Quakers had begun in England in the 1740s.
(Econ, 1/14/17, pp.)
2017 Jan 2, Afghan Pres. Ashraf Ghani suspended Abdul Razaq Wahidi, his minister for telecommunications and information technology, while he is investigated over a levy on mobile telephone charges. At least one police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Logar province. A Taliban ambush in the northeastern Badakhshan province killed at least four police. In Takhar province a Taliban fighter was killed while planting a mine.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)(AP, 1/2/17)(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, Britain's government announced plans to build 17 new towns and villages across the English countryside in a bid to ease a chronic housing shortage.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, British police shot and killed Mohammed Yassar Yaqub of Huddersfield (27) during an operation in which five other people were arrested.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, John Berger (b.1926), influential British art critic and prize-winning author, died in France. The self-declared revolutionary had controversially backed the far-left Black Panthers. He won the 1972 Booker Prize for Fiction for his experimental novel "G.", set in pre-World War I Europe. His “Ways of Seeing" (1972) spawned a BBC series and ushered in a political perspective to art criticism.
(AFP, 1/3/17)(SFC, 1/3/17, pp.)
2017 Jan 2, In Chile a large fire burned 150 homes in the historic port city of Valparaiso.
(AFP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, Beijing and other cities across northern and central China were shrouded in thick smog, prompting authorities to delay dozens of flights and close highways.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Congo DRC a regional official said at least six people have been hacked to death in the troubled northeast in two attacks last week in Irumu territory blamed on Ugandan rebels. A civil society leader in Ituri, reported that 14 people were killed in the attacks, which took place in the villages of Saboko and Bialee.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Croatia around 50 migrants staged a protest in Zagreb claiming they have suffered attacks by unknown assailants.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, A senior Egyptian judge arrested on corruption charges was found dead in his cell having hanged himself. Wael Shalaby, a deputy chief justice in the country's administrative courts system, resigned Dec 31 shortly before he was arrested and was charged the following day with taking a bribe.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, India's top court prohibited politicians from using religion and caste to garner votes, a verdict that could force political parties to change their strategy in upcoming elections.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, India and Sri Lanka agreed to release fishermen in each others' custody, a move that is likely to ease tensions between the countries which have held fishermen captive for crossing territorial waters.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Iranian state TV reported the country's coast guard has detained 21 fishermen and their three boats from neighboring Arab nations for straying into its territorial waters and fishing rare species.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a pickup loaded with explosives struck a bustling market in Baghdad, killing at least 36 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Three smaller bombings elsewhere in the city killed another seven civilians and wounded at least 30.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, A court in Kuwait sentenced father Salem Buhan (26) and mother Amira Hussein (23) to death after finding them guilty of torturing their three-year-old daughter until she died. They were arrested in May and accused of beating and torturing the girl until she died and then keeping her body in a freezer for a week. The ministry said the couple were drug addicts.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Somalia a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a security checkpoint near Mogadishu's international airport, killing at least three people.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Syria's army advanced as it battled to capture a rebel region that is key to the capital's water supply, launching strikes and artillery fire threatening a fragile nationwide truce.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Ten Syrian rebel factions suspended talks on new peace negotiations, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of violating a four-day-old ceasefire with attacks near Damascus.
(AFP, 1/3/17)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 2, In eastern Thailand a van and a pickup collided and caught fire on a highway, killing 25 people in Chonburi province.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Ukraine reported a one-third drop in its use of natural gas and general energy savings that will be cheered by its financial backers from the IMF.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Yemen an air strike by the pro-government Saudi-led coalition killed five Shiite rebels when it targeted a convoy of three vehicles in Marees, in the southern province of Daleh. Six other insurgents were killed in a similar raid on two vehicles in Al-Makhdara, in the central province of Marib. Shelling by government forces killed three more rebels in the same area of Marib. Air strikes across several regions killed two civilians in the western province of Hodeida.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2018 Jan 2, The United States accused Pakistan of playing a "double game" on fighting terrorism and warned Islamabad it would have to do more if it wanted to maintain US aid.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A record-shattering Arctic freeze kept its grip on much of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and was blamed for the deaths of at least four people.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A court in eastern Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia involving an arson attack during an anti-government protest two years ago.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, British energy major BP said that it expected to take a $1.5-billion (1.2-billion-euro) hit from US President Donald Trump's tax reforms.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev vetoed anti-graft legislation passed by the parliament, saying the bill failed to offer the means to effectively investigate corruption networks.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese internet titan Alibaba, said it has been forced to abandon a $1.2 billion deal to buy US remittances firm MoneyGram after failing to get approval from regulators in Washington.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, Egypt executed four alleged Islamic militants following their conviction by a military tribunal in the killing of three military academy students in a 2015 bomb attack.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, In England 13 Patas monkeys died in a fire at Woburn Safari Park, marking the second major fire at an animal attraction in the last two weeks.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, India's defense ministry announced it is to buy 131 surface-to-air missiles from Israel in a $70 million deal, ahead of a visit by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. An Israeli arms company said India has cancelled a $500 million deal ahead of a visit by pm Benjamin Netanyahu. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. said in a statement the Indian Defense Ministry cancelled the Spike missile deal.
(AFP, 1/2/18)(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In India thousands of Dalits, who rank at the lower end of the country's ancient caste hierarchy, disrupted traffic and threw stones at buses in Mumbai as they protested against violence in Pune in which one man was killed.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, In India some 200,000 Hindu pilgrims arrived at Allahabad, where the Yamuna river meets the Ganges as well as the mythical Saraswati river, on the first major bathing day of a 45-day annual ritual known as the Magh Mela.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran's supreme leader blamed the country's "enemies" for days of unrest that have seen 21 killed and hundreds arrested in the biggest test for the Islamic regime in years.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran re-opened two crossings with the Iraqi Kurdistan region that it had closed after a referendum in favor of independence in the Kurdish area.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Israel's parliament passed an amendment that would make it harder for it to cede control over parts of Jerusalem in any peace deal with the Palestinians, who condemned the move as undermining any chance to revive talks on statehood.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Moldovan Pres. Igor Dodon rejected a decision by the country's constitutional court to suspend his powers temporarily due to a wrangle between him and the pro-Western government over ministerial appointments.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a video message claiming a series of attacks in the northeast during the festive season.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Nigeria's electricity grid was shut down late today by a fire on a gas pipeline, the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System near Okada in the southern state of Edo.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In Peru at least 48 people were killed when a bus collided with a truck and careened off a cliff along a sharply curving highway north of the capital Lima.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In Somalia a US military drone strike killed two al-Shabab extremists and destroyed a vehicle carrying explosives to Mogadishu.
(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, South Korea proposed high-level talks with Pyongyang on January 9, after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un called for better relations and said his country might attend the Winter Olympics in the South.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, UN human rights experts called on Saudi Arabia to end "repression" of rights activists and release dozens detained since September for peacefully exercising their civil and political rights.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A rebel-controlled Yemeni court sentenced Hamid bin Haydara, a local Baha'i man detained since December 2013, to death on charges of disseminating the beliefs of his faith and spying for Israel.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 2, Zambian foreign affairs minister Harry Kalaba resigned citing "swelling" corruption in government and criticizing President Edgar Lungu.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2019 Jan 2, Pres. Donald Trump said the United States would get out of Syria slowly "over a period of time" and would protect the US-backed Kurdish fighters in the country as Washington draws down troops. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Kurdish fighters, captured the Syrian town of Kashmah.
(AP, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 2, The first of about 80 US military personnel arrived in Gabon in case they are needed to protect US citizens and diplomatic facilities in Congo's capital Kinshasa.
(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 2, The US military carried out an airstrike in southwestern Somalia that killed 10 members of the al-Shabab extremist group. The US carried out at least 47 such strikes last year in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, US soldier Peter Lian (21) was charged with murder in the death of his estranged wife, Khuang Par, whose body was discovered in a suitcase in an Indianapolis dumpster on Dec. 23. Lian was accused of flying to Indianapolis from Colorado to kill his estranged wife, then dumping her body in a trash bin and fleeing to Thailand.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Michigan Christian Maire, in prison for running a child porn ring that targeted vulnerable teenage girls on the internet, was kicked, stomped, stabbed and thrown down a flight of stairs in the federal prison in Milan. In 2022 Adam Wright, nicknamed "Creeper," admitted that he kicked and stomped Maire in the head.
(Detroit Free Press, 2/14/22)
2019 Jan 2, US Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to shareholders that demand for iPhones is waning and revenue for the last quarter of 2018 will fall well below projections, a decrease he traced mainly to China.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, It was reported that Netflix has removed an episode of a satirical comedy show from its service in Saudi Arabia over its criticism of the kingdom, following a legal request by officials in Riyadh.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro issued an executive order making the Agriculture Ministry responsible for deciding on lands claimed by indigenous peoples, in a victory for agribusiness that will likely enrage environmentalists. The temporary decree will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress. It strips power over land claim decisions from indigenous affairs agency FUNAI.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Chinese President Xi Jinping, declaring that independence is not an option for Taiwan, urged both sides to reach an early consensus on unification and not leave the issue for future generations.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, DR Congo said it had pulled accreditation for Florence Morice, a French radio journalist, and cut off the broadcasts of Radio France Internationale (RFI) amid tensions over the counting of votes in crucial elections.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, A Red Cross official said hundreds of refugees have crossed into Uganda from Congo in the aftermath of that country's presidential election, heightening concerns about the possible cross-border spread of Ebola.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Denmark eight people were killed and 16 injured on the Great Belt Bridge linking Zealand and Funen when a passenger train hit a trailer that had blown off a freight wagon coming the other way. The victims were all on the passenger train.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Jan 2, In France Eric Drouet, of the leaders of the "yellow vest" demonstrations, was arrested late today for organizing an unauthorized protest on the Champs-Elysees avenue. He was released the following afternoon. Drouet already faced a trial for carrying a weapon at a previous protest.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In India two women entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala state, one of the country's largest Hindu pilgrimage sites that had been forbidden to females between the ages of 10 and 50, sparking protests across the state.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In India Hindu nationalists linked to PM Narendra Modi’s ruling party urged him to push through laws to allow the building of a temple on the ruins of a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Italy temporary administrators were appointed to lead the country's 10th largest lender, the struggling Carige, as part of a plan to avoid yet another bank bailout.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Madagascan security forces fired tear gas to break up a protest by supporters of losing presidential candidate Marc Ravalomanana, who claims he was denied victory in last month's election because of fraud.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, The Dutch Coast Guard said up to 270 containers had fallen off the Panamanian-flagged MSC ZOE, one of the world's biggest container ships, in rough weather near the German island of Borkum and floated southwest toward Dutch waters. Three missing containers contained an organic peroxide, a flammable and highly toxic compound. In Feb. the estimate of fallen containers was raised to 345.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 1/3/19)(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Jan 2, A Nigerian Air Force helicopter crashed in combat at Damasak in northern Borno state, killing five crew members.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Norway avalanche occurred in the northern region of Troms in an area popular with skiers. Three Finns and a Swede were skiing in the area and were reported to police as missing.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, Qatar Airways said it now holds a 5 percent share in China Southern Airlines, helping expand the Gulf carrier's reach in one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Philippine officials said the death toll from weekend landslides and devastating floods triggered by a tropical depression in the Bicol and eastern Visayas regions has climbed to 85.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia announced plans to build an entertainment complex in the capital Riyadh, the latest in a series of state-backed efforts to encourage public leisure activities after decades of tight social restrictions.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Sudan's largest opposition bloc joined calls by a wide array of political groups for President Omar al-Bashir to step down, turning up the pressure on the longtime autocrat after two weeks of street protests.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, The Syrian Observatory for Human /Rights said two days of fighting in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib have killed 31 people, including five civilians. 17 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters and 16 combatants from the Turkish-backed National Liberation Front rebel alliance were killed in Idlib province.. The al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and the Turkey-backed Nour el-Din el-Zinki group blamed each other for triggering the fighting.
(AP, 1/2/19)(AFP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Thailand tens of thousands of tourists fled popular islands and resort areas as Tropical Storm Pabuk closed in and threatened to batter the southern part of the kingdom with heavy rains, winds and seven-meter (22-foot) waves.
(AFP, 1/3/19)
2020 Jan 2, Former Obama housing secretary Julián Castro, the only Latino in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, ended his campaign for the presidency.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, An unsuccessful US strike on a high-ranking Iranian military commander took place in Yemen on the same night a US drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. The strike targeted Abdul Reza Shahla'i, a key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander, at his compound in Yemen.
(ABC News, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 2, US spiritualist author Marianne Williamson laid off her entire campaign staff amid rumors she was close to ending her campaign.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, The owners and operators of GirlsDoPorn, a San Diego-based porn website, must pay $12.7 million after a judge found them liable for fraud and breach of contract for lying to women about how their explicit videos would be distributed.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, Razer Inc said it is leading a consortium of companies that has applied for a online bank license in Singapore, joining the race to shake up the city state's financial sector. Razer Inc. is a global gaming hardware manufacturing company, as well as an esports and financial services provider established in 2005 in San Diego, California, by Singaporean entrepreneur Min-Liang Tan and Robert Krakoff.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razer_Inc.)(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Britain's Greggs launched a vegan version of its popular steak bake, aiming to capitalize on the success of the meatless sausage roll that has boosted the baker's profits and helped fuel an 80% rise in its share price last year.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Thousands of tourists fled Australia's wildfire-ravaged eastern coast ahead of worsening conditions as the military started to evacuate people trapped on the shore further south. Authorities said 381 homes had been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast this week and at least eight people have died this week in the state and neighboring Victoria.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Austria's conservative People’s Party and the environmentalist Greens laid out their policy blueprint for their new coalition under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (33), who’s expected to be sworn in for a second term next week.
(Bloomberg, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Denmark said it sourced 47% of its electricity consumption from wind power last year, a new record boosted by steep cost reductions and improved offshore technology.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Denmark-based Novo Nordisk said it would offer free, one-time supply of insulin to people in immediate need and at risk of rationing the medication, the rising price of which has attracted fierce criticism from lawmakers and regulators.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Elite Iraqi troops deployed to secure the US embassy, a day after a pro-Iran mob laid siege to it in dramatic scenes that overshadowed months of anti-government grassroots protests.
(AFP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, In Kenya four people were killed in two ambushes in which passenger buses were fired on by gunmen suspected to be Islamic extremists in the country's eastern coastal area.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Interpol issued a wanted notice for former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, who jumped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon.
