Today in History - January 5
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For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
1066 Jan 5, Edward the Confessor (b.1003), king of England (1043-66), died heirless.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor)
1463 Jan 5, French poet Francois Villon was banished from Paris.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1477 Jan 5, Swiss troops defeated the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1531 Jan 5, Pope Clemens VII forbade English king Henry VIII to re-marry.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1589 Jan 5, Catherine de Medici (b.1519), Queen Mother of France, died at age 69. In 2005 Leonie Frieda authored “Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 8/10/05, p.D12)
1592 Jan 5, Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), was born. He later built the Taj Mahal.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1638 Jan 5, Petition in Recife, Brazil, led to the closing of its two synagogues.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1708 Jan 5, German alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger, under the tutelage of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, succeeded in creating samples resembling pure porcelain at the Jungfernbastei castle in Dresden. Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, had ordered Bottger to re-create the formula for oriental porcelain. Bottger was imprisoned and joined physicist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in a search for the formula. Tschirnhaus died in Oct, 1708. Within 2 years a factory was established in Meissen’s Albrechtsburg and Meissenware became Europe’s first hard-paste porcelain. In 2020 Suzanne Marchand authored "Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe."
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.D12)(Econ, 4/3/10, p.88)(ON, 8/10, p.9)(Econ., 7/18/20, p.69)
1709 Jan 5, Sudden extreme cold killed 1000s of Europeans.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1776 Jan 5, Assembly of New Hampshire adopted its 1st state constitution.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1779 Jan 5, Stephen Decatur (d.1820), U.S. naval hero during actions against the Barbary pirates and the War of 1812, was born. [see 1820 Decatur-Barron duel]
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HN, 1/5/99)
1779 Jan 5, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, explorer, (Pike's Peak), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1781 Jan 5, A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va. Arnold led some 1,600 British and Loyalist troops in the destructive raid on Richmond.
(AP, 1/5/98)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1796 Jan 5, Samuel Huntington (64), US judge (signed Declaration of Independence), died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1804 Jan 5, Ohio legislature passed the 1st laws restricting free blacks movement. [see Mar 28]
(MC, 1/5/02)
1815 Jan 5, Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, drew up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1836 Jan 5, Davy Crockett arrived in Texas just in time to die at the Alamo.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1851 Jan 5, California's 1st Gov. Peter Hardeman Burnett in his State of the State address called Indians "savages" and said a "war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct".
(SSFC, 11/28/21, p.J1)
1852 Jan 5, Serranus Clinton Hastings (1814-1893) began serving as California’s third Attorney General and continued to Jan 2, 1854.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serranus_Clinton_Hastings)
1854 Jan 5, The steamship San Francisco wrecked and 300 died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1855 Jan 5, King Camp Gillette, inventor (safety razor), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1856 Jan 5, Pierre J. David (67), [David d'Angers], French sculptor, died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1861 Jan 5, The merchant vessel Star of the West set sail from New York to Fort Sumter, in response to rebel attack, carrying supplies and 250 troops.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1861 Jan 5, Alabama troops seized Forts Morgan & Gaines at Mobile Bay.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1874 Jan 5, Joseph Erlanger, doctor (shock therapy Nobel 1944), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1876 Jan 5, Conrad Adenauer (d.1967), statesman and first chancellor of post-World War II West Germany, was born. He was chancellor of Germany from 1949-1963. "The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity -- and that's not fair!"
(AHD, 1971, p.15)(AP, 7/1/98)(HN, 1/5/99)
1879 Jan 5, The shares of Homestake Mining Co. began trading on the NY Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1892 Jan 5, The 1st successful auroral photograph made.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1895 Jan 5, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. He was ultimately vindicated. Dreyfus, a Jew falsely accused of spying for the Germans, was imprisoned alone on Devil’s Island until 1899.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SSFC, 12/15/02, p.L5)
1896 Jan 5, An Austrian newspaper (Wiener Presse) reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as "X-rays."
(AP, 1/5/98)
1900 Jan 5, Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-British physicist, inventor of 3D laser photography, was born. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1971. [see Jan 5]
(HN, 6/5/98)(MC, 1/5/02)
1904 Jan 5, American Marines arrived in Seoul, Korea to guard U.S. legation there.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1905 Jan 5, Representatives of 35 state Audubon organizations incorporated as the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.12)(MC, 1/5/02)
1911 Jan 5, Portugal expelled the Jesuits.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1914 Jan 5, Henry Ford astounded the world as he announced that he would pay a minimum wage of $5 a day and share with employees $10 million in last year’s profits. The wage increase counter-balanced the increased demand on the workers from the new assembly line production methods.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(HN, 1/5/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1917 Jan 5, Jane Wyman (d.2007), film star, was born as Sarah Jane Mayfield Fulks in St. Joseph, Mo.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A2)
1917 Jan 5, Wieland Wagner, German opera director (grandson of Richard Wagner), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1917 Jan 5, Bulgarian and German troops occupied the Port of Braila in East Romania.
(HN, 1/5/99)(WUD, 1994, p.178)
1919 Jan 5, British ships shelled the Bolshevik headquarters in Riga.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1919 Jan 5, The National Socialist Party (Nazi) formed.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1920 Jan 5, GOP women demanded equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1921 Jan 5, Friedrich Durrenmatt (d.1990), Swiss author and playwright, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1921 Jan 5, Wagner’s "Die Walkyrie" opened in Paris. This was the first German opera performed in Paris since the beginning of WWI.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1922 Jan 5, Sir Ernest Shackleton (47) died of a heart attack at sea enroute from South Georgia Island to Antarctica. He was buried on South Georgia Island. In 1924 Hugh Robert Mill authored “The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton."
(ON, 5/00, p.10)(SSFC, 5/20/01, p.T11)
1923 Jan 5, The Senate debated the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1925 Jan 5, Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) of Wyoming was sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States. She succeeded Frank E. Lucas, who had served as acting governor after the death of Ross' husband, William B. Ross. Ross took office as governor of Wyoming, just 16 days before Miriam A. Ferguson became governor of Texas.