(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 2, Authorities in eastern Poland said H5N8 bird flu is responsible for the deaths of at least 25,000 turkeys in poultry farms. Authorities planned to cull tens of thousands of birds in the Lubartow area near the Belarus and Ukraine border.
(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A2)
2020 Jan 2, In Serbia a crowd targeted the Montenegro's unguarded embassy in Belgrade during a protest of a religious rights law adopted by Montenegro's parliament last month.
(SFC, 1/4/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 2, A Sudanese military plane crashed in the western Darfur region, killing all 16 people on board including two women and two children.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, Taiwan's top military official, Gen. Shen Yi-ming (62), was among eight people killed in an air force helicopter crash in mountainous terrain outside Taipei. Five others survived.
(AP, 1/2/20)(SFC, 1/4/20, p.A2)
2021 Jan 2, President Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find" him enough votes to overturn the presidential election and vaguely threatened him with “a criminal offense" during an hourlong telephone call.
(NY Times, 1/4/21)
2021 Jan 2, A coalition of 11 Republican senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, announced it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, It was reported that researchers are scrambling to learn why some coronavirus patients lose their sense of smell and taste. Some experts fear huge numbers of people may lose them permanently.
(NY Times, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In southern California counsellor David Mcknight-Hillman (25) died after allegedly being attacked by seven teenagers at Wayfinder Family Services. Mcknight-Hillman was assaulted by seven people when he intervened to break up a fight. Six of the suspects, including the two 18-year-olds, were arrested and booked on suspicion of murder.
(The Independent, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 2, California to date had 2,326,383 cases of coronavirus and 26,366 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 270,122 cases and 2,634 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 20,396,243 with the death toll at 349,933.
(sfist.com, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Brian Urquhart (101), a troubleshooting British diplomat who joined the UN at its birth in 1945, died at his home in Tyringham, Mass. He was best known for creating and directing the UN’s peacekeeping operations in conflict-filled areas around the world.
(AP, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Michigan a plane flying from Georgia crashed into a house in southeastern Lyon Township, killing the pilot and two people aboard.
(AP, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, Digital currency Bitcoin extended its record smashing rally, beginning the year with a surge over $30,000 for the first time, with ever more traders and investors betting that it is on its way to becoming a mainstream payment method.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Tesla said that it delivered 499,500 for the year, including 180,570 SUVs and sedans for the October through December period. CEO Elon Musk had set a goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, It was reported that a retrial of the powerful brother of Algeria's deposed president Abdelaziz Bouteflika cleared him of charges of conspiracy for which he was serving a 15-year jail sentence. He still faced corruption charges.
(BBC, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Mainland China reported 24 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 2, up from 22 cases a day earlier.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, French police detained five people in an investigation into an underground New Year's Eve rave party that drew at least 2,500 people at Lieuron despite a coronavirus curfew and other restrictions. France has reported more than 64,000 virus-related deaths.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, France recorded 3,466 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, below the 19,348 reported a day earlier. This brought the cumulative total to 2,643,239. The COVID-19 death toll was up by 157 to 64,921.
(Reuters, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, Iran said it plans to enrich uranium up to 20% at its underground Fordo nuclear facility “as soon as possible," pushing its program a technical step away from weapons-grade levels as it increases pressure on the West over the tattered atomic deal.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Iraq's military said explosives experts with its naval forces successfully dismantled a mine that was discovered stuck to an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Thousands of Israelis protested again against PM Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that the long-serving leader resign over corruption charges against him and for allegedly mishandling the coronavirus crisis.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Italy reported 364 coronavirus-related deaths against 462 the day before,, while the daily tally of new infections plunged to 11,831 from 22,211, with far less testing than normal carried out on New Year's day. Italy has registered 74,985 COVID-19 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Mali two French soldiers died when their armored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. This came days after 3 other French soldiers died in a similar way.
(BBC, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Niger suspected Islamist militants attacked two villages, with reports of dozens of civilians killed. Around 49 died and 17 were injured in the village of Tchombangou, while another 30 died in Zaroumdareye, both near Niger's western border with Mali. PM Brigi Rafini later said 70 people were killed in the village of Tchombangou and 30 others in Zaroumdareye. The Islami State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) was blamed for the attacks.
(BBC, 1/3/21)(BBC, 1/3/21)(Econ., 2/20/21, p.38)
2021 Jan 2, Pakistan arrested Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, a man accused of being a leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist militant group blamed by the US and India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Somalia a suicide bombing in Mogadishu killed five people including two Turks. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group claimed responsibility. The attack took place 15 km (8 miles) away from a Turkish military base, Turkey's largest military installation abroad.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, South Korea said it will expand a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to include the whole country, and extend unprecedented social distancing rules in Seoul and neighboring areas until Jan. 17.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Syria lambasted the US government for sanctions it has imposed on Damascus, following a UN special rapporteur's statement that called on Washington to remove unilateral sanctions against the war-torn country.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2022 Jan 2, President Joe Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone, reaffirming US support for Ukraine as it faces growing Russian aggression.
(NBC News, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 54,968,925 with the death toll at 825,982.
(sfist.com, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sultan Banks 42, a SF Bay Area hip-hop producer, died of cancer in Santa Clara. He was known for producing hyphy, slang for hyperactive, a music movement that was popularized in the early 2000s. Banks had produced records by Oakland Rapper keak da Sneak, self-proclaimed King of the Supa Dupa Hyphy.
(SFC, 1/3/22, p.C3)
2022 Jan 2, Twitter Inc said it permanently banned the personal account of Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for tweets that repeatedly violated the social media's misinformation policy on COVID-19.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Tesla Inc reported record quarterly deliveries that far exceeded Wall Street estimates, riding out global chip shortages and as it ramped up China production.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, More than 3,600 flights were cancelled around the world, more than half of them US flights, adding to the toll of holiday week travel disruptions due to adverse weather and the surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, It was reported that Earth's forest cover has been reduced by nearly 386,000 square miles since the 1960s. Farmland and grazing pastures have increased by about the same amount.
(SSFC, 1/2/22, p.B10)
2022 Jan 2, New Australian COVID-19 cases dipped as testing slowed over a holiday weekend, but remained well over 30,000 and hospitalizations rose further in New South Wales as concerns grow about potential strains on the national health system.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Britain reported 137,583 new cases of COVID-19 in England and Wales, compared with 162,572 cases in England a day earlier.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Bulgaria said it has detected its first 12 cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In China a 5.5 magnitude earthquake rattled the city of Lijiang in Yunnan province injuring 15 people.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Colombia reported that 23 people have been killed this weekend in Arauca province amid fighting between illegal armed groups over control of illegal economies such as drug trafficking.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Egypt’s Suez Canal said its annual revenues reached $6.3 billion last year, the highest in the crucial waterway's history.
(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In France a large European Union flag, attached to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Dec. 31 to mark the start of France's six-month presidency of the bloc, was removed after it drew outrage from far-right and right-wing leaders.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, France has put the United States on its COVID-19 travel "red list", meaning unvaccinated people coming into the country will have to quarantine for 10 days. French Health Minister Olivier Veran said the isolation period for fully vaccinated people who test positive for COVID-19 would be cut to seven days from 10 days.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Hong Kong independent online news portal Citizen News said it will cease operations from Jan, 4 in the face of what it described as a deteriorating media environment in the Chinese-ruled city and to ensure the safety of its staff.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, India reported more than 27,000 new COVID-19 cases, with infections sharply rising for a fifth consecutive day, but the chief minister of the capital New Delhi said there was no need to panic, citing low hospitalization rates.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Israel said it has approved the use of Merck & Co's molnupiravir anti-viral pill for COVID-19 patients. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned that the country will soon see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases a day.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Italy reported 61,046 new COVID-19 cases following 141,262 the day before, the health ministry said, reflecting a steep drop in the number of tests, while the daily tally of COVID-related deaths rose to 133 from 111.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Protests erupted in several Kazakh towns and cities after the Central Asian nation's government lifted price caps on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and the cost of the popular alternative to gasoline rose.
(Reuters, 1/4/22)
2022 Jan 2, Richard Leakey (77), a Kenyan conservationist and paleoanthropologist, died. He spearheaded campaigns against the ivory trade to save the dwindling African elephant population. In 1981, he fronted a seven-part BBC television series called "The Making of Mankind", which made him a household name. At the time of his death, he was serving as chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University in the United States.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)(BBC, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Kuwait state news said the Kuwaiti embassy in the United Kingdom has encouraged its citizens to leave the country due to a "significant and unprecedented" increase in Omicron cases there.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, It was reported that a Syrian mother and her three children died in their sleep after inhaling toxic fumes from burning coal to heat their room in a village in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Seven states in Malaysia were hit by floods and thousands of people were evacuated, taking the total affected by heavy rain in the last two weeks to over 125,000.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In the Netherlands riot police with batons and shields tried to break up a crowd of several thousand who had gathered in Amsterdam to protest against COVID-19 lockdown measures and vaccinations.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Police in northern Niger seized more than 200 kg of cocaine worth around $8.7 million that was being transported in the local mayor’s official truck. The mayor and his driver, who were in the vehicle at the time, were arrested with 199 bricks of cocaine at a checkpoint on the road heading north out of the desert trading hub of Agade.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, In Nigeria group of bandits killed six rural residents in several attacks in Kaduna state.
(AP, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Russian jets bombed areas near the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib, marking a new year flare-up for the last opposition-held bastion.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf state with a population of around 30 million, registered 1,024 new coronavirus infections and one death. Daily cases had fallen below 100 in September.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sudanese security forces killed two people during protests against military rule. This brought to 56 the death toll in protests since a coup on Oct. 25.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sudan’s PM Abdalla Hamdok resigned in the latest upheaval to disrupt the country’s shaky transition to democracy from dictatorship. He was ousted in a military coup but reinstated over a month ago.
(NY Times, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, The UAE, a tourism and commercial hub now marking its peak tourism season and hosting a world fair, announced 2,600 new coronavirus cases and three deaths.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, State media said Vietnam's trade ministry has asked China's Guangxi authorities to take urgent measures to ease congestion at border crossings after China stepped up its border controls with neighbors to follow zero COVID-19 policies.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
17CE Jan 2, Publius Ovidius Naso, Roman poet, died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
69CE Jan 2, Roman Lower Rhine army proclaimed its commander, Vitellius, emperor.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1235 Jan 2, Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews of Galicia, Austria, to adopt family names.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1492 Jan 2, Boabdil, the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. Sultan Muhammad XI surrendered, ending Muslin rule in Spain. The combined Catholic forces of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile drove out the last of the Berbers from Spain. The Moors were expelled. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella took the town of Grenada, the last Moslem kingdom in Spain. The event became marked by an annual festival that began around 1516.
(ATC, p.73,100)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T11)(HN, 1/2/99)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C20)
1557 Jan 2, Jacopo da Pontormo (b.1494), aka Jacopo Carucci, died. He was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School.
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontormo)
1570 Jan 2, Tsar Ivan the Terrible began a march to Novgorod.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1602 Jan 2, Battle at Kinsale, Ireland: English army beat the Spanish.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1647 Jan 2, Nathaniel Bacon (d.1676), leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), Va., was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1727 Jan 2, James Wolfe, commanded British Army (captured Quebec), was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1757 Jan 2, British troops occupied Calcutta, India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive,_1st_Baron_Clive)
1758 Jan 2, The French began bombardment of Madras, India.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1776 Jan 2, 1st US revolutionary flag was displayed.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1780 Jan 2, A blizzard hit Washington's army at the Morristown, NJ, winter encampment.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1780 Jan 2, Johann Ludwig Krebs (b.1713), German composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ludwig_Krebs)
1788 Jan 2, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/2/98)
1807 Jan 2, Lord Grenville presented to British Parliament a “Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade," effective May 1. He introduced it directly to the House of Lords. It passed the House of Lords by 64 votes and cleared the House of Commons on March 25.
(ON, 4/05, p.3)
1811 Jan 2, US Sen Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) of Massachusetts became the 1st US senator to be censured. He had revealed confidential documents communicated by the president of the US.
(http://tinyurl.com/8yj6dmb)
1813 Jan 2, In Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Army head M. Kutuzov announced the end of war in Russia.
(LHC, 1/3/03)
1814 Jan 2, Lord Byron completed "The Corsair."
(MC, 1/2/02)
1818 Jan 2, Lord Byron completed "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (4th canto).
(MC, 1/2/02)
1822 Jan 2, Rudolph J.E. Clausius (d.1888), German physicist (thermodynamics), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clausius)
1837 Jan 2, Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (d.1910), composer (Tamara), was born in Nizhny-Novgorod, Russia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mily_Balakirev)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1842 Jan 2-1842 Jan 12, Akbar Khan, Afghan hero, was victorious against the British. Out of 4,500 (16,500) soldiers and 12,000 dependents only one survivor, of a mixed British-Indian garrison, reached the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling pony. The British retreated from Kabul to Jalalabad. The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel “Flashman" [see Jan 13].
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)(WSJ, 9/20/01, p.A12)
1843 Jan 2, Wagner's opera "Der Fliegende Holländer" premiered in Dresden.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Dutchman_(opera))
1861 Jan 2, Helen Herron Taft, First Lady to President Robert Taft, was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1861 Jan 2, The USS Brooklyn was readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1861 Jan 2, SC seized the inactive Ft. Johnson in Charleston Harbor.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1861 Jan 2, Frederik Willem IV (b.1795), king of Prussia (1840-61) and Germany (1849-61), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_IV_of_Prussia)
1863 Jan 2, In the second day of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeated the Confederates. The battle, which began Dec 31, involved 80,000 troops and left 24,000 casualties.
(HN, 1/2/99)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1866 Jan 2, Gilbert Murray, Australian born scholar who became the chairman of the League of Nations (1923-1928), was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1881 Jan 2, Camille Saint-Saens' 3rd Concerto in B premiered.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1882 Jan 2, Oscar Wilde arrived in New York City and began to tour the US with lectures on the aesthetic movement.
(HT, 3/97, p.16)
1882 Jan 2, Because of anti-monopoly laws, Standard Oil was organized as a trust. Attorney Samuel Dodd of Standard Oil first had the idea of a trust. A board of trustees was set up, and all the Standard properties were placed in its hands.
(www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=51)
1885 Jan 2, Gen. Wolseley received the last distress signal of Gen. Gordon in Khartoum.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1895 Jan 2, Count Folke Bernadotte (d.1948), statesman (Red Cross, UN), was born in Sweden.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte)
1897 Jan 2, The S.S. Commodore, a small American ship used to smuggle weapons to Cuba, sank off the coast of Florida. Writer Stephen Crane was aboard, along with a crew of 11 and 16 Cuban rebel soldiers. Crane based his 1897 short story, “The Open Boat," on his survival experience in a lifeboat.
(ON, 4/10, p.9)
1900 Jan 2, US Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to prompt trade with China. This policy rejected efforts to carve up China or restrict its ports.
(AP, 1/2/98)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1900 Jan 2, The cargo steamship Australia arrived in San Francisco at the end of a voyage from Hawaii. Plague was known to have already hit Honolulu and rats aboard the ship carried the disease. Wong Chut King became the city’s first victim when he was found dead at the Globe Hotel at Jackson and DuPont (later Grant Ave.). A short term rope quarantine was created around the 6-by-2 block area of Chinatown.
(SFC, 9/20/14, p.C2)
1903 Jan 2, President Theodore Roosevelt closed a post office in Indianola, Mississippi for refusing to hire a black postmistress.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1904 Jan 2, U.S. Marines were sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1904 Jan 2, James Longstreet (b.1821), Confederate general, died in Georgia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Longstreet)
1905 Jan 2, After a six-month siege, Russians surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1911 Jan 2, The Terra Nova expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott reached the coast of Antarctica.
(ON, 6/20/11, p.5)
1915 Jan 2, Karl Goldmark (b.1830), Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died in Vienna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark)
1916 Jan 2, The U.S. instructed Ambassador Sharp to tell the Entente in Paris that America would reject the German peace offer.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1917 Jan 2, Pietro Bandini (b.1852), Italian Jesuit missionary and founder of Tontitown, Ark., died at St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of heart failure.
(http://tinyurl.com/ybdnjvsz)
1917 Jan 2, In Florida Sidney Catts (1863-1936), a Baptist anti-Catholic minister from Alabama, became the state’s 22nd governor and served until 1921. He claimed Catholics were storing arms in a Tampa cathedral.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Johnston_Catts)(Econ, 11/28/15, p.25)
1918 Jan 2, Bolsheviks talked about resuming war unless the Germans return occupied territory.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1919 Jan 2, Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was inaugurated as governor of Massachusetts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge)
1920 Jan 2, Isaac Asimov, Prolific American writer of over 300 books including Foundation and I, Robot, was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1920 Jan 2, Some 2,700 arrests were made in raids in 33 American cities as part of a campaign against alleged political radicals and labor agitators spearheaded by the Department of Justice under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. The Palmer Raids were in reaction to the so-called "Red Scare" that followed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the founding in 1919 of the Worker‘s Party (later Communist Party) in the U.S. Mass arrests of political and labor leaders and agitators began in the fall of 1919 and ended in May of 1920.
(HNQ, 2/22/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids)
1921 Jan 2, Religious services were first broadcast on radio when KDKA aired the regular Sunday service of Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1923 Jan 2, A Ku Klux Klan surprise attack on a black residential area of Rosewood, Fla., killed 8 people. The all-black town of Rosewood, a north Florida community of 120 people, was burned to the ground. A white woman fearful of being caught in an affair, falsely claimed that she was raped and beaten by a black man. Violence exploded as a white mob tried to string up a black man for information on an alleged rape. At least 6 black and 2 white died and almost every building was burned. In 1994 the Florida legislature provided up to $2 million in compensation to survivors. Nine survivors won a $2 million settlement in 1995. In 1996 the event was recreated in the film "Rosewood" by John Singleton.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.43)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.C2) (SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(MC, 1/2/02)
1924 Jan 2, Simon & Schuster was originally setup in NYC by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster to publish crossword puzzles.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_%26_Schuster)(Econ., 11/28/20, p.59)
1928 Jan 2, Vaughn Beals, later CEO of Harley Davidson motorcycle, was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(www.definition-of.net/who-is-Vaughn%2BBeals)
1929 Jan 2, The United States and Canada reached agreement on joint action to preserve Niagara Falls.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1929 Jan 2, Evelyn “Bobbi" Trout (d.2003 at 97) shattered the female pilot endurance record of 8 hours with a flight of 12 hours and 11 minutes.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.A18)
1932 Jan 2, Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1935 Jan 2, Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was found guilty but professed his innocence until he was executed.
(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 10/28/99, p.B7)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1936 Jan 2, In Berlin, the Nazi officials claimed that their treatment of the Jews was not any of the League of Nation's business.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1940 Jan 2, Jim Bakker, televangelist (PTL Club), was born in Muskegon, Mich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker)
1941 Jan 2, The Andrews Sisters recorded what became a big hit for them, the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Woogie_Bugle_Boy)
1942 Jan 2, The Philippine capital of Manila and the US Naval base at Cavite were captured by Japanese forces.
(AP, 1/2/98)(HN, 1/2/02)
1943 Jan 2, The Allies captured Buna in New Guinea.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1944 Jan 2, The US under Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to protect the endangered populations of Europe. In June Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden was hired to head the agency’s office in Budapest, where he arrived on July 9.
(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)(Econ, 9/19/15, p.81)
1944 Jan 2, The first Atlantic convoy that used the new antisubmarine helicopter patrol capability sailed from New York to Liverpool, UK, with three HNS-1 helicopters.
(www.gerlecreek.com/coolplaces/pamphlettrial1c.pdf)
1945 Jan 2, Allies made an air raid on Nuremberg. About 90% of the city center was destroyed in only one hour.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg)
1945 Jan 2, The California Supreme Court ruled that demands by the Boilermakers' union of Marinship for blacks to join auxiliaries without full union privileges was "discriminatory and unequal." The case of James vs. Marinship was led by Joseph James, a welder and leader of the San Francisco Committee Against Segregation and Discrimination.
(SFC, 4/4/20, p.B4)
1947 Jan 2, Mahatma Gandhi began a march for peace in East-Bengali.
(http://tinyurl.com/6sn3vf6)
1952 Jan 3, A revived "Pal Joey" opened at Broadhurst Theater, NYC, for 540 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal_Joey_%28musical%29)
1952 Jan 2, In Korea British pilot Desmond Fredrick William Hinton (b.1922) was shot down while on a bombing run targeting railway infrastructure. In 2011 North Korea handed his re-mains over to British officials.
(AP, 5/4/11)(www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KH14Dg01.html)
1954 Jan 2, The "Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1955 Jan 2, Jose Antonio Remon, president of Panama (1952-55), was assassinated.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1960 Jan 2, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1960 Jan 2, John Reynolds set the age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1960 Jan 2, Australia recorded a record temperature of 50.7° C at Oodnadatta.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodnadatta)
1963 Jan 2, Viet Cong downed five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta; 30 were reported to be dead.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1963 Jan 2, In San Francisco a gas pipeline leak at Nevada and Crescent Ave. in Bernal Heights caused a blast that left 9 firefighters injured and led to heart attack death of Battalion Chief Frank Lamey (63).
(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.A1, 16)
1963 Jan 2, Dick Powell (b.1904), American film star, producer and director, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Powell)
1965 Jan 2, The New York Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $427,000.
(AP, 1/2/08)
1965 Jan 2, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr began a drive to register black voters.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1966 Jan 2, The 1st Jewish child was born in Spain since the 1492 expulsion.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1969 Jan 2, The play "To be Young, Gifted & Black," by Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) premiered in NYC.
(www.aetna.com/foundation/aahcalendar/1992gifted.html)
1973 Jan 2, The United States admitted the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1974 Jan 2, President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph. Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995. The legislation was conceived by Claude Brinegar (1926-2009), Nixon’s secretary of transportation.
(AP, 1/2/98)(http://tinyurl.com/45ywak)(SFC, 3/18/09, p.B6)
1974 Jan 2, Coleman Young (1918-1997) was inaugurated as mayor of Detroit. In 1973 he narrowly defeated Police Commissioner John F. Nichols, who would later become Oakland County Sheriff, to become Detroit's first African American mayor. Young won the four subsequent terms by very wide margins and continued in office until December, 1993.
(WSJ, 5/28/98, p.A20)(www.biographybase.com/biography/Young_Coleman.html)
1975 Jan 2, Milton J. Cross (b.1897), TV announcer (Met Opera), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Cross)
1975 Jan 2, Ken Brugger, searching on behalf of Canadian entomologist Dr. Fred A. Urquhart, found that vast numbers of monarch butterflies, wintered at Cerro Pelon, an inactive volcano a hundred miles west of Mexico City. Urquhart had been tagging butterflies and searching for their winter quarters since 1954. In 1986 the Mexican government established some protection over 5 sites where monarchs were known to overwinter.
(ON, 4/07, p.12)
1978 Jan 2, In Sri Lanka Junius Richard Jayewardene (1906-1996) became the first president with true executive powers. He served as president until 1989.
{Sri Lanka}
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junius_Richard_Jayewardene)
1980 Jan 2, President Carter asked the Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1981 Jan 2, "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe (b.1946), murderer of 13 women, was arrested on a traffic violation. On Jan 4 he declared he was the ripper and charges were filed on Jan 6. Stuart Kind (d.2003), a leading forensic biologist, helped British police crack the "Yorkshire Ripper" serial murder case. Sutcliffe was convicted on May 22 on 13 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003 Michael Bilton authored “Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe)(AP, 4/30/03)
1982 Jan 2, The Somali National Movement (SNM) launched its first military operation against the Somali government. Operating from Ethiopian bases.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/somalia1982b.htm)
1983 Jan 2, The musical play "Annie," based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip, closed at Broadway’s Alvin Theater after a run of 2,377 performances.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1983 Jan 2, "Sophisticated Ladies" closed at the Lunt-Fontanne, NYC, after 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4098)
1984 Jan 2, A record 281,981 dominoes were toppled at Furth, W. Germany.
(www.recordholders.org/en/records/domino-toppling.html)
1986 Jan 2, Bill Veeck (71) former baseball owner, died in Chicago. He is remembered for his well-publicized stunts and promotional gimmicks, including an exploding scoreboard and a midget pinch-hitter.
(AP, 1/2/06)
1988 Jan 2, President Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed an agreement to lift trade restrictions between their countries.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1988 Jan 2, An Ashland Oil Company tank collapsed at Floreffe near Elizabeth, Penn., sending more than 700,000 gallons of diesel oil into the Monongahela River.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1989 Jan 2, PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker returned to the television pulpit for the first time in two years, broadcasting from a borrowed house in Pineville, N.C.
(AP, 1/2/99)
1990 Jan 2, On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day above 2,800 for the first time, at 2,810.15.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1990 Jan 2, Alan Hale Jr. (b.1921), Skipper on Gilligan's Island, died of cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hale_Jr.)
1991 Jan 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., becoming the first black woman to head a city of Washington's size and prominence.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1991 Jan 2, European, Soviet and Arab officials pushed for talks to avert war with Iraq.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1992 Jan 2, Military commanders in Croatia agreed to a cease-fire accord, the 15th attempt at a truce.
(AP, 1/2/02)
1992 Jan 2, Russian shoppers experienced their first day of “sticker shock" after President Boris Yeltsin lifted price controls to stimulate production.
(AP, 1/2/02)
1993 Jan 2, President Bush arrived in Moscow to sign a strategic arms treaty with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who hailed the agreement as "our joint gift to the people of the Earth."
(AP, 1/2/98)
1993 Jan 2, Leaders of the three warring ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina met face-to-face in Geneva.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1994 Jan 2, In San Francisco Father Alfred Boeddeker (90), the founder of the city's St. Anthony Dining Room, died. The Tenderloin dining hall for the poor was founded in 1950.
(SSFC, 12/30/18, DB p.50)
1994 Jan 2, The new Republican mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, delivered his inaugural address in which he called for unity while promising to crack down on crime and tackle the city's budget problems. 24,000 homeless people lived in shelters as Giuliani took office.
(AP, 1/2/99)(Econ, 3/25/17, p.25)
1995 Jan 2, Marion Barry was inaugurated as mayor of Washington D.C., four years after leaving office to serve a six-month sentence for misdemeanor drug possession.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1995 Jan 2, Chechen defenders drove Russian troops out of the capital of Grozny.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1996 Jan 2, Former Interior Secretary James Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of attempting to sway a grand jury investigating 1980s influence-peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Watt was later fined and sentenced to five years’ probation.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1996 Jan 2, AT&T announced it would eliminate 40,000 jobs, mostly through layoffs.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1997 Jan 2, In Las Vegas the New York New York casino-hotel hosted a private party prior to opening to the public at 12:35 a.m.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A18)
1997 Jan 2, In the US Northwest a week of heavy rain and melting snow caused many rivers to overflow. Downtown Reno was under water and casinos closed. More than 2,000 visitors were trapped in Yosemite National Park for more than two days as a rockslide swept away a section of Highway 140. The park was closed until March. Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe was closed and expected to be out for a month. The Feather River between Marysville and Yuba City crested at just over 78 feet and 50,000 Californians were forced to evacuate the area.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A13)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A10)
1997 Jan 2, Letter bombs began arriving into the US from Egypt. Four were addressed to the Washington bureau of Al-Hayat, an Arab language daily. Others went to Leavenworth, Kansas. They contained the plastic explosive semtex.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A3)
1997 Jan 2, In India movie theaters in Bombay closed in protest of a state doubling of the ticket tax. Some 120 films are produced annually and theaters provide about half the funding.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A6)
1997 Jan 2, 90 miles off the coast of Japan the Russian oil tanker Nakhodka broke in two. It carried 5 million gallons of fuel oil. The bow of the ship ran aground 5 days later, 110 miles northwest of Tokyo, and much oil was spilled.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 2, In Kazakhstan President Nusultan Nazarbayev was building a new capital 600 miles north of Almaty in swampy Akmola with transfer due to begin in 1998.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 2, In Peru Pres. Fujimori replaced the president of the Supreme Court and six police generals, who were among the hostages held by Tupac Amaru rebels. The hostage count was down to 74.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A16)
1997 Jan 2, The Serbian Orthodox Church issued a criticism of Pres. Milosevic and accused his government of stealing elections and provoking bloodshed.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A16)
1997 Jan 2, In Singapore the ruling party captured all but 2 seats in parliamentary elections. More than 85% of the country’s 3 million live in government-built apartments.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 2, In Zaire rebel troops captured Pres. Seko’s 32,000 sq. mile Kilomoto gold mining region and the town of Mangbwalu.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A18)
1998 Jan 2, The defense in the Terry Nichols trial rested its case in the penalty phase after calling nine witnesses who pleaded for his life. Nichols had already been convicted of conspiracy, which carried a potential death sentence, and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter involving the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. He was later convicted of state murder charges in Oklahoma, and sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences.