(AP, 1/5/08)(http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/articles/rossbio.htm)
1928 Jan 5, Walter Mondale, 42nd Vice President (1977-1981) of the U.S., was born. He was the Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Ronald Reagan in 1984, and Ambassador to Japan.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1930 Jan 5, Mao Tse-tung wrote "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire."
(MC, 1/5/02)
1931 Jan 5, Alvin Ailey, choreographer (American Dance Theater), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1932 Jan 5, Umberto Eco, Italian novelist who wrote "The Name of the Rose," was born.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1932 Jan 5, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko Gorbachev, Russia's 1st lady (1982-1991), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1933 Jan 5, In San Francisco federal judge Harold Lauderback ordered the auction of 2,245 gallons of moonshine that had been seized in raids.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, DB p.50)
1933 Jan 5, Work on the Golden Gate Bridge began on the Marin County side of SF Bay. The bridge was designed by engineers Leon Moisseiffof New York and Charles Alton Ellis of Chicago under the direction of Joseph Strauss. Ellis was fired by Strauss in 1931.
(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.E10)(SFC, 3/19/22, p.C2)
1933 Jan 5, The 30th president (1923-1929) of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at age 60. In 1998 Robert Sobel published his biography: "Coolidge: An American Enigma." Robert Ferrell published "The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge." In 2006 David Greenberg authored “Calvin Coolidge."
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.D8)
1936 Jan 5, Daggha Bur, Ethiopia, was bombed by the Italians.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1938 Jan 5, Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, was born.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1942 Jan 5, U.S. and Filipino troops completed their withdrawal to a new defensive line along the base of the Bataan peninsula.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1942 Jan 5, 55 German tanks reached North-Africa.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1942 Jan 5, Tina Modotti (b.1896), Italian born actress, model, photographer and secret agent, died in Mexico City. She had been expelled from Mexico in 1930 but returned incognito in 1939. In 1999 her biography by Pino Cacucci was translated into English.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/06, p.E3)(http://tinyurl.com/lklsy)
1943 Jan 5, George Washington Carver, Educator and scientist, died at age 81 at Tuskegee, Alabama. Carver was born the son of a slave woman in the early 1860s, went to college in Iowa and then headed to Alabama in 1896. There, at the Tuskegee Institute, Carver served as an agricultural chemist, experimenter, teacher and administrator, working to improve life for African Americans in the rural South by teaching them better agricultural skills. One of the farming methods Carver devised, using peanut and soybean crops to enrich soil depleted by cotton crops, revolutionized Southern farming. Carver became somewhat of a benevolent example of the potential of black intellectuals. He was well-respected by people such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Josef Stalin and Thomas Edison, whose offer of a job for more than $100 a year Carver refused. Carver worked at Tuskegee until his death.
(AP, 1/5/98)(HNPD, 1/5/99)
1943 Jan 5, The Japanese began a planned withdrawal from Guadalcanal.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1946 Jan 5, Diane Keaton, actress (Annie Hall, Little Drummer Girl), was born in LA.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1947 Jan 5, Great Britain nationalized its coal mines.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1949 Jan 5, In his State of the Union address, President Truman labeled his administration the “Fair Deal." Alben Barkley (1877-1956) served as Truman’s vice-president.
(WUD, 1994 p.120)(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 2/12/02, p.A18)
1950 Jan 5, Carson McCuller's "Member of the Wedding," premiered in NYC.
(www.carson-mccullers.com/mccullers/timeline.htm)
1951 Jan 5, Inchon, South Korea, the sight of General Douglas MacArthur's amphibious flanking maneuver, was abandoned by United Nations force to the advancing Chinese Army.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1952 Jan 5, PM Churchill arrived in Washington to confer with Pres. Truman.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1953 Jan 5, In South Korea the Changgyeong ferry sank as it was cruising from Yeosu to Busan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Korean_ferry_disasters)
1954 Jan 5, Walter Edward Scott (b.1872), Death Valley con man, died. He was supported for much of his life by millionaire Albert Johnson (d.1948).
(ON, 3/04, p.8)( http://mojavedesert.net/walter-scott/)
1956 Jan 5, Elvis Presley, truckdriver, began his 1st recording session for RCA. "Heartbreak Hotel," written by Mae Boren Axton, was the first song recorded. It became the first of his 45 records to sell over a million copies. The second was "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You", and "I Was the One" was the third. In 1971 Jerry Hopkins authored Elvis: A Biography.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/6/97, DB p.65)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A31)
1957 Jan 5, President Eisenhower, in an address to Congress, proposed offering military assistance to Middle Eastern countries so they could resist Communist aggression; this became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. Under this doctrine a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from US military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of US forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism". The phrase "international communism" made the doctrine much broader than simply responding to Soviet military action. A danger that could be linked to communists of any nation could conceivably invoke the doctrine.
(AP, 1/5/07)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Doctrine)
1959 Jan 5, The "Bozo the Clown" live children's show premiered on TV.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1961 Jan 5, The TV show "Mr. Ed" first aired in syndication. The sitcom featured a talking horse and continued to 1966. Alan Young played Wilbur Post and Bamboo Harvester (1946-1979) played Mr. Ed.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Ed)(SFC, 1/24/97, p.D8)
1963 Jan 5, "Camelot" closed at the Majestic Theater, NYC, after 873 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1963 Jan 5, "Carnival!" closes at Imperial Theater, NYC, after 719 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1965 Jan 5, Charles Robert Jenkins (b.1940) deserted his US Army post at the Korean DMZ hoping to be arrested, turned over to Russia and returned to the US. His plan failed and he ended up living in North Korea where he married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s. In 2004 Jenkins reunited with his wife in Indonesia and in September turned himself in to US military authorities in Japan. [see Sep 1, 1965] In 2008 Jenkins with Jim Frederick authored “The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea."