(AP, 1/2/99)(AP, 1/2/08)
1998 Jan 2, In Canada Mayor Mel Lastman will begin running the new municipality of greater Toronto.
(SFC,12/897, p.A18)
1998 Jan 2, In the Czech Republic Josef Tosovsky was sworn in as the prime minister. He pledged economic reforms, privatization, and efforts to fight crime and corruption.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 2, Italy pledged to grant political asylum to genuine Kurdish immigrants. Another 1,300 were scheduled to soon arrive from Turkey. German and Austrian officials feared the immigrants would spill over to their countries.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 2, In Mexico Judge Maria Claudia Campuzano freed 5 suspects who were held in connection with the Dec 15 murder of John Peter Zarate. The judge claimed conflicting evidence as grounds for the release.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A10)
1999 Jan 2, In Chicago about 22 inches of snow fell on the city and across the northern Midwest. In Detroit some 4,000 travelers were stranded in planes on the tarmac for as long as 9 hours.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A5)(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 2, Rolf Liebermann, Swiss composer, died in Paris. He led the Hamburg Opera from 1959-1972 and the Paris Opera from 1973-1980. His work included "Eleonore 40/45," "Penelope," "L'Ecole des Femmes" and "La Foret."
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.D2)
1999 Jan 2, In Angola rebel forces shot down a UN plane with 9 people shortly after takeoff from Huambo; there were no survivors. The plane was later found with bullets in the tail section and the flight recorders removed.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.A23)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)(AP, 1/2/00)
1999 Jan 2, In Egypt police arrested 71 suspected Muslim militants over the last 3 days on suspicion of plotting to kill senior government officials.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.A19)
1999 Jan 2, In the Philippines rebels lobbed a grenade into a crowd watching firemen fight a fire on Jolo Island and at least 10 people were killed and 74 injured. The Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were believed to be responsible.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A22)(WSJ, 1/4/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 2, Steven Ray Thacker (29) of Oklahoma was arrested in Tennessee following a 3-state crime spree that left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)
2000 Jan 2, Elmo Russell Zumwalt Jr., former US Navy commander, died at age 79. He and his son authored "My Father, My Son" in 1986 and his son died shortly thereafter from cancer that they attributed to Agent Orange. In 1976 Adm Zumwalt authored "My Watch."
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)(AP, 1/2/01)
2000 Jan 2, Patrick O'Brian, (born in England as Richard Patrick Russ), celebrated novelist, died at age 85 in Ireland while writing his 21st novel set during the Napoleonic wars. His 1st Aubrey and Maturin novel was "Master and Commander," begun in 1969 was published in 1970. His first novel was "The Golden Ocean" written in 1956.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A19)(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.W15)
2000 Jan 2 In Somalia Shuab Mohamed Hussein, a CARE engineer, was killed during an ambush north of Mogadishu.
(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A12)
2001 Jan 2, Pres. Clinton met with Yasser Arafat and coaxed Arafat to curb the Middle East violence.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 2, Pres.-elect Bush chose Spencer Abraham of Michigan as Sec. of Energy; Linda Chavez as Sec. of labor; and Norm Mineta, Pres. Clinton’s Commerce Sec., as Sec. of Transportation. Chavez ended up withdrawing after it was disclosed she had given money and shelter to an illegal immigrant who once did chores around Chavez's house.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A1)(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, Former Attorney General and Secretary of State William P. Rogers died in Bethesda, Md., at age 87.
(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, Ships made the first legal and direct crossing between China and Taiwan in more than half a century.
(AP, 1/2/02)
2001 Jan 2, In Afghanistan opposition troops captured Ghalmin in central Ghor province.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 2, In Cambodia the legislature voted to create a special tribunal to try leaders of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A9)
2001 Jan 2, In Indonesia Ryaas Rasyid, the Administrative Reform Minister, resigned and said the government was moving too slowly to decentralize administrative policies.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A10)
2002 Jan 2, The No. 5 Florida Gators crushed No. 6 Maryland 56-23 in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2002 Jan 2, The new Afghan government confirmed that American bombs had killed the Taliban's intelligence chief, Qari Ahmadullah.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2002 Jan 2, In Argentina Eduardo Duhalde was sworn in as president.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 2, In Australia fires continued near Sydney and almost 160 houses were lost. 21 arson suspects had been arrested since the fires began Christmas eve. Arson bombs were found in Sydney’s northern suburbs.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A4)
2002 Jan 2, In India, Kashmir, militants detonated 2 grenades near the legislature killing 1 police officer and wounding at least 24. 2 soldiers were later killed by militants at an Indian military post in Darhal.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 2, Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan shook hands at a regional summit in Nepal.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 2, Anil Agarwal, founder and leader of India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), died of cancer. Leadership passed to Sunita Narain.
(www.cseindia.org/aboutus/anilji/anilji.htm)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.51)
2002 Jan 2, In Zambia Levy Mwanawasa (1948-2008) of the ruling Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was sworn in as president despite protests of ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. An appeal for a recount was rejected. Nearly 85% of the country’s 10 million people lived on less than $1 a day. Unrest closed much of Lusaka. Zambia’s inflation at this time was 21.7%.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/3/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/08, p.B4)
2003 Jan 2, President Bush, seeking to counter Democratic criticisms that his economic policies favored the rich, said the economic-stimulus plan he was going to unveil the following week would focus on jobs and the unemployed.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2003 Jan 2, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2003 Jan 2, Sydney Omarr (76), the astrologer to the stars whose horoscopes appeared in more than 200 newspapers, died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2003 Jan 2, It was reported that scientists had mapped chromosome 14, the 4th of 24 and longest sequenced to date.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 2, A Palestinian gunman was killed several hours after he tried to shoot an Israeli couple and then holed up inside their house in the Israeli village of Maor.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 2, A motorized rubber boat carrying 41 illegal immigrants sank off the southern coast of Spain, and six passengers drowned.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2004 Jan 2, The NASA Stardust spacecraft took pictures of the Wild-2 comet tail and collected particles on "aerogel," a silica foam 99.8% air, the lightest material ever made.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A8)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.A8)
2004 Jan 2, The Fort Pierre Livestock Auction in South Dakota managed to auction beef calves at around 92.5 cents a pound. This was 15-20% below mid-December prices due to the recent mad cow scare.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 2, In Argentina near Buenos Aires an explosion at a supermarket that sold illegal fireworks left five people dead and injured more than a dozen others. A gas leak was blamed.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 2, British flights to Washington and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were canceled as a security precaution.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2004 Jan 2, Bulgaria reported that more than two dozen Bulgarian soldiers are refusing deployment in Iraq, following the deaths of five countrymen.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, Ecuadorian authorities captured Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, aka Simon Trinidad, one of the 7 members who make up the ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He was arrested at dawn in a medical clinic in Ecuador.
(AP, 1/3/04)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.30)
2004 Jan 2, Kemal el-Sheik (85), Egyptian film director celebrated for a career that spanned nearly five decades, died.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, A U.S. military helicopter crashed west of Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 2, In central Iraq insurgents hit a U.S. base with mortar shells, killing one American soldier and wounding two others. A US helicopter was shot down near Fallujah killing one American soldier.
(AP, 1/3/04)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A5)
2004 Jan 2, Norwegian police arrested Mullah Krekar, Muslim Kurd leader of Ansar al-Islam, on charges connected to 2 suicide bombings in Iraq 2 years ago. Norway ordered Krekar deported in 2005 after declaring him a national security threat, but postponed the move because of worries he could face execution or torture in Iraq.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A3)(AP, 2/14/12)
2004 Jan 2, Philippine movie star Fernando Po Jr. filed his candidacy for the presidency.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A2)
2005 Jan 2, US professional football teams (NFL) joined Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and other sports figures around the world in assisting the relief mission for the tsunami-earthquake catastrophe in southern Asia.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2005 Jan 2, The death toll from the Dec 26 Tsunami was expected to hit 150,000.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2005 Jan 2, In El Dorada, Ark., firefighters evacuated hundreds of residents as they fought a blaze in a hazardous waste warehouse.
(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 2, H. David Dalquist (86), creator of the aluminum Bundt pan (1950), the top-selling cake pan in the world, died at his home in Edina, Minn. He founded St. Louis Park-based Nordic Ware, which has sold more than 50 million Bundt pans.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 2, In western Afghanistan a US soldier and a former Afghan militia leader were killed when American troops clashed with gunmen while searching the leader's compound.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2005 Jan 2, Canada confirmed that a 2nd case of mad cow disease has been discovered, just days after the United States said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 2, In Croatia Pres. Stipe Mesic won about 49 percent of the votes, compared with 20 percent for his closest rival, conservative government minister Jadranka Kosor, the popular incumbent narrowly failed to win the absolute majority required for a first-round victory. Voters will return to the polls later this month for a presidential runoff.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 2, A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb north of Baghdad, killing at least 22 Iraqi soldiers. 10 Iraqis were killed in attacks elsewhere.
(AP, 1/2/05)(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 2, Some 1,500 people inhabited the artificial Maldive island of Hulhumale. Some $60 million had already been spent on its creation and completion was expected in 2040.
(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A10)
2005 Jan 2 Shin Dong-hyuk (b.1982) escaped from a prison camp in North Korea and made his way to China. In 2012 former Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden authored "Escape from Camp 14," an account of Shin’s escape. In 2015 Shin apologized for misleading people after changing key parts of his story.
(Reuters, 1/18/15)
2005 Jan 2, Thailand's confirmed death toll from the Dec 26 tidal wave disaster approached 5,000, including more than 2,400 foreign holidaymakers.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2006 Jan 2, No. 4 Ohio State beat No. 5 Notre Dame 34-20 in the Fiesta Bowl.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2006 Jan 2, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in 7 northern counties making them eligible for disaster aid. The aid was soon extended to 16 more counties.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A1)(SFC, 1/4/06, p.B1)
2006 Jan 2, Grass fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas left at least 4 people dead with over 250 structures burned.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 2, In Tallmansville, West Virginia, an explosion at the Sago coal mine trapped 13 miners more than a mile underground. After 1½ days 12 miners were found dead. Randal McCloy (27) was the lone survivor.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 2, Independence Air, formerly known as Atlantic Coast Airlines, said it will shut down on Jan 5. The DC based carrier only began operations Jun 16, 2004.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.E1)
2006 Jan 2, The Afghan government said it has ordered the US Embassy, the UN and other organizations to remove security barriers that are blocking streets in Afghanistan's capital and causing traffic jams.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Afghanistan a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car near a US military convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, killing himself and wounding an American soldier and two passers-by. Suspected Taliban gunmen killed an Afghan aid worker who was praying in a mosque in southern Afghanistan. A policeman was killed in a separate firefight with militants.
(AP, 1/2/06)(AFP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In eastern Australia 5 people were killed when a plane carrying a group of skydivers plunged into a dam near Brisbane.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, China’s Xinhua News reported that the nation’s GDP grew 9.8% in 2005.
(WSJ, 1/3/06, p.A14)
2006 Jan 2, The roof of an ice rink with about 50 people inside collapsed after a heavy snowfall in a town in the Bavarian Alps killing 15 people, most of them teens and children.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 2, In India’s Orissa state police shot and killed 12 tribals who were seeking to block construction of a steel plant in Kalinga Nagar. Tensions were heightened after the "tribals hacked to death a senior constable." Hundreds of protesters, some armed with bows and arrows, soon blocked a highway to protest the police shooting.
(AFP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In central Indonesia flash floods swept away hundreds houses and schools, killing at least 57 people.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Iraq the main Sunni Arab group, the Iraqi Accordance Front, and Kurdish regional Pres. Massoud Barzani agreed on broad outlines for a coalition government.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 2, A suicide car bomber targeted a busload of police recruits north of Baghdad, killing seven people, and gunmen in the capital killed five workers.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, US aircraft bombed a house in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding four. Iraqis claimed an innocent family was killed. US military said a recon drone had recorded men planting a roadside bomb and traced them to the building.
(AP, 1/3/06)(SFC, 1/4/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 2, An Israeli intelligence report said Palestinians have smuggled anti-aircraft missiles into the Gaza Strip along with tons of other military hardware since Israel withdrew in September.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A car exploded in northern Gaza after nightfall, killing at least one Palestinian. Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft was overhead.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, More than 130 Libyan political prisoners, mostly members of the banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood group, started a hunger strike in a Tripoli prison, saying the government broke its promise to release them.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 2, The leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebels, wearing a ski mask to protect his identity, railed against the country's government and free trade to kick off a six-month tour of Mexico aimed at reshaping the nation's politics.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Communist rebels in Nepal announced they would end a four-month cease-fire, saying they had to take up arms to defend themselves against government attacks.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly accused Ukraine of diverting about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other customers, a day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute whose effects were spreading across Europe.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A heavily-criticized Russia promised to restore full gas supplies to Europe after Germany warned that its dispute with Ukraine over deliveries could hurt its long-term credibility as an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Sri Lanka 5 civilians suspected of working for separatist rebels were allegedly killed when their grenades exploded before they could hurl them at troops. Forensic tests showed that the victims had been shot dead. The incident referred to as Trincomalee massacre happened when 5 minority Sri Lankan Tamil high school students playing by the beach were briefly detained and then shot dead.
(AP, 1/3/06)(AP, 2/14/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Trincomalee_massacre)
2006 Jan 2, Kizza Besigye, Uganda's main opposition leader, was released on bail, and greeted some 12,000 cheering supporters outside the courthouse where he is on trial for charges he says were fabricated to keep him out of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, Yemeni tribal and state officials said 3 Italian women kidnapped in north Yemen have refused to go free until their abductors release two Italian men held with them.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2007 Jan 2, The Wall Street Journal introduced a new print format.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, US markets and federal agencies closed in respect for funeral rites for former Pres. Gerald Ford. Ford’s body was flown to Michigan for burial following services in the National Cathedral.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, New York City commuter Wesley Autrey Sr. saved a 19-year-old student who had fallen onto subway tracks by leaping down and pulling the teen and himself into the trough between the tracks as a train passed over them.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Garry Betty (49), chief executive of EarthLink Inc., died of cancer. Betty had led the company from 1995, one year after Sky Dayton founded the Internet service provider.
(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 2, An Australian Aborigine tribe was granted joint management rights over several state and national parks under a deal that recognizes its traditional ownership of the land.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, In Brazil an explosion in Sao Paulo ripped through a state police warehouse used to store guns and ammunition, killing one officer and injuring five.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, China's foreign minister continued his whistle-stop African tour in Equatorial Guinea, where he cancelled debt, promised aid and opened a new Chinese-built media centre.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Ethiopian helicopters pursuing Somali Islamists missed their target and bombed a Kenyan border post, prompting Kenyan fighter planes to rush to the area. The gun collection program in Mogadishu began with little response. 2 Ethiopian soldiers were shot dead.
(AFP, 1/2/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.41)
2007 Jan 2, In France prisoner Nicolas Cocaign (b.1971) killed his cellmate killed Thierry Baudry. In 2010 Cocaign, who was in jail for armed robbery and was awaiting trial for attempted rape at the time, said he proceeded to eat part of the lung raw before frying the rest with onions on a camping stove and dining on the dish.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2007 Jan 2, Gunmen attacked the car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the official and three relatives. A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded seven others in eastern Baghdad. US troops killed a suspected al-Qaida weapons dealer and two other people in Baghdad raids. Police found 15 bodies dumped in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Teddy Kollek (b.1911), the legendary mayor of Jerusalem, died. He was born in Hungary, but was brought up mostly in Vienna. Kollek arrived in Palestine in 1934 and in 1965 was elected mayor of Jerusalem and served to 1993. He presided over the reunification of the city after the 1967 Mideast war and tried to balance the needs of its split Jewish and Arab populations.
(AP, 1/2/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.78)
2007 Jan 2, Mexico said it is sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the United States.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 2, In South Africa Oprah Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls south of Johannesburg, fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 students a chance for a better future. The school later became embroiled in allegations of abuse; Winfrey apologized and promised an overhaul.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Tamilnet.com said at least 15 civilians were killed and dozens more wounded when Sri Lankan air force jets "carpet bombed" territory held by the Tamil Tigers.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, New UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment should be a decision of individual countries.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said the UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and child rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Rival gangs battled for control of Uribana Prison in eastern Venezuela, killing 16 inmates and injuring 13. National Guard troops restored order after the riot broke out overnight. The death toll in riots this week rose to 22.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/3/07)
2008 Jan 2, California led 15 other states and 5 environmental groups into federal court to challenge the Bush administration’s refusal to let the state limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming.
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 2, Gold prices swept to a record high of $861.10 above the key $850-an-ounce mark, driven by surging oil, a weaker dollar and simmering geopolitical tensions. It later backtracked slightly to $855.70/$856.50 in New York at 2:25 p.m. EST.
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Oil futures hit an intraday high of $100 per barrel and closed at a record $99.62.
(WSJ, 1/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 2, US researchers said a married couple who sailed to America from England around 1630 are the reason why thousands of people in the United States are at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer.
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Becton, Dickinson and Co said it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for a test to identify the presence of two deadly healthcare-associated infections: Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Algeria a car bomb exploded near a police station in Naciria east of Algiers, killing at least four people and ripping off the building's façade.
(AFP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Sterling slumped to a record low against the euro after the release of weak British economic data that raised expectations of further interest rate cuts by the Bank of England.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, George MacDonald Fraser (82), English author of the "Flashman" series of historical adventure yarns, died. "Flashman," published in 1969, introduced readers to an enduring literary antihero: the roguish, irrepressible Harry Flashman. Fraser’s work also included over 30 movie scripts including “The Three Musketeers" (1973).
(AP, 1/3/08)(WSJ, 1/17/08, p.D7)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.78)
2008 Jan 2, In southern Chile hundreds of people fled their homes overnight as the Llaima volcano erupted, rocking the area with explosions and spewing lava and ash.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Egypt allowed more than 2,000 Palestinian pilgrims to enter the Gaza Strip, drawing a fierce rebuke from Israel, which had tried to prevent top members of the militant Hamas from returning home.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, France's most drastic measure to curb smoking went into effect with a full ban on lighting up in cafes, restaurants and discotheques.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In northern India an unusually fierce cold snap has killed nine people over the past two days, bringing the death toll from weeks of unusually chilly weather to 38.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bombing in Baqouba killed seven people, including Abu Sadjat, a local tribal chief, and wounded 22 others.
(AP, 1/2/08)(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A11)
2008 Jan 2, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinian militants in a clash before dawn, pressing its war against armed groups in the Gaza Strip days before President Bush arrives to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, International pressure mounted on Kenya's leaders to end postelection violence that has killed more than 300 people. Vice President Moody Awori told a local television station that the violence has cost the country $31 million a day.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, In Lebanon Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader Hezbollah, declared no president will be elected unless his opposition party gets veto power in the future government.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Myanmar's military junta dramatically raised the annual fee for TV satellite dishes, an apparent move to block the foreign news channels that beamed in global criticism of its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, Authorities said Pakistan's elections will be delayed six weeks until Feb. 18 because of unrest following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Opponents condemned the postponement but said they would take part in the vote anyway. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said that he had requested a team of investigators from Britain's Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation into the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 2, The Sri Lankan government decided to withdraw from an internationally brokered cease-fire with the insurgents. Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a bomb near a bus carrying wounded soldiers through a busy commercial district in Sri Lanka's capital, killing one soldier and three civilians and wounding 24 other people. Air force jets launched two airstrikes in the north, one targeting a Tamil Tiger naval base in Mannar district and the other a logistics base in Mullaitivu district. Some 5,000 people had died over the last two years of the cease-fire.
(AP, 1/3/08)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.36)
2008 Jan 2, Darfur rebels in Sudan said they had taken a town around Geneina, the main city of west Darfur which they claim to have surrounded.
(AFP, 1/2/08)
2009 Jan 2, In SF the AsianWeek newspaper, founded in 1979, published its final print edition. It planned to continue a presence online at www.asianweek.com.
(SFC, 1/1/09, p.C1)
2009 Jan 2, Idaho investors met with Daren Palmer of Idaho Falls and were informed that as much as $100 million in their investments was gone. State security regulators soon launched an investigation into Palmer (40) and his Trigon Group Inc. under allegations that he had operated a long running Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 1/17/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 2, In Britain 2 people were feared dead after a light aircraft crashed into a major railway line, causing severe disruption to train services between Rugeley and Stafford.
(AFP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In Burundi an 8-year-old albino boy was hacked to death in front of his mother and made off with his arms and legs. The body parts of a single albino, to be used in witch doctor potions, fetched about $1000. This attack followed another on a 6-year-old girl.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.50)
2009 Jan 2, Ghana's leader appealed for calm and urged his people to accept the results of a tight presidential election as voters in a single district cast ballots that could decide the West African nation's next president. Election results from all other districts showed opposition leader John Atta Mills ahead of his ruling party rival Nana Akufo-Addo by only around 23,000 votes out of more than 9 million cast.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, India eased foreign borrowing for real estate and certain other companies and allowed additional liquidity for non-banking financial firms to boost growth.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bomber sneaked into a luncheon gathering called by the leader of a local tribe in Youssifiyah, killing at least 23 people and wounding 110. Gunmen killed two people when they opened fire on a checkpoint manned by members of the Sons of Iraq in Jurf al-Sakhar. Four other people were reported wounded in the attack 40 miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/09)(SFC, 1/3/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 2, Israel bombed a mosque it claimed was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza. Thus far more than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded. Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in the rocket attacks.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Kenya's Pres. Mwai Kibaki signed into law a media bill that opponents say threatens the country's hard-fought reputation for having one of Africa's most vigorous press. A controversial part of the bill, which parliament passed last month, allows the government to shut down media outlets by declaring a state of emergency. Kibaki said that part was not included in the bill he signed.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, Mexican Federal prosecutors said they placed three municipal policemen in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez under house arrest on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers. In the northern city of Monterrey, prosecutors accused former Nuevo Leon state policeman Aldo Perales (34) of leading a gang of bank robbers and participating in more than 30 robberies.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, In southern Nigeria an oil pipeline was blown up with dynamite.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 2, Pakistan reopened the main supply route for US and NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan after blocking it for three days during a military operation against militants who have been attacking convoys.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Luis Fortuno (48), Puerto Rico's new governor was sworn, inheriting an island government that is battling a recession, a soaring murder rate and a deficit of more than $1 billion.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Singapore said its GDP had contracted at an adjusted annualized pace of 12.5% in the 4th quarter. Its biggest contraction since it began publishing data in 1976.
(WSJ, 1/3/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 2, Crewmen fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates trying to board a Greek oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden in the fourth such attack since the start of the year. A Chinese cargo ship evaded two pirate boats chasing it in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 1/2/09)(AFP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, In northern Sri Lanka government forces captured the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital, dealing a devastating blow to the rebels' quarter-century fight for an independent state. A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide attacker on a motorcycle detonated a bomb near the air force headquarters in the heart of Colombo during the afternoon rush hour, killing two airmen.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels killed two wildlife rangers and six other people in a remote national park in northeastern Congo.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ukraine sought support in European capitals a day after Russia cut off gas supplies and hardened its stance on prices. The cutoff came after Ukraine made a $1.5 billion overdue payment, but Russia demanded another $600 million, including $450 million penalties for the late payment for gas shipped in November and December. The two sides also have not agreed on prices for 2009. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas destined for the rest of Europe.
(AP, 1/2/09)(Reuters, 1/2/09)
2010 Jan 2, In North Carolina, the nation's leading tobacco producer, a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars went into effect. This made it least the 29th state to ban smoking in restaurants and 24th for bars.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, Afghanistan's parliament dealt a stinging rebuke to President Hamid Karzai by rejecting 17 out of 24 of his nominees for a new cabinet, including a regionally powerful warlord and the country's only female minister.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Australia Indian accounting graduate Nitin Garg (21) was stabbed by unknown attackers before collapsing in the Melbourne burger restaurant where he worked. On June 17 a 15-year-old Australian boy was charged with the stabbing murder. On June 18 the boy (16) was charged with accessory to the killing. On April 20, 2011, the boy (16) pleaded guilty to the murder and one count of attempted armed robbery. On Dec 22 the boy was sentenced to up to 13 years in jail.
(AFP, 1/4/10)(AFP, 6/17/10)(AFP, 6/18/10)(AP, 4/20/11)(Reuters, 12/22/11)
2010 Jan 2, French police said about 30 works of art, including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, have been stolen from the home of a private collector in southern La Cadiere-d'Azur, near Marseilles. The theft comes days after a drawing by Impressionist Edgar Degas worth euro800,000 ($1.15 million) was stolen from the Cantini Museum in Marseilles.
(AP, 1/3/10)
2010 Jan 2, In northern India 4 trains collided in two separate accidents caused by dense winter fog, killing 10 people and injuring 47 others.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, Israeli warplanes struck and destroyed two tunnels under Gaza's border with Israel. The Israeli military says Gaza militants had planned to use the tunnels to enter Israel and carry out attacks.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In northern Mexico a bus carrying farm workers and their families home plunged off a cliff, killing 14 people and injuring 21. Hugo Hernandez (36) was kidnapped in Sonora state and taken to neighboring Sinaloa state where assailants skinned his face and stitched it onto a soccer ball. His body was later left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces.
(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 2, Tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in the capital to support the communist government's policies for the new year, including improved relations with the US and South Korea and a higher standard of living.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Somalia Al-Shabab attacked Dusamareb, 500km north of the capital Mogadishu, and captured it from Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, a traditional Sufi group, for a short while before being forced out again. At least 50 people died in the fighting.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycmkkye)(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 2, In southern Sudan armed Nuer tribesmen killed at least 139 members of a rival tribe in an attack in Tonj, one of the most remote parts of the oil-producing south.
(Reuters, 1/7/10)
2010 Jan 2, In Tajikistan a magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck the Pamir Mountains. Some 783 people were left homeless. 98 houses were completely destroyed and nearly 1,000 others damaged by the quake that hit several villages in the Gorno-Badakhshansky region.
(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 2, Yemen security officials said they deployed several hundred extra troops to two mountainous eastern provinces that are al-Qaida's main strongholds in the country and where the suspected would-be Christmas airplane bomber may have visited.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2011 Jan 2, Pres .Obama signed a $4.3 billion measure covering the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others sickened by toxic fumes following the 9/11 attack in NYC.
(SFC, 1/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 2, Anne Francis (80), film and TV star, died. She played a sexy private eye in the TV series “Honey West," which aired from 1965-1966. Her films included “Bad Day at Black Rock" (1954) and “Blackboard Jungle" (1956).
(SFC, 1/4/11, p.C5)
2011 Jan 2, In Afghanistan gunmen entered a mosque in Baghlan province's Markazi district, killing four civilians and wounding two. A fifth person was killed in a bombing outside a butcher's shop in Herat.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Four Argentines were arrested in Spain for allegedly transporting almost a ton of cocaine in a private plane. They included Gustavo and Eduardo Julia, sons of the late former head of the Air Force Jose Julia, and Gaston Miret, son of Jose Miret, the former Air Force brigadier who was secretary of planning during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. The cocaine was almost pure with a value of more than 30 million euros (about $39 million).
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 2, British actor Pete Postlethwaite (b.1946) died following a lengthy illness. He had earned an Oscar nomination for his role in "In the Name of the Father" (1994).
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, In China seven crew members were missing and feared drowned after their fishing boat sank in the Xijiang River in the southern province of Guangdong.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Hong Kong democracy activist Szeto Wah (b.1931) died. He was a leading campaigner for the victims of Beijing's 1989 crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square, a voice for mainland dissidents, and founder of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
(AFP, 2/27/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szeto_Wah)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 2, Across Iraq bomb and gun attacks killed at least 9 people, including six members of the Iraqi security forces and a city engineer. Two American soldiers were killed during operations in central Iraq.