(SFC, 11/2/02, p.A5)(SSFC, 5/23/04, p.A18)(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/1/04)(WSJ, 3/13/08, p.D9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Robert_Jenkins)
1968 Jan 5, The US Justice Dept. indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Coffin of Yale (1924-2006) and 3 others for conspiring to violate draft law.
(SFC, 4/13/06, p.B7)
1968 Jan 5, A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA. Senior executives of the SF Chronicle put out a special edition of the paper on a copy machine.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)(http://tinyurl.com/nkszr8)
1968 Jan 5, Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992) was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
(http://www.radio.cz/en/article/112505)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdubcek.htm)
1969 Jan 5, President Nixon appointed Henry Cabot Lodge as negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1970 Jan 5, The TV soap opera “All My Children" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065272/)
1970 Jan 5, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. Nine people were later charged in the killing including UMW Pres. W.A. Boyle.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1970 Jan 5, In China a 7.7 earthquake in Yunnan province killed over 15,000 people and was covered up by authorities amid the chaos of the cultural revolution.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A8)
1971 Jan 5, Pres. Nixon named Robert Dole as chairman of the Republican National Party.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1971 Jan 5, Sonny Liston (b.1932), World Champion boxer (1962-64), was found dead in his Las Vegas home.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Liston)
1972 Jan 5, President Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1973 Jan 5, San Francisco Int'l. Airport began screening passengers. This followed Pres. Nixon's mandate for screening due to increased hijackings in the 1960s and early 1970s.
(SFC, 3/30/19, p.C1)
1975 Jan 5, "The Wiz," a musical version of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," opened at the Majestic Theater on Broadway with an all-black cast. It ran for 1672 performances.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1981 Jan 5, Berkeley police arrested 8 demonstrators protesting against draft registration. The protest was one of the largest across the country as a 2nd round of draft registration began.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.F2)
1981 Jan 5, Harold C. Urey (b.1893), US chemist (Deuterium, Nobel 1934), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Urey)
1982 Jan 5, A Federal judge voided an Arkansas state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4726786)(HN, 1/5/99)
1983 Jan 5, President Reagan announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as secretary of transportation. Dole became the first woman to head a Cabinet department in Reagan's administration, and the first to head the DOT.
(AP, 1/5/03)
1985 Jan 5, Boris Weisfeiler (43), a Russian émigré and naturalized US citizen, disappeared while hiking in Chile. US declassified documents in 2000 indicated that Boris, a mathematics professor, was detained by the Chilean military and handed over to Colonia Dignidad.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A8)(SFC, 6/12/08, p.A10)
1985 Jan 5, Israel’s 6-week Operation Moses for the resettlement of 8,000 Ethiopian Jews ended. It began Nov 18, 1984, but new was blacked out for security reasons.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ejhist.html)
1988 Jan 5, The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ask Israel not to deport Palestinians from the occupied territories in the first council vote against Israel since 1981.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1988 Jan 5, Basketball star "Pistol" Pete Maravich died of a heart attack during a pickup game in Pasadena, Calif., at age 40. He had recently finished an autobiography. In 2007 Mark Kriegel authored “Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich."
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P13)
1989 Jan 5, Lawrence E. Walsh, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case, asked for a dismissal of two charges against Oliver North, citing the Reagan administration's refusal to release material sought by North.
(AP, 1/5/99)
1990 Jan 5, President Bush told a news conference the United States had a strong case against deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and said he was convinced Noriega would receive a fair trial on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1991 Jan 5, President Bush met at Camp David, Maryland, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. The same day, a pretaped radio address by Bush was broadcast in which the president warned Iraq: “Time is running out."
(AP, 1/5/01)
1992 Jan 5, President Bush arrived in Seoul, South Korea, on the third stop of a 12-day tour focusing on international trade issues.
(AP, 1/5/02)
1993 Jan 5, The state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer, in America's first legal hanging since 1965.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1993 Jan 5, The Braer, a Liberian-registered tanker, ran aground in Scotland's Shetland Islands, spilling some 26 million gallons of light crude oil.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1994 Jan 5, The Clinton administration said North Korea had agreed to allow renewed international inspections of seven nuclear sites.
(AP, 1/5/99)
1994 Jan 5, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, died in Boston at age 81. In 2001 John A. Farrell authored “Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century."
(AP, 1/5/99)(WSJ, 3/15/00, p.A16)
1995 Jan 5, President Clinton received Republican congressional leaders at the White House, declaring that "we can do a lot of business together" on reforming the way government works.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1995 Jan 5, A warrant was issued for the arrest of James “Whitey" Bulger (b.1929), top mobster of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang. He had disappeared with his girlfriend just days before the warrant was issued. Bulger was linked to 21 murders and in 2000 became a fixture on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted" list. In 2007 Kevin Weeks authored “Brutal: The Untold Story Of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob."
(http://tinyurl.com/2c8u37f)(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/29unfq4)
1996 Jan 5, An end to a three-week-old partial government shutdown was in sight as the House acted to restore the jobs and wages of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, Lawyers for Hillary Rodham Clinton released sought-after billing records that were discovered the day before in a White House office.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, US retailers posted their worst holiday sales since 1990.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Jan 5, Lincoln Kirstein (b.1906), American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City, died. In 1946 Balanchine and Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948. Together they made this one of the most innovative dance companies in the world. His books included the 1932 novel “Flesh Is Heir," a historical romance. In 2007 Martin Duberman authored “The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Kirstein)(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.P18)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M3)
1996 Jan 5, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama resigned.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1997 Jan 5, In Afghanistan an air raid killed 4 and wounded 32. A bomb in central Kabul killed 3 and wounded 37.