(AFP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/3/11)(SFC, 1/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 2, Israel's PM Netanyahu said that he's ready to sit down with the Palestinian president for continuous one-on-one talks until they reach a peace deal. Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian security sources said Mohammed Daraghmeh was trying to pass through the checkpoint on his way to work at a West Bank settlement and a row broke out with troops when they refused him passage.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, In Israel Eugene Perchikov, an Israeli doctor accused of killing two women in New York, bled to death in a Jerusalem jail after cutting himself with a prison-issued razor blade as his cellmates slept. US authorities believed he poisoned two women to death in order to collect their life insurance. Larysa Vasserman of Brooklyn, was slain in 2002, and Tatiana Korkhova of Manhattan, was murdered in 2004.
(AP, 1/4/11)(http://tinyurl.com/25a9wh4)
2011 Jan 2, Mexican officials announced plans to shake-up of the corruption-ridden immigration institute, after a year that saw some of the worst atrocities against illegal migrants trekking through the country. Two boys ages 14 and 17 were shot to death in the remote mountain town of Alcozahuca, near the Oaxaca state line. 2 men dressed up in clown costumes were found executed in the city of Cardenas, Tabasco.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 2, In the Philippines a bus has collided with a passenger jeep in a province south of Manila, killing 7 members of a family who were returning home from a Christmas vacation. Landslides and floods, after days of heavy rain, killed at least 17 people including 8 children.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 2, In South Africa 7 people from neighboring families have been killed in a lightning strike in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal province. In neighboring Eastern Cape province, four others were killed and 20 injured in a New Year's Day lightning strike.
(AP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 2, Off southern Yemen at least one boat of African migrants capsized and dozens were feared drowned. The boat capsized near the Bab al-Mandab strait which links the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. 5 migrants survived.
(AFP, 1/4/11)
2012 Jan 2, In Los Angeles Harry Burkhart, a Germany citizen, was arrested in West Hollywood following 4 nights of arson fires around the city.
(SFC, 1/3/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 2, An Algerian court sentenced Abdelhamid Abou Zeid (Mohamed Ghdir), one of the most radical leaders of Al-Qaeda's north Africa branch, in his absence to life in prison for creating "an international terror group." Four other co-accused were each sentenced to five years in jail. Algerian security forces shot dead Mohand Ouramdane, a senior operative of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
(AFP, 1/2/12)(AFP, 1/3/12)
2012 Jan 2, The Arab League chief said Syria's government has withdrawn heavy weapons from inside cities and freed about 3,500 prisoners but security forces continue to kill protesters even with foreign monitors in the country. Syrian security forces fired on protesters in Hama province.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Burkina Faso's president fired the country's customs chief after his detention over the seizure of nearly three million euros ($3.8 million) in trunks carried by a relative.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile called Ghader during a drill that the country's navy chief said proved Tehran was in complete control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-sixth of the world's oil supply.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Three Iranian border guards were arrested in southwestern Baluchistan province along after they allegedly crossed the frontier and shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. On Jan 14 Pakistan deported the 3 guards after they were pardoned in court by the family of the man killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 2, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators headed to Jordan for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly 16 months, although both sides stressed it did not mark a renewal of talks.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Security forces in Indian Kashmir opened fire and killed a protester during a demonstration by hundreds of residents angry about mid-winter power cuts.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Myanmar's government announced that it is reducing the sentences of many prisoners, but stopped short of declaring an amnesty that had been expected by many people.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Nigeria prices at many stations more than doubled to 140 naira or more per liter in a country where most of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. The country's main labor unions threatened mass action.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Pakistani protesters clashed with police and major cities were paralyzed as thousands of people demonstrated over severe gas shortages and price hikes.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia said it will begin enforcing a law that allows only females to work in women's lingerie and apparel stores, effective December 5. The 2006 law banning men from working in female apparel and cosmetic stores has never been put into effect.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Senegal thousands of Dakar residents found themselves stranded as bus and taxi drivers took part in a two-day strike over high fuel prices, leaving some to turn to horse-drawn carts to get around. A paramilitary officer was killed, five injured and another left missing in the Casamance region village of Affiniam.
(AFP, 1/2/12)(AP, 1/4/12)
2012 Jan 2, Sudanese authorities shut down Rai al-Shaab, the newspaper of the opposition Popular Congress Party, just months after it started publishing again following an earlier raid.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Yemen a French journalist was found strangled with an electrical wire in his hotel room in Sanaa.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2013 Jan 2, President Obama signed the "fiscal cliff" legislation into law via autopen from Hawaii, where he is vacationing with his family.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Al Jazeera said it will buy Current TV, the struggling cable channel founded by Al Gore and partners, in a move that will boost the Qatar-based broadcaster's footprint in the United States.
(Reuters, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, Avis Budget Group agreed to buy Zipcar Inc., a rent by the hour car agency, for $491 million.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.C3)
2013 Jan 2, Jon Fromer (b.1946), musician, activist and television producer, died at his home in Mill Valley, Ca. He was the founder of Freedom Song Network, a coalition of Bay Area musicians dedicated to promoting human rights.
(SFC, 1/9/13, p.E8)
2013 Jan 2, Algerian security forces killed two radical Islamist insurgents in the same locality east of the capital where seven were killed a day earlier.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said more than 1.1 million people in Britain have succumbed to the norovirus winter vomiting disease so far this season.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, Colombia's chief prosecutor's office opened a preliminary criminal investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe over allegations he sponsored a killer far-right militia as a regional governor in the 1990s.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 2, Ethiopian security forces announced the arrest of 15 people alleged to be members of a terror cell linked with al-Qaida. Authorities said the suspects were trained by al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia and Kenya.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, Iranian media reported that Iran has captured 2 US RQ11 Raven surveillance drones over the last 17 months and that much of the data has been decoded by the army.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 2, Myanmar's military acknowledged launching airstrikes against ethnic Kachin rebels in the north and said it captured a hilltop post on Dec 29 from where the insurgents had attacked government supply convoys.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, In Pakistan Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir was among nine people killed in a missile strike on a house in Angoor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region. Nazir had a truce with the Pakistani military.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, In Switzerland a man armed with an old military rifle and a handgun shot and killed three women and wounded two men in the village of Daillon. Police shot and wounded the suspect after he threatened to also shoot officers.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 2, A Syrian warplane blasted a gas station near Damascus, killing and wounding dozens of people and igniting a huge fire in one of the bloodiest attacks in weeks during the 22-month civil war. Rebels attacked the sprawling Taftanaz air base. Rebels bombarded the Mannagh air base, which has been subjected to almost daily attacks since late last month.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2013 Jan 2, The UN said more than 60,000 people have killed in the 21-months of the Syrian conflict.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2014 Jan 2, The influential New York Times and Britain’s Guardian newspapers hailed fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden as a "whistleblower" and threw its weight behind calls for him to be shown clemency.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, British author Elizabeth Jane Howard (b.1923) died. She was best known for "The Cazalet Chronicles," which followed the tangled lives and loves of several generations of an aristocratic household in the run-up to World War II.
(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Chinese helicopter rescued all 52 passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy Russian research ship that has been trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve after weather conditions finally cleared enough for the operation. The passengers were all transported to an Australian icebreaker in the area.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Cameroon secutiry official said 7 people, including two Cameroonian soldiers, have been killed in an attack in the east by an armed group from the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Canadian lawmaker Rathika Sitsabaiesan said she was intimidated and warned she could be deported during an ongoing visit to her birthplace of Jaffna, the war-battered Tamil heartland of Sri Lanka.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In CongoDRC Colonel Mamadou Ndala (34), the commander of government troops fighting Ugandan Islamist rebels in the restive east of country, was killed along with two bodyguards in an ambush.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(AP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 2, Egyptian authorities produced what they said was a confession by the son of a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood. An Alexandria court sentenced seven activists to two years in prison on several charges including protesting without a permit and clashing with police last month.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In western India a bus plunged into a 120m (400-feet) deep gorge, splitting open on the rocky ground below, killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Iraqi security forces arrested a controversial Shiite cleric who leads an Iranian-backed militia, a move apparently aimed at bolstering Sunni support as the Shiite-led government and allied tribes battled Islamic militants who rose up in multiple Sunni-dominated cities. Fighting continued in Fallujah and Ramadi. A truck packed with explosives blew up in Balad Ruz, killing at least 19 people. At least 35 people were reported killed in Anbar province. Militants bombed a major oil pipeline in the north, causing a fire and forcing pumping to be suspended.
(AP, 1/2/14)(AFP, 1/2/14)(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 2, Italy-based Fiat secured full ownership of Chrysler in a $4.35 billion agreement.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.C4)
2014 Jan 2, In Kenya 10 people were wounded when attackers hurled a grenade into a restaurant in Diani, a popular coastal tourist resort town.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, In Lebanon a large car bomb killed 5 people and wounded at least 20 in a Hezbollah bastion in south Beirut. The al Qaeda-linked militant group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS aka ISIL)) soon claimed responsibility. On Jan 6 an employee of Hezbollah's Al-Manar television died from wounds sustained in a suicide bombing.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(Reuters, 1/4/14)(AFP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 2, Libyan troops found the bodies of Mark De Salis, a British man, and a New Zealand woman shot dead southwest of Tripoli.
(AFP, 1/3/14)(AP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 2, Islamic authorities in Malaysia seized 321 Bibles from a Christian group because they used the word Allah to refer to God.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Morocco launched an operation to give residency permits to tens of thousands of immigrants living in the country illegally, after the king expressed concern about their harsh treatment by the police.
(AFP, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, Myanmar's Pres. Thein Sein gave his backing for amending a military drafted constitution and indicated support for changes that would make Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi eligible to lead the country.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Palestinian man (85) died after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli army to disperse local protesters landed in his home in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, South Korea's military said it would fight a court ruling quashing its move to kick an officer candidate out of the elite Army Academy for having sex with his girlfriend while on leave.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, A South Sudanese military official says rebels are trying to march on Juba from Bor, a town under the control of rebel forces. South Sudan's army (SPLA) advanced towards Bor.
(AP, 1/2/14)(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 2, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 8 people held by the Syrian government in Aleppo's central prison have died over the past two days from malnutrition. Five staffers of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) were taken from a house they were using in Syria.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(AFP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 2, Tunisia says four Ansar al-Shariah militants have been arrested after late-night gunbattles between militants and security forces in the southern city that was the cradle for the Arab Spring revolutions.
(AP, 1/2/14)
2015 Jan 2, The United States imposed new sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for a cyber attack on Hollywood studio Sony Pictures.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Andrew Marshall (93), head of the US Office of Net Assessment (ONA), known as the Pentagon’s internal think tank, retired. He had led the office since its inception in 1973.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.28)
2015 Jan 2, In California hundreds of people lined up in early morning cold as the state began taking driver's license applications from the largest population of immigrants living in the US illegally.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, A judge in Alameda, Ca., approved a $9.87 million settlement against Safeway Inc. for improperly disposing of hazardous material and customers’ medical records.
(SFC, 1/6/15, p.C4)
2015 Jan 2, In Kentucky Sailor Gutzler, a seven-year-old girl, walked free from the wreckage of a private plane that crashed in a wooded area killing her parents, a sister (9) and a cousin (14). She walked three-quarters of a mile in near freezing temperatures before finding a residence and directing emergency workers to the crash.
(AP, 1/3/15)(SFC, 1/5/15, p.A4)
2015 Jan 2, Little Jimmy Dickens (b.1920), former singer with the Grand Ole Opry, died in Nashville. His hit songs included "Take an Old Cold Tater" (1949), “Out Behind the Barn" (1954) and “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose" (1965).
(SSFC, 1/4/15, p.A10)
2015 Jan 2, In Afghanistan a civilian man was killed after a rocket fired from an army checkpoint struck a house in southern Helmand province.
(AP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, Egyptian troops opened fire on six Gazans who had illegally crossed into the Egyptian Sinai, where the army has created a buffer zone to prevent the movement of militants. Ashraf al-Qudra (17) was killed.
(AFP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, The Eurasian Economic Union, a trade bloc of former Soviet states, expanded to four nations when Armenia formally joined, a day after the union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan began.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Greece a couple and their 12-year-old son were stabbed to death in their apartment in Thessaloniki. The alleged attacker (60) was arrested after being injured by falling from a balcony of the building.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Hungary some 5000 thousand people protested at what they see as the country's move towards Russia in the latest demonstration against the government of controversial PM Viktor Orban.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, The Icelandic Coast Guard ship Tyr towed a cargo vessel to Italy with about 450 migrants after Italian rescue teams managed to secure the wave-tossed Ezadeen for towing toward the southern Calabrian region. The migrants were abandoned by smugglers, leaving the vessel in rough seas without a crew.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Rescue teams battling monsoon rains recovered 21 more bodies from Indonesia’s AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed on Dec 28. To date 30 of 162 bodies were recovered.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In northern Iraq militants linked to the Islamic State group rounded up dozens of men from the villages of al-Shajara and al-Ghariba following a quarrel that led to the burning of the extremist group's flag.
(AP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, Kenya's High Court suspended key parts of a controversial new national security law that the opposition had warned risked turning the east African nation into a dictatorship.
(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Libya armed militants shot and killed 17 soldiers and one civilian at a checkpoint in the central district of Jufra.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Mexico armed men seized Moises Sanchez Cerezo (49), a journalist and activist, from his home in the eastern state of Veracruz. His decapitated body was found on January 24.
(AP, 1/3/15)(SSFC, 5/21/17, p.E7)
2015 Jan 2, Nigerian Islamist militants overran an army base in the remote northeastern town of Baga. Scores of soldiers and civilians were killed, while others drowned in Lake Chad. The death toll was later said to have killed as many as 2,000 civilians. Boko Haram claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 1/4/15)(AP, 1/5/15)(SFC, 1/13/15, p.A4)(SFC, 1/22/15, p.A4)(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Pakistan Moeen Yasin, a six-year-old boy, was found strangled and dumped in a mosque after being sexually abused. Police soon apprehended up to seven people including local cleric Qari Saqib, a prime suspect in the case.
(AFP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Sweden hundreds of demonstrators marched in three cities to condemn recent arson attacks against mosques.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 2, in northeastern Syria US-led coalition warplanes carried out at least 13 airstrikes overnight in and around Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital. At least 19 people were killed overnight by Syrian rebel fire on government-controlled parts of the northern city of Aleppo.
(AP, 1/2/15)(AFP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, In Turkey the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group opened a three-day meeting to discuss a range of issues, including a Russian initiative to hold peace talks in Moscow to broker a resolution to Syria's civil war.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, Ukraine reported its first military death of 2015 in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists, saying a soldier had been killed and five others wounded in attacks by the rebels.
(Reuters, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 2, The World Health Organization said deaths last year from Ebola had reached 7,989 with 2,827 from Sierra Leone, 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2016 Jan 2, The United States and its allies conducted 26 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 1/3/16)
2016 Jan 2, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began arresting immigrants targeting Central American families who came to the country illegally since 2014. Over the next two days 121 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico were arrested primarily in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.
(SFC, 1/15/16, p.A8)
2016 Jan 2, The population of the nine-county SF Bay Area was said to be about 7.5 million.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A1)
2016 Jan 2, In Oregon an armed group of citizens, members of the Oath Keepers, seized control of a federal building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Group leader Ammon Bundy claimed ranchers, loggers and farmers should have control of federal land. Ex-serviceman Elmer Stewart Rhodes, who opposed the occupation, had founded Oath Keepers after working on Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A5,10)(Econ, 2/27/16, p.23)
2016 Jan 2, Afghan officials said special forces have freed 59 prisoners from a Taliban jail in Helmand, as government troops redouble their efforts to drive back the insurgents who have seized large parts of the volatile southern province.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Honduras said the US has requested the extradition of former vice president Jaime Rosenthal, one of the country's biggest tycoons, whom it accuses of drug trafficking and money laundering. The extradition request was received before December 24, but had been waiting for the document to be translated into Spanish.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In northern India 6 gunmen launched a deadly attack on an Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab state, exchanging fire with Indian forces who, backed by tanks and helicopters, battled for over 15 hours before wresting back control of the compound. All the attackers and at least 7 Indian soldiers were killed. India blamed militants from Pakistan.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)(SSFC, 1/3/16, p.A6)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.34)
2016 Jan 2, The Israeli air force carried out attacks on Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip early today, just hours after rockets from the enclave hit southern Israel.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In Mexico the newly installed mayor of the city of Temixco was killed. Gisela Mota formally took office with the new year. She was attacked at her home by armed gunmen. Police killed 2 and captured three.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.30)
2016 Jan 2, North Korea arrested Otto Frederick Warmbier from the University of Virginia as his tour group was set to return to Beijing. North Korea later said it had arrested Wambier for engaging in an unspecified "hostile act" under orders from Washington.
(AFP, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 2, A Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing the Houthi movement in Yemen for nine months announced the end of a ceasefire that began on Dec. 15, in a setback to attempts to end the conflict.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Somali police said a suicide bomber killed himself and one civilian in a bombing of a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, In Syria 16 jihadists were reported killed and 19 wounded in clashes with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near Ain Issa.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Tonga was raked by Category-2 Cyclone Ula with widespread damage.
(http://tinyurl.com/hoj775m)(SSFC, 1/10/16, p.C18)
2016 Jan 2, The Vatican announced that its first accord with the Palestinians -- an agreement that Israel has attacked as counter-productive to the Middle East peace process -- has come into force.
(AFP, 1/2/16)
2016 Jan 2, Vietnam formally accused China of violating its sovereignty and a recent confidence-building pact by landing a plane on an airstrip Beijing has built in a contested part of the South China Sea. Late last year China completed an airfield on Fiery Cross Reef that security experts say could accommodate most Chinese military aircraft.
(Reuters, 1/2/16)
2017 Jan 2, US House Republicans voted 119-74 in a secret caucus meeting to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers following several bribery and corruption scandals.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A5)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A1)
2017 Jan 2, A powerful storm across the US south left four people dead when a tree fell on their mobile home in Rehobeth, Alabama. A woman in Georgia and a man in Florida were also killed.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A12)
2017 Jan 2, In the SF Bay Area electric bus maker Proterra of Burlingame raised $140 million in its latest funding round. The company said it has sold more than 300 buses to transit agencies across North America.
(SFC, 1/3/17, pad)
2017 Jan 2, In Maine Sister Frances Carr, the last lifelong Shaker, died in Sabbathday Lake. The offshoot of Quakers had begun in England in the 1740s.
(Econ, 1/14/17, pp.)
2017 Jan 2, Afghan Pres. Ashraf Ghani suspended Abdul Razaq Wahidi, his minister for telecommunications and information technology, while he is investigated over a levy on mobile telephone charges. At least one police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Logar province. A Taliban ambush in the northeastern Badakhshan province killed at least four police. In Takhar province a Taliban fighter was killed while planting a mine.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)(AP, 1/2/17)(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, Britain's government announced plans to build 17 new towns and villages across the English countryside in a bid to ease a chronic housing shortage.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, British police shot and killed Mohammed Yassar Yaqub of Huddersfield (27) during an operation in which five other people were arrested.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, John Berger (b.1926), influential British art critic and prize-winning author, died in France. The self-declared revolutionary had controversially backed the far-left Black Panthers. He won the 1972 Booker Prize for Fiction for his experimental novel "G.", set in pre-World War I Europe. His “Ways of Seeing" (1972) spawned a BBC series and ushered in a political perspective to art criticism.
(AFP, 1/3/17)(SFC, 1/3/17, pp.)
2017 Jan 2, In Chile a large fire burned 150 homes in the historic port city of Valparaiso.
(AFP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 2, Beijing and other cities across northern and central China were shrouded in thick smog, prompting authorities to delay dozens of flights and close highways.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Congo DRC a regional official said at least six people have been hacked to death in the troubled northeast in two attacks last week in Irumu territory blamed on Ugandan rebels. A civil society leader in Ituri, reported that 14 people were killed in the attacks, which took place in the villages of Saboko and Bialee.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Croatia around 50 migrants staged a protest in Zagreb claiming they have suffered attacks by unknown assailants.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, A senior Egyptian judge arrested on corruption charges was found dead in his cell having hanged himself. Wael Shalaby, a deputy chief justice in the country's administrative courts system, resigned Dec 31 shortly before he was arrested and was charged the following day with taking a bribe.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, India's top court prohibited politicians from using religion and caste to garner votes, a verdict that could force political parties to change their strategy in upcoming elections.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, India and Sri Lanka agreed to release fishermen in each others' custody, a move that is likely to ease tensions between the countries which have held fishermen captive for crossing territorial waters.
(Reuters, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Iranian state TV reported the country's coast guard has detained 21 fishermen and their three boats from neighboring Arab nations for straying into its territorial waters and fishing rare species.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a pickup loaded with explosives struck a bustling market in Baghdad, killing at least 36 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Three smaller bombings elsewhere in the city killed another seven civilians and wounded at least 30.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, A court in Kuwait sentenced father Salem Buhan (26) and mother Amira Hussein (23) to death after finding them guilty of torturing their three-year-old daughter until she died. They were arrested in May and accused of beating and torturing the girl until she died and then keeping her body in a freezer for a week. The ministry said the couple were drug addicts.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Somalia a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a security checkpoint near Mogadishu's international airport, killing at least three people.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Syria's army advanced as it battled to capture a rebel region that is key to the capital's water supply, launching strikes and artillery fire threatening a fragile nationwide truce.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Ten Syrian rebel factions suspended talks on new peace negotiations, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of violating a four-day-old ceasefire with attacks near Damascus.
(AFP, 1/3/17)(SFC, 1/4/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 2, In eastern Thailand a van and a pickup collided and caught fire on a highway, killing 25 people in Chonburi province.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, Ukraine reported a one-third drop in its use of natural gas and general energy savings that will be cheered by its financial backers from the IMF.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 2, In Yemen an air strike by the pro-government Saudi-led coalition killed five Shiite rebels when it targeted a convoy of three vehicles in Marees, in the southern province of Daleh. Six other insurgents were killed in a similar raid on two vehicles in Al-Makhdara, in the central province of Marib. Shelling by government forces killed three more rebels in the same area of Marib. Air strikes across several regions killed two civilians in the western province of Hodeida.
(AFP, 1/2/17)
2018 Jan 2, The United States accused Pakistan of playing a "double game" on fighting terrorism and warned Islamabad it would have to do more if it wanted to maintain US aid.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A record-shattering Arctic freeze kept its grip on much of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and was blamed for the deaths of at least four people.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A court in eastern Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia involving an arson attack during an anti-government protest two years ago.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, British energy major BP said that it expected to take a $1.5-billion (1.2-billion-euro) hit from US President Donald Trump's tax reforms.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev vetoed anti-graft legislation passed by the parliament, saying the bill failed to offer the means to effectively investigate corruption networks.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese internet titan Alibaba, said it has been forced to abandon a $1.2 billion deal to buy US remittances firm MoneyGram after failing to get approval from regulators in Washington.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, Egypt executed four alleged Islamic militants following their conviction by a military tribunal in the killing of three military academy students in a 2015 bomb attack.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, In England 13 Patas monkeys died in a fire at Woburn Safari Park, marking the second major fire at an animal attraction in the last two weeks.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, India's defense ministry announced it is to buy 131 surface-to-air missiles from Israel in a $70 million deal, ahead of a visit by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. An Israeli arms company said India has cancelled a $500 million deal ahead of a visit by pm Benjamin Netanyahu. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. said in a statement the Indian Defense Ministry cancelled the Spike missile deal.
(AFP, 1/2/18)(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In India thousands of Dalits, who rank at the lower end of the country's ancient caste hierarchy, disrupted traffic and threw stones at buses in Mumbai as they protested against violence in Pune in which one man was killed.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, In India some 200,000 Hindu pilgrims arrived at Allahabad, where the Yamuna river meets the Ganges as well as the mythical Saraswati river, on the first major bathing day of a 45-day annual ritual known as the Magh Mela.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran's supreme leader blamed the country's "enemies" for days of unrest that have seen 21 killed and hundreds arrested in the biggest test for the Islamic regime in years.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran re-opened two crossings with the Iraqi Kurdistan region that it had closed after a referendum in favor of independence in the Kurdish area.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Israel's parliament passed an amendment that would make it harder for it to cede control over parts of Jerusalem in any peace deal with the Palestinians, who condemned the move as undermining any chance to revive talks on statehood.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Moldovan Pres. Igor Dodon rejected a decision by the country's constitutional court to suspend his powers temporarily due to a wrangle between him and the pro-Western government over ministerial appointments.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a video message claiming a series of attacks in the northeast during the festive season.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Nigeria's electricity grid was shut down late today by a fire on a gas pipeline, the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System near Okada in the southern state of Edo.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In Peru at least 48 people were killed when a bus collided with a truck and careened off a cliff along a sharply curving highway north of the capital Lima.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, In Somalia a US military drone strike killed two al-Shabab extremists and destroyed a vehicle carrying explosives to Mogadishu.
(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 2, South Korea proposed high-level talks with Pyongyang on January 9, after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un called for better relations and said his country might attend the Winter Olympics in the South.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, UN human rights experts called on Saudi Arabia to end "repression" of rights activists and release dozens detained since September for peacefully exercising their civil and political rights.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, A rebel-controlled Yemeni court sentenced Hamid bin Haydara, a local Baha'i man detained since December 2013, to death on charges of disseminating the beliefs of his faith and spying for Israel.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 2, Zambian foreign affairs minister Harry Kalaba resigned citing "swelling" corruption in government and criticizing President Edgar Lungu.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2019 Jan 2, Pres. Donald Trump said the United States would get out of Syria slowly "over a period of time" and would protect the US-backed Kurdish fighters in the country as Washington draws down troops. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Kurdish fighters, captured the Syrian town of Kashmah.
(AP, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 2, The first of about 80 US military personnel arrived in Gabon in case they are needed to protect US citizens and diplomatic facilities in Congo's capital Kinshasa.
(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 2, The US military carried out an airstrike in southwestern Somalia that killed 10 members of the al-Shabab extremist group. The US carried out at least 47 such strikes last year in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, US soldier Peter Lian (21) was charged with murder in the death of his estranged wife, Khuang Par, whose body was discovered in a suitcase in an Indianapolis dumpster on Dec. 23. Lian was accused of flying to Indianapolis from Colorado to kill his estranged wife, then dumping her body in a trash bin and fleeing to Thailand.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Michigan Christian Maire, in prison for running a child porn ring that targeted vulnerable teenage girls on the internet, was kicked, stomped, stabbed and thrown down a flight of stairs in the federal prison in Milan. In 2022 Adam Wright, nicknamed "Creeper," admitted that he kicked and stomped Maire in the head.
(Detroit Free Press, 2/14/22)
2019 Jan 2, US Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to shareholders that demand for iPhones is waning and revenue for the last quarter of 2018 will fall well below projections, a decrease he traced mainly to China.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, It was reported that Netflix has removed an episode of a satirical comedy show from its service in Saudi Arabia over its criticism of the kingdom, following a legal request by officials in Riyadh.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro issued an executive order making the Agriculture Ministry responsible for deciding on lands claimed by indigenous peoples, in a victory for agribusiness that will likely enrage environmentalists. The temporary decree will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress. It strips power over land claim decisions from indigenous affairs agency FUNAI.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Chinese President Xi Jinping, declaring that independence is not an option for Taiwan, urged both sides to reach an early consensus on unification and not leave the issue for future generations.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, DR Congo said it had pulled accreditation for Florence Morice, a French radio journalist, and cut off the broadcasts of Radio France Internationale (RFI) amid tensions over the counting of votes in crucial elections.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, A Red Cross official said hundreds of refugees have crossed into Uganda from Congo in the aftermath of that country's presidential election, heightening concerns about the possible cross-border spread of Ebola.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Denmark eight people were killed and 16 injured on the Great Belt Bridge linking Zealand and Funen when a passenger train hit a trailer that had blown off a freight wagon coming the other way. The victims were all on the passenger train.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Jan 2, In France Eric Drouet, of the leaders of the "yellow vest" demonstrations, was arrested late today for organizing an unauthorized protest on the Champs-Elysees avenue. He was released the following afternoon. Drouet already faced a trial for carrying a weapon at a previous protest.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In India two women entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala state, one of the country's largest Hindu pilgrimage sites that had been forbidden to females between the ages of 10 and 50, sparking protests across the state.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In India Hindu nationalists linked to PM Narendra Modi’s ruling party urged him to push through laws to allow the building of a temple on the ruins of a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Italy temporary administrators were appointed to lead the country's 10th largest lender, the struggling Carige, as part of a plan to avoid yet another bank bailout.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Madagascan security forces fired tear gas to break up a protest by supporters of losing presidential candidate Marc Ravalomanana, who claims he was denied victory in last month's election because of fraud.