(WSJ, 1/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 5, In Algeria Muslim guerrillas massacred 16 in Ben Achour village.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, In Burundi the Tutsi-led army attacked and killed hundreds of Hutus in a dispute over land at Bukeye in central Burundi.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 5, In the CAR district of Petevo, French troops killed 10 CAR army mutineers, after 2 French soldiers were killed on a mediation mission.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat held a secret, predawn summit, but fell short of agreement on the issues delaying an Israeli troop withdrawal from Hebron.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1997 Jan 5, Jewish leaders blasted the remark of former Swiss Pres. Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, who called Jewish demands for the compensation of Holocaust victims “blackmail."
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, In Kenya the Daily Nation reported that a man stole $1 million by impersonating a Citibank bank employee. The money had been shipped from NY to a Kenyan airport freight terminal at the Nairobi Int’l. Airport.
(SFC, 1/9/97, p.A12)
1997 Jan 5, In Mexico at least 26 people were arrested in Sinaloa state, many of them police officers, at the wedding party for the sister of Amado Carrillo, the reputed top drug trafficker in Mexico.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.A7)
1997 Jan 5, In Rwanda a mother and father and 7 children were murdered. The mother had testified against the former mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, for the murder of some 2,000 villagers.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A13)
1997 Jan 5, In South Africa police arrested 2 white men in connection with 3 bomb blasts near Johannesburg.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1998 Jan 5, Balloonist Steve Fosset was forced down in Russia after completing 7,300 miles in four days in his effort to circle the globe.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 5, Volkswagen rolled out a new version of the Beetle at the annual Detroit Auto Show.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A2)
1998 Jan 5, Sonny Bono (62), former 1960's pop singer and later Republican congressman, died when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Mary Bono later revealed that he was a heavy user of pain pills.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A1)(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A5)(AP, 1/5/99)
1998 Jan 5, A Canada ice storm knocked out electricity in Quebec & Ontario.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In China Stanford scholar Hua Di (63) was arrested in Beijing on charges of treason for allegedly leaking military secrets.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A23)
1998 Jan 5, In Denmark the bronze head of the Little Mermaid was again sawed off in Copenhagen harbor.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A9)(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In India a train crash in Uttar Pradesh killed at least 48 people.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.1)
1998 Jan 5, In Kenya Daniel Arap Moi was scheduled to be inaugurated as president after the elections gave him 40% or 2,445,801 votes.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 5, In Lithuania Vladas Adamkus (71), former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, won the presidency in a runoff election with 49.9% vs. 49.3% for Arturas Paulauskas.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 5, In Mexico Francisco Labastida took over as the chief of internal security after Emilio Chuayffet resigned under pressure from the Chiapas massacre.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1999 Jan 5, A federal judge approved settlement in a class-action suit filed by African-American farmers. The agreement to compensate for years of racial bias could total $400 million. The farmers will get $50,000 tax-free and their government debts forgiven.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, A new theory on how HIV attacks cells was reported. The production and survival time of T cells was said to be shortened by HIV.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, New research showed that dendritic spines on the nerve branches of the brain sprouted and changed form within fractions of a second.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 5, In Angola Unita rebels shelled Malanje for a 2nd day. 25 people were killed and 100 wounded.
(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, In Iran the Intelligence Ministry said that rogue intelligence officers were responsible for 5 killings last year of government critics.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 5, Four U.S. Air Force and Navy jets fired at Iraqi MiGs testing the "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq in the first such confrontation in more than six years. 6 missiles fired by 2 US F-15s missed the 4 MiG 25s of Iraq.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A6)(AP, 1/5/00)
1999 Jan 5, It was reported that Iraqi security forces killed hundreds of people in the Shiite Muslim south in summary executions directed by Saddam Hussein's 2nd son over the last 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, Malaysia admitted that former Deputy Premier Anwar was beaten by police after his arrest in September.
(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 5, Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley engaged in a feisty debate in Durham, New Hampshire.
(AP, 1/5/01)
2000 Jan 5, Touching off angry protests by Cuban-Americans in Miami, the US government decided to send six-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. After a legal battle, and the seizure of Elian from the home of his US relatives, the boy was returned to Cuba in June.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/5/01)
2000 Jan 5, In the Ivory Coast Gen. Robert Guei announced that he was suspending the country's staggering foreign debt payments.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 5, In Nigeria rival youths of the Yoruba and Hausa tribes clashed in Lagos and Ibadan and some 35 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2000 Jan 5, In Karachi, Pakistan, freed militant Masood Azhar called on some 10,000 followers to liberated Kashmir and to destroy India and the US.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A8)
2000 Jan 5, The 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje (14), arrived in India after a week-long flight from Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2001 Jan 5, In a blizzard of last-minute executive orders, President Clinton banned roads and most logging in 58.5 million acres of federal forests in 38 states.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)(AP, 1/5/02)
2001 Jan 5, US Republicans agreed to share power in the Senate with Democrats on committees.
(SFC, 1/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 5, In 2007 it was reported that a French intelligence document dated to this day warned that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot. The information was passed on to the CIA. Documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network were drawn up by the French spy service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2002 Jan 5, It was reported that funds for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the leading opposition group to Saddam Hussein, were suspended due to accounting problems.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.15)
2002 Jan 5, In Florida Charles J. Bishop (15) crashed a stolen Cessna 172 airplane into the 40-story Tampa Bank of American building. Bishop left a note saying he acted alone and expressed sympathy for Osama bin Laden.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 5, Canada reported plans to send 900 troops to assist with peacekeeping in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 5, Italy's foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero, resigned after a spat with PM Silvio Berlusconi over the government's lukewarm reception of the euro.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A5)(AP, 1/5/03)
2002 Jan 5, Singapore reported that authorities had arrested 15 suspected militants between Dec 9-24, some of whom were al Qaeda trained in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 5, In Edinburg, Texas, 6 men were shot to death in a home invasion that involved weapons and drugs.
(SFC, 1/6/03, p.A8)
2003 Jan 5, Jean Kerr (79), author and playwright, died. Her books included "Please Don't Eat the Daisies."
(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A22)
2003 Jan 5, In Algeria rebels killed 13 people form 2 families near the capital in Zabana. The Armed Islamic Group was suspected.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 5, In Bhutan Indian separatists said 50 Indian soldiers attacked their camps. 15 soldiers and 7 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A16)
2003 Jan 5, British anti-terrorism police arrested 6 men of North African origin after finding small quantities of ricin, a lethal poison, in a London apartment.
(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A10)
2003 Jan 5, Roy Jenkins (82), British politician, liberal reformer and biographer, died after collapsing at his home in East Hendred.
(WSJ, 1/14/03, p.D6)
2003 Jan 5, Chinese media reported that an unmanned Chinese space capsule had returned safely to Earth.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2003 Jan 5, In Israel 2 Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up minutes apart in a central Tel Aviv area crowded with foreign workers, killing 23 bystanders in the bloodiest attack in six months.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2003 Jan 5, In Kosovo gunmen killed 3 people including Tahir Zemaj, a former Albanian rebel leader.
(WSJ, 1/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 5, In Lithuania rightist Rolandas Paksas (46), a former stunt pilot and PM in 1999 and 2000, was elected president in a surprise victory over Pres. Adamkus, 54.9% vs. 45%. Paksas promised to keep Lithuania closely aligned with the West. The election of Paksas was bankrolled by Yuri Borisov, a Russian-born dealer in helicopter parts.
(AP, 1/6/03)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.46)
2003 Jan 5, The Laos government declared this day a national holiday in honor of King Fangum, "the father of Lao unity" and the 650th anniversary of the founding of Lan Xang in1353.
(AP, 1/6/03)
2004 Jan 5, After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose publicly admitted that he'd bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, Pres. Bush extended a 1986 order of sanctions against Libya.
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 5, The US began fingerprinting and photographing int'l. passengers at 115 airports and 14 cruise-ship ports.
(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 5, NASA released a 3-D, black-and-white panoramic picture of the bleak surface of Mars snapped by the newly landed rover, Spirit.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, Norman Heatley (92), a scientist whose pioneering work on penicillin production helped save countless lives, died in Oxford, England. It was Heatley and his Oxford University colleagues who produced enough for the first clinical tests on humans.
(AP, 1/17/04)(SFC, 1/19/04, p.B4)
2004 Jan 5, Kiharu Nakamura (90), Japanese geisha, died in the US. Her 10 books included "The Memoir of a Tokyo-born Geisha."
(Econ, 1/24/04, p.78)
2004 Jan 5, Tug McGraw (59), baseball pitcher, died near Nashville, Tenn.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, China confirmed its first SARS case since an outbreak of the disease was contained in July and authorities ordered the emergency slaughter of some 10,000 civet cats and related species after tests linked a virus found in the animals to the patient.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as NATO's top official.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, A letter bomb addressed to a senior member of the European Parliament burst into flames. Italian anarchists were suspected in the 7 mail attacks since Dec 27.
(AP, 1/5/04)(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A10)
2004 Jan 5, In Mexico heavily armed men in military and police-style uniforms raided the western prison at Apatzingan in Michoacan state and freed 25 inmates.
(AP, 1/6/04)
2004 Jan 5, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf held much-anticipated, face-to-face talks with Indian leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the sidelines of a South Asian summit.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, In Thailand 2 bombs exploded in the southern town of Pattani, killing 2 policemen and injuring several people, police said. Two other bombs were found before they could go off.
(AP, 1/5/04)(WPR, 3/04, p.32)
2005 Jan 5, President Bush opened a new drive for caps on medical malpractice awards, contending the limits would lower health care costs.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a Marine charged with desertion in Iraq after mysteriously disappearing from his post was again declared a deserter, this time for failing to report to his U.S. base.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, It was reported that PolyMedix, a research firm in Philadelphia, was targeting bacteria with synthetic molecules that prevented the development of resistance.
(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.B2A)
2005 Jan 5, Julius Axelrod, NIH neuroscientist, died in Rockville, Md. He shared a 1970 Nobel Prize with 2 others for work on neuro-transmitters.
(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Jan 5, Australian PM John Howard pledged $765 million over five years to Indonesian tsunami reconstruction and development due to the Dec 26 disaster.
(AP, 1/6/05)(Econ, 1/15/05, p.38)
2005 Jan 5, The head of the IAEA said Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is linked to a secret nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, Iraq's intelligence chief said as many as 30,000 well-trained terrorists are actively operating throughout Iraq at the behest of former regime leaders based in Syria.
(AP, 1/6/05)
2005 Jan 5, A car bomb exploded outside a police academy south of Baghdad during a graduation ceremony, killing at least 20 people. Hours earlier, another car bomb killed two Iraqis in Baghdad. A 2nd car bomber killed five Iraqi policemen in Baqouba.
(AP, 1/5/05)(AP, 1/6/05)
2005 Jan 5, The bodies of 18 young Iraqi Shiites taken off a bus and executed in December 2005 were found in a field near Mosul.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, A group calling itself "The Free People of the Galilee" claimed that it abducted Dana Bennet, an Israeli-American woman, in Aug 2003, and demanded that Israel release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information about her fate.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, Two homemade Palestinian rockets fell into an army base in southern Israel, wounding 12 people, one of them seriously.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, In western Nepal soldiers backed by helicopters raided a communist rebel hideout, killing at least 30 guerrillas and foiling a planned attack on an army base.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, The UN said that camps for up to 500,000 tsunami refugees will be built on devastated Sumatra island, while world leaders headed to Indonesia to discuss how to distribute billions of dollars in aid.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2006 Jan 5, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for “dividing God’s land." Robertson later apologized.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2006 Jan 5, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger in his State of the State speech called for over $222 billion for public works projects.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 5, The Florida Supreme Court struck down the voucher system that allowed some children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense, saying that it violates the state constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public schools.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Afghanistan a suicide attacker in Kandahar detonated explosives strapped to his body during a visit by the US ambassador, killing 10 Afghans and wounding 50.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, The wife of Dragomir Abazovic, a Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, was killed in a shoot-out when European Union (EUFOR) peacekeepers moved in to arrest her husband at their home. Abazovic and the couple's 11-year-old son were also shot and injured.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, The UN said around 2,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi in the past month, many saying they feel insecure in Rwanda or are being refused permission to cultivate their land.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, China’s government announced the closing 5,290 coal mines in a safety crackdown on the world's deadliest mining industry.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In China Feng Bingxian (59), a businessman who led investors against the government seizure of oil fields in northern China, was convicted along with 2 co-defendants of organizing illegal protests and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/6/06, p.A8)
2006 Jan 5, In China an oil spill occurred at Gongyi city in neighboring Henan province when a frozen pipe broke, causing six tons of oil to spill into a tributary of the Yellow River.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 5, In western China violent blizzards have forced the evacuation of 97,000 people in a largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, as the nation braced for its worst winter in 20 years.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Colombia local TV reported that 2 soldiers had been arrested for giving weapons to leftist rebels, their main battlefield enemy, in exchange for cocaine. 14 FARC guerrillas and two soldiers were killed in clashes in a coca-growing area on the edge Sierra Macarena National Park in southern Colombia.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, In France a 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp's (1917) "Fountain," a porcelain urinal, with a hammer at the Pompidou Center.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, The leader of Haiti's largest business association called for a general strike next week to protest the wave of kidnappings that has sparked fear in the capital and contributed to the chaos that prompted authorities to postpone elections.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, A shootout between inmates at Honduras' biggest prison left at least 13 inmates dead and another 30 wounded.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, A suicide bomber infiltrated a line of police recruits in Ramadi, killing at least 58 and wounding dozens including a US Marine and soldier. 11 US troops were slain during the day. 5 soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb south of Karbala. 2 soldiers were killed in the Baghdad area when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. 2 US Marines were killed by separate small arms attacks while conducting combat operations in Fallujah. An explosion near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines killed at least 5 people. The day’s death toll rose to at least 136 people in a series of attacks as politicians tried to form a coalition government.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, Iraq's largest oil refinery closed again, a day after insurgents ambushed a convoy of tanker trucks carrying gas from the facility.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon (77) fought for his life following seven hours of emergency surgery to stop widespread bleeding in his brain. The massive stroke made it unlikely that he would return to power. Vice Premier Ehud Olmert was named acting PM and convened the Cabinet for a special session.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Suspected rebels killed 3 police and wounded 4 more in attacks across Nepal, while hundreds of protesters marched through Kathmandu, demanding restoration of democracy.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Pakistan said it had taken all "appropriate action" to break up the underground nuclear network run by its former chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Peru recalled its ambassador from Venezuela, accusing President Hugo Chavez of meddling in Peru's upcoming presidential race.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia a building used as a hostel by pilgrims in Mecca collapsed as millions of Muslims converged for the annual hajj, and at least 76 people were killed.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, A Turkish teenager whose brother died of bird flu also succumbed to the disease. Fatma Kocyigit (15) died in a hospital in the eastern city of Van, four days after the death of her brother, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit (14). The children helped raise poultry on a small farm in the eastern town of Dogubeyazit, close to Iranian border, and were in close contact with sick birds. Their 11-year-old sister died the next day.
(AP, 1/5/06)(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Venezuela a viaduct, carrying the motorway that crosses the mountains between Caracas and the int’l. airport, was closed due to geologic and structural problems. Travel time one way rose up to 5 hours.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.44)
2007 Jan 5, Pres. Bush nominated Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral, to be the next director of national intelligence (DNI). He would follow John Negroponte, who served 18 months as the 1st head over 16 intelligence agencies.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 5, The White House announced a planned shuffling of military leaders in the Iraq war. Adm. William Fallon ended up replacing Gen. John Abizaid as top US commander in the Middle East; Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus succeeded Gen. George Casey as top American general in Iraq; Casey replaced retiring Gen. Peter Schoomaker as Army chief of staff.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2007 Jan 5, US House Democrats approved new budget rules that required new spending or tax cuts to be paid for by other spending cuts or tax increases. The new rules also required lawmakers to disclose which spending items (earmarks), they have added to bills.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, SF signed a contract with EarthLink and Google to install and operate a free wireless Internet service across the city.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 5, Momofuko Ando (b.1910), inventor of instant noodles (1958), died in Japan.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.94)
2007 Jan 5, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber in a car wounded four soldiers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China have ratified a nuclear agreement clearing the way for the export of uranium to feed Beijing's giant nuclear power program.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Bangladesh police over the last 2 days detained about 1,500 activists ahead of a two-day nationwide general strike aimed at forcing electoral reform and the postponement of a general election this month.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese police raided an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near the border with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 at a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Critics accused Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Pres. Bozize of the Central African Republic. Zhaoxing was set to sign a series of accords as part of seven-nation tour highlighting China's increasing interest in the African continent.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In central Congo a diamond mine collapsed in Tshikapa. 2 people were soon rescued and 15 bodies were later pulled from the mine. Further rescue efforts were abandoned. The group appeared to have been teenagers who hoped that recent rains had uncovered diamonds in the community mine.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Leon Febres Cordero, Former President of Ecuador (1984-1988), resigned from Congress and political life, citing unspecified medical problems. His center-right Social Christian Party long dominated Ecuadorian politics.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Nicolas Cocaigne, a French prisoner in Rouen, confessed to killing his cellmate and then eating part of the man's body. Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was found Jan 3 by a guard at the prison. A third cellmate who claimed he slept though the attack was charged with complicity in homicide.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, A prominent Sunni Arab group charged that some officials in the Iraqi government have links with Shiite militias involved in sectarian violence and said authorities should be held responsible for any attacks by the armed groups. Mortar rounds killed four civilians on Baghdad's outskirts, and gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint north of the capital, killing four soldiers. Police in the southern city of Basra reported that an American contractor and two Iraqis were abducted. The 2 Iraqis were later found dead. The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji (28), an Associated Press employee, was found in Baghdad shot in the back of the head, 6 days after he was last seen by his family leaving for work. A US soldier died from combat wounds sustained in Iraq's Anbar province.
(AP, 1/5/07)(AP, 1/6/07)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A5)(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Mexican officials in Michoacan state said they had found nine bodies in a shallow grave in the city of Uruapan.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen kidnapped five Chinese workers fixing overhead telephone lines.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries warned that some 790,000 salmon and trout escaped from Norwegian fish farms in 2006, up 10% on the previous year and a trend that poses a serious threat to wild salmon.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Pakistan's part of Kashmir a landslide triggered by recent heavy rains swamped a minibus and a car on a narrow mountainous road, killing 15 people and injuring three others.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Gaza Adel Nasar, an anti-Hamas cleric, was shot by men in a car after he delivered a sermon warning that God would punish those responsible for seven killings the previous day.
(AP, 1/5/07)(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Stanislaw Wielgus, Warsaw's incoming archbishop, admitted he had cooperated with the Communist-era secret police and said he was leaving his fate in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka an explosion inside a passenger bus killed 6 people in Nittambuwa. Officials blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Sudanese aircraft carried out strikes on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state near the border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 5, Taiwan's high-speed rail system welcomed its 1st paying passengers amid lingering safety concerns and embarrassing ticketing glitches. Construction of the system began in 2000 with an original launch date of October 2005, but a delay in the completion of the project's core electrical systems forced a postponement to October 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania's Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro to the deputy secretary-general post at the UN, calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who has championed the developing world. A senior UN official said the United Nations has investigated more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Senior doctors at Zimbabwe's state hospitals joined junior doctors in a strike over pay that has left patients stranded at the country's major medical centers. Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told state radio meanwhile that he had met with representatives of the striking doctors and that they had agreed to return to work.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2008 Jan 5, Georgia authorities served a warrant charging Gary Michael Hilton (61) with the kidnapping with bodily injury of Meredith Emerson (24). Emerson was last seen on New Year's Day hiking with her black Labrador retriever, Ella, in Vogel State Park. On Jan 7 he led investigators to a spot in a wooded area in north Georgia where they found her body. In March Hilton was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/6/08)(AP, 1/8/08)(SFC, 3/24/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 5, In Hayden, Idaho, a man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 5, A levee break flooded hundreds of homes In Nevada as a storm that has pummeled the West Coast with high wind and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, In Alaska a small plane crashed at the end of a runway off Kodiak Island killing 6 people enroute to celebrate Eastern Orthodox Christmas.
(SFC, 1/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 5, Heavy rains caused flooding across parts of eastern Australia, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people as rural towns throughout the area were put on flood alert.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Georgians voted to determine whether to keep Mikhail Saakashvili as president in the former Soviet republic, where he was once considered a symbol of democratic reform but now faces accusations of authoritarian leanings. Saakashvili's supporters poured onto the streets, tooting car horns and waving white-and-red national flags, celebrating victory based on exit poll results. Saakashvili received 52.8% of the vote according to preliminary results.
(AP, 1/5/08)(AP, 1/6/08)(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 5, In Iraq a roadside bomb struck a passing minibus north of the town of Muqdadiyah, killing six people. In Baqouba another roadside bomb wounded three civilians.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, The Israeli army wound up a large 3-day operation in Nablus saying they had discovered another explosives laboratory there.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.A18)
2008 Jan 5, Kenya’s government said President Kibaki is ready to form "a government of national unity" to help resolve disputed elections that caused deadly riots. Some 300 people have been killed and the UN said 250,000 made homeless in violent protests and clashes since the vote.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Malaysia’s New Straits Times said Malaysian police have arrested a beauty parlor owner and a farmer suspected of distributing a sex video showing a former Health Minister Chua Soi Lek committing adultery. Soi Lek resigned Jan 2 after admitting he was the man in the video.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Jacob Zuma, the new African National Congress leader and would-be national president, took another wife, in a Zulu tradition of polygamy that coexists uneasily with calls for gender equality in modern South Africa.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Syria joined other Arab nations in endorsing the head of Lebanon's army as that country's next president, putting pressure on the Lebanese opposition to drop demands that have blocked a compromise over the post.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2009 Jan 5, President George W. Bush authorized the immediate use of US aircrafts to transport supplies to the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, Pres. Elect Obama named William Panetta (70) to head the CIA.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, The US Federal Reserve began buying mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, in an effort to make home financing more affordable.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.C3)
2009 Jan 5, The California Supreme Court decided that churches that break away from a national denomination may not take church assets with them.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 5, Alexander James Trabulse (61) of Colma, Ca., was arrested at San Francisco Airport, after arriving from France. He had been charged 3 days earlier with mail fraud. Authorities said he had sent account statements to investors in his Fahey Fund that inflated the hedge fund’s returns by as much as 200%. On Nov 3 Trabulse pleaded guilty for defrauding investors of some $8.3 million. In 2010 Trabulse was sentenced to over 8 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.C1)(SFC, 11/4/09, p.D3)(SFC, 5/5/10, p.C5)
2009 Jan 5, Former US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy said Citgo Petroleum, the US refiner owned by the Venezuelan government, planned to stop deliveries to his Boston-based nonprofit, Citizens’ Energy, due to falling oil prices. The stop order was removed 2 days later.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A7)(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 5, A Minnesota board certified results showing Democrat Al Franken winning the state’s US Senate recount by 225 votes over Republican Norm Coleman, whose lawyer promised a legal challenge.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, Boeing signed a $2.1 billion deal with India for eight P-81 maritime patrol aircraft.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 5, In Illinois Steven L. Good (52), chief executive of Sheldon Good & Co, one of the nation’s largest real estate auction firms, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a forest outside Chicago. In 2003 he authored “Churches, Jails and Gold Mines… Mega-Deals from a Real Estate Maverick."
(WSJ, 1/7/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 5, In Afghanistan 9 Taliban militants were killed in a gunfight by Afghan and NATO troops in the southern province of Kandahar. 2 gunmen shot a Muslim cleric to death inside a mosque in Kandahar city.
(AFP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, British company Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the maker of classic china and crystal, filed for bankruptcy protection after attempts to restructure the struggling business or find a buyer failed.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Chile’s Pres. Michelle Bachelet announced a $4 billion economic stimulus package.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 5, China launched a major crackdown on Internet pornography targeting popular online portals and major search engines such as Google.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, A Chinese woman (19) died from bird flu in a Beijing hospital, but the World Health Organization said the case did not appear to signal a new public health threat.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, In eastern Congo rival rebel chief of staff Bosco Ntaganda announced the dismissal of Laurent Nkunda and has taken control of the CNDP rebel movement.
(AFP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 5, Germany’s ruling coalition agreed to a 2-year fiscal stimulus package of as much as $69 billion (€50 billion).
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 5, In southwestern Germany the body of billionaire Adolf Merckle (74) was found near railway tracks at Blaubeuren. He had committed suicide after his business empire ran into trouble in the global financial crisis. Merckle’s VEM holding company controlled Ratiopharm, building materials giant HeidelbergCement and one of Europe's biggest wholesale drug distributors, Phoenix. In 2008 Forbes Magazine ranked Merckle as the world’s 94th richest man.
(AP, 1/6/09)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.58)(AP, 3/18/10)
2009 Jan 5, In Greece gunmen sprayed Athens riot police with automatic weapons fire, seriously wounding a policeman in an escalation of violence that broke out after the fatal police shooting of a teenager on Dec 6. The Revolutionary Struggle group later claimed responsibility.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 9/30/11)
2009 Jan 5, In Hong Kong a new survey said one in five residents is considering leaving the city because of its dire air quality, raising fears over the financial hub's competitiveness.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, India handed to Pakistan what it said was evidence linking the country to the Islamic militants who attacked Mumbai in November.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, In Iraq the US inaugurated its largest embassy ever in the heart of the Green Zone, officially opening the $700 million fortress-like compound that was built as a testament to America's commitment to Iraq. Four bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad just before noon, killing four people and wounding 19. Subhi Hassan, who handles political relations for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and a bodyguard were killed after unidentified gunmen chased down their car after it passed through a checkpoint. US troops killed a civilian in a vehicle after the driver failed to heed warnings to stop in Baqouba.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, Israel consolidated its hold on parts of the Gaza Strip, seizing high-rise buildings on the outskirts of the territory's biggest city as a stream of world leaders headed for the region to press for a truce. About 12 Palestinian children were killed. The 10th day of fighting put the Palestinian death toll at an estimated 550. 3 Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded by friendly fire. Gaza health officials said an Israeli airstrike outside a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip killed 39 people, many of them children. An Israeli missile struck a building in Zeitoun where Palestinians had been herded. At least 30 people were killed. 4 members of the Haji family, including their three-year-old daughter, were killed and another nine people were injured when an Israeli tank opened fire on them in the Zeitun area, despite the fact that they were holding a white flag. In 2011 Israel's military advocate general closed an investigation into the white flag incident due to lack of evidence.
(AP, 1/5/09)(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A3)(AP, 1/11/09)(Econ, 1/17/09, p.49)(AFP, 4/12/11)
2009 Jan 5, Israeli forces directly targeted the house of Wa’el Fares Hamdi al-Samouni, and its vicinity, killing 21 persons and injuring many others. Between January 4-7, 27 members of the Samouni family were killed, including 11 children and 6 women, and 35 others were injured. On May 2, 2012, the Israeli military said it has closed its investigation into the shelling deaths of 21 members of a single Palestinian family and would not file any charges. Italian filmmaker Stefano Savona spent nine years trying to piece together what happened. In 2018 her film "Samouni Road", which uses animation and 3D images to reconstruct what happened, received rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.
(http://tinyurl.com/6m5sh7h)(AFP, 5/2/12)(AFP, 5/16/18)
2009 Jan 5, In Indian Kashmir Omar Abdullah (38), a young pro-India Muslim, was sworn in as the new chief minister after elections that attracted a higher turnout than many politicians and voters expected.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Ahmed Aboutaleb (47), a Moroccan immigrant, was installed as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, In Pakistan three bullet-riddled bodies were found along a road some 16 miles east of Miran Shah. Police said suspected Taliban militants had executed a Pakistani construction contractor and two Afghan men they accused of spying for the US.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Sri Lanka’s government troops captured a strategic Tamil Tiger-held town and moved closer to a key rebel base, as citizens raised flags and held a moment of silence to honor the military as it battles to end the country's 25-year-old civil war. The rebels, as well has hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting, were confined to a jungle area slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, The Vatican said that Bishop Allen H. Vigneron will replace Cardinal Adam Joseph Maida at the head of the Detroit archdiocese. The pope also named the auxiliary bishop of Halifax, Claude Champagne, as the new bishop of Edmundston in Canada. Benedict appointed the Rev. Cirilo Flores as new auxiliary bishop of Orange, California.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Turkey restored the citizenship of its most famous poet Monday in a symbolic step meant to show it was addressing criticism of its human rights record in hopes of joining the European Union. Turkey had stripped Nazim Hikmet of his nationality in 1951 at the height of the Cold War because of his communist views, branded him a traitor