(AFP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, The Dutch Coast Guard said up to 270 containers had fallen off the Panamanian-flagged MSC ZOE, one of the world's biggest container ships, in rough weather near the German island of Borkum and floated southwest toward Dutch waters. Three missing containers contained an organic peroxide, a flammable and highly toxic compound. In Feb. the estimate of fallen containers was raised to 345.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 1/3/19)(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Jan 2, A Nigerian Air Force helicopter crashed in combat at Damasak in northern Borno state, killing five crew members.
(AP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Norway avalanche occurred in the northern region of Troms in an area popular with skiers. Three Finns and a Swede were skiing in the area and were reported to police as missing.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, Qatar Airways said it now holds a 5 percent share in China Southern Airlines, helping expand the Gulf carrier's reach in one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Philippine officials said the death toll from weekend landslides and devastating floods triggered by a tropical depression in the Bicol and eastern Visayas regions has climbed to 85.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia announced plans to build an entertainment complex in the capital Riyadh, the latest in a series of state-backed efforts to encourage public leisure activities after decades of tight social restrictions.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, Sudan's largest opposition bloc joined calls by a wide array of political groups for President Omar al-Bashir to step down, turning up the pressure on the longtime autocrat after two weeks of street protests.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 2, The Syrian Observatory for Human /Rights said two days of fighting in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib have killed 31 people, including five civilians. 17 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters and 16 combatants from the Turkish-backed National Liberation Front rebel alliance were killed in Idlib province.. The al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and the Turkey-backed Nour el-Din el-Zinki group blamed each other for triggering the fighting.
(AP, 1/2/19)(AFP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 2, In Thailand tens of thousands of tourists fled popular islands and resort areas as Tropical Storm Pabuk closed in and threatened to batter the southern part of the kingdom with heavy rains, winds and seven-meter (22-foot) waves.
(AFP, 1/3/19)
2020 Jan 2, Former Obama housing secretary Julián Castro, the only Latino in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, ended his campaign for the presidency.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, An unsuccessful US strike on a high-ranking Iranian military commander took place in Yemen on the same night a US drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. The strike targeted Abdul Reza Shahla'i, a key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander, at his compound in Yemen.
(ABC News, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 2, US spiritualist author Marianne Williamson laid off her entire campaign staff amid rumors she was close to ending her campaign.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, The owners and operators of GirlsDoPorn, a San Diego-based porn website, must pay $12.7 million after a judge found them liable for fraud and breach of contract for lying to women about how their explicit videos would be distributed.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, Razer Inc said it is leading a consortium of companies that has applied for a online bank license in Singapore, joining the race to shake up the city state's financial sector. Razer Inc. is a global gaming hardware manufacturing company, as well as an esports and financial services provider established in 2005 in San Diego, California, by Singaporean entrepreneur Min-Liang Tan and Robert Krakoff.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razer_Inc.)(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Britain's Greggs launched a vegan version of its popular steak bake, aiming to capitalize on the success of the meatless sausage roll that has boosted the baker's profits and helped fuel an 80% rise in its share price last year.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Thousands of tourists fled Australia's wildfire-ravaged eastern coast ahead of worsening conditions as the military started to evacuate people trapped on the shore further south. Authorities said 381 homes had been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast this week and at least eight people have died this week in the state and neighboring Victoria.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Austria's conservative People’s Party and the environmentalist Greens laid out their policy blueprint for their new coalition under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (33), who’s expected to be sworn in for a second term next week.
(Bloomberg, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Denmark said it sourced 47% of its electricity consumption from wind power last year, a new record boosted by steep cost reductions and improved offshore technology.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Denmark-based Novo Nordisk said it would offer free, one-time supply of insulin to people in immediate need and at risk of rationing the medication, the rising price of which has attracted fierce criticism from lawmakers and regulators.
(Reuters, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Elite Iraqi troops deployed to secure the US embassy, a day after a pro-Iran mob laid siege to it in dramatic scenes that overshadowed months of anti-government grassroots protests.
(AFP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, In Kenya four people were killed in two ambushes in which passenger buses were fired on by gunmen suspected to be Islamic extremists in the country's eastern coastal area.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2020 Jan 2, Interpol issued a wanted notice for former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, who jumped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon.
(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 2, Authorities in eastern Poland said H5N8 bird flu is responsible for the deaths of at least 25,000 turkeys in poultry farms. Authorities planned to cull tens of thousands of birds in the Lubartow area near the Belarus and Ukraine border.
(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A2)
2020 Jan 2, In Serbia a crowd targeted the Montenegro's unguarded embassy in Belgrade during a protest of a religious rights law adopted by Montenegro's parliament last month.
(SFC, 1/4/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 2, A Sudanese military plane crashed in the western Darfur region, killing all 16 people on board including two women and two children.
(AP, 1/3/20)
2020 Jan 2, Taiwan's top military official, Gen. Shen Yi-ming (62), was among eight people killed in an air force helicopter crash in mountainous terrain outside Taipei. Five others survived.
(AP, 1/2/20)(SFC, 1/4/20, p.A2)
2021 Jan 2, President Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find" him enough votes to overturn the presidential election and vaguely threatened him with “a criminal offense" during an hourlong telephone call.
(NY Times, 1/4/21)
2021 Jan 2, A coalition of 11 Republican senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, announced it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, It was reported that researchers are scrambling to learn why some coronavirus patients lose their sense of smell and taste. Some experts fear huge numbers of people may lose them permanently.
(NY Times, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In southern California counsellor David Mcknight-Hillman (25) died after allegedly being attacked by seven teenagers at Wayfinder Family Services. Mcknight-Hillman was assaulted by seven people when he intervened to break up a fight. Six of the suspects, including the two 18-year-olds, were arrested and booked on suspicion of murder.
(The Independent, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 2, California to date had 2,326,383 cases of coronavirus and 26,366 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 270,122 cases and 2,634 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 20,396,243 with the death toll at 349,933.
(sfist.com, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Brian Urquhart (101), a troubleshooting British diplomat who joined the UN at its birth in 1945, died at his home in Tyringham, Mass. He was best known for creating and directing the UN’s peacekeeping operations in conflict-filled areas around the world.
(AP, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Michigan a plane flying from Georgia crashed into a house in southeastern Lyon Township, killing the pilot and two people aboard.
(AP, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, Digital currency Bitcoin extended its record smashing rally, beginning the year with a surge over $30,000 for the first time, with ever more traders and investors betting that it is on its way to becoming a mainstream payment method.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Tesla said that it delivered 499,500 for the year, including 180,570 SUVs and sedans for the October through December period. CEO Elon Musk had set a goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, It was reported that a retrial of the powerful brother of Algeria's deposed president Abdelaziz Bouteflika cleared him of charges of conspiracy for which he was serving a 15-year jail sentence. He still faced corruption charges.
(BBC, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Mainland China reported 24 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 2, up from 22 cases a day earlier.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, French police detained five people in an investigation into an underground New Year's Eve rave party that drew at least 2,500 people at Lieuron despite a coronavirus curfew and other restrictions. France has reported more than 64,000 virus-related deaths.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, France recorded 3,466 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, below the 19,348 reported a day earlier. This brought the cumulative total to 2,643,239. The COVID-19 death toll was up by 157 to 64,921.
(Reuters, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, Iran said it plans to enrich uranium up to 20% at its underground Fordo nuclear facility “as soon as possible," pushing its program a technical step away from weapons-grade levels as it increases pressure on the West over the tattered atomic deal.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Iraq's military said explosives experts with its naval forces successfully dismantled a mine that was discovered stuck to an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Thousands of Israelis protested again against PM Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that the long-serving leader resign over corruption charges against him and for allegedly mishandling the coronavirus crisis.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Italy reported 364 coronavirus-related deaths against 462 the day before,, while the daily tally of new infections plunged to 11,831 from 22,211, with far less testing than normal carried out on New Year's day. Italy has registered 74,985 COVID-19 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Mali two French soldiers died when their armored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. This came days after 3 other French soldiers died in a similar way.
(BBC, 1/3/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Niger suspected Islamist militants attacked two villages, with reports of dozens of civilians killed. Around 49 died and 17 were injured in the village of Tchombangou, while another 30 died in Zaroumdareye, both near Niger's western border with Mali. PM Brigi Rafini later said 70 people were killed in the village of Tchombangou and 30 others in Zaroumdareye. The Islami State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) was blamed for the attacks.
(BBC, 1/3/21)(BBC, 1/3/21)(Econ., 2/20/21, p.38)
2021 Jan 2, Pakistan arrested Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, a man accused of being a leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist militant group blamed by the US and India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, In Somalia a suicide bombing in Mogadishu killed five people including two Turks. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group claimed responsibility. The attack took place 15 km (8 miles) away from a Turkish military base, Turkey's largest military installation abroad.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, South Korea said it will expand a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to include the whole country, and extend unprecedented social distancing rules in Seoul and neighboring areas until Jan. 17.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2021 Jan 2, Syria lambasted the US government for sanctions it has imposed on Damascus, following a UN special rapporteur's statement that called on Washington to remove unilateral sanctions against the war-torn country.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2022 Jan 2, President Joe Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone, reaffirming US support for Ukraine as it faces growing Russian aggression.
(NBC News, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 54,968,925 with the death toll at 825,982.
(sfist.com, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sultan Banks 42, a SF Bay Area hip-hop producer, died of cancer in Santa Clara. He was known for producing hyphy, slang for hyperactive, a music movement that was popularized in the early 2000s. Banks had produced records by Oakland Rapper keak da Sneak, self-proclaimed King of the Supa Dupa Hyphy.
(SFC, 1/3/22, p.C3)
2022 Jan 2, Twitter Inc said it permanently banned the personal account of Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for tweets that repeatedly violated the social media's misinformation policy on COVID-19.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Tesla Inc reported record quarterly deliveries that far exceeded Wall Street estimates, riding out global chip shortages and as it ramped up China production.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, More than 3,600 flights were cancelled around the world, more than half of them US flights, adding to the toll of holiday week travel disruptions due to adverse weather and the surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, It was reported that Earth's forest cover has been reduced by nearly 386,000 square miles since the 1960s. Farmland and grazing pastures have increased by about the same amount.
(SSFC, 1/2/22, p.B10)
2022 Jan 2, New Australian COVID-19 cases dipped as testing slowed over a holiday weekend, but remained well over 30,000 and hospitalizations rose further in New South Wales as concerns grow about potential strains on the national health system.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Britain reported 137,583 new cases of COVID-19 in England and Wales, compared with 162,572 cases in England a day earlier.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Bulgaria said it has detected its first 12 cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In China a 5.5 magnitude earthquake rattled the city of Lijiang in Yunnan province injuring 15 people.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Colombia reported that 23 people have been killed this weekend in Arauca province amid fighting between illegal armed groups over control of illegal economies such as drug trafficking.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Egypt’s Suez Canal said its annual revenues reached $6.3 billion last year, the highest in the crucial waterway's history.
(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In France a large European Union flag, attached to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Dec. 31 to mark the start of France's six-month presidency of the bloc, was removed after it drew outrage from far-right and right-wing leaders.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, France has put the United States on its COVID-19 travel "red list", meaning unvaccinated people coming into the country will have to quarantine for 10 days. French Health Minister Olivier Veran said the isolation period for fully vaccinated people who test positive for COVID-19 would be cut to seven days from 10 days.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Hong Kong independent online news portal Citizen News said it will cease operations from Jan, 4 in the face of what it described as a deteriorating media environment in the Chinese-ruled city and to ensure the safety of its staff.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, India reported more than 27,000 new COVID-19 cases, with infections sharply rising for a fifth consecutive day, but the chief minister of the capital New Delhi said there was no need to panic, citing low hospitalization rates.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Israel said it has approved the use of Merck & Co's molnupiravir anti-viral pill for COVID-19 patients. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned that the country will soon see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases a day.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Italy reported 61,046 new COVID-19 cases following 141,262 the day before, the health ministry said, reflecting a steep drop in the number of tests, while the daily tally of COVID-related deaths rose to 133 from 111.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Protests erupted in several Kazakh towns and cities after the Central Asian nation's government lifted price caps on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and the cost of the popular alternative to gasoline rose.
(Reuters, 1/4/22)
2022 Jan 2, Richard Leakey (77), a Kenyan conservationist and paleoanthropologist, died. He spearheaded campaigns against the ivory trade to save the dwindling African elephant population. In 1981, he fronted a seven-part BBC television series called "The Making of Mankind", which made him a household name. At the time of his death, he was serving as chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University in the United States.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)(BBC, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Kuwait state news said the Kuwaiti embassy in the United Kingdom has encouraged its citizens to leave the country due to a "significant and unprecedented" increase in Omicron cases there.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, It was reported that a Syrian mother and her three children died in their sleep after inhaling toxic fumes from burning coal to heat their room in a village in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Seven states in Malaysia were hit by floods and thousands of people were evacuated, taking the total affected by heavy rain in the last two weeks to over 125,000.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, In the Netherlands riot police with batons and shields tried to break up a crowd of several thousand who had gathered in Amsterdam to protest against COVID-19 lockdown measures and vaccinations.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Police in northern Niger seized more than 200 kg of cocaine worth around $8.7 million that was being transported in the local mayor’s official truck. The mayor and his driver, who were in the vehicle at the time, were arrested with 199 bricks of cocaine at a checkpoint on the road heading north out of the desert trading hub of Agade.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, In Nigeria group of bandits killed six rural residents in several attacks in Kaduna state.
(AP, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Russian jets bombed areas near the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib, marking a new year flare-up for the last opposition-held bastion.
(Reuters, 1/3/22)
2022 Jan 2, Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf state with a population of around 30 million, registered 1,024 new coronavirus infections and one death. Daily cases had fallen below 100 in September.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sudanese security forces killed two people during protests against military rule. This brought to 56 the death toll in protests since a coup on Oct. 25.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, Sudan’s PM Abdalla Hamdok resigned in the latest upheaval to disrupt the country’s shaky transition to democracy from dictatorship. He was ousted in a military coup but reinstated over a month ago.
(NY Times, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, The UAE, a tourism and commercial hub now marking its peak tourism season and hosting a world fair, announced 2,600 new coronavirus cases and three deaths.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 2, State media said Vietnam's trade ministry has asked China's Guangxi authorities to take urgent measures to ease congestion at border crossings after China stepped up its border controls with neighbors to follow zero COVID-19 policies.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
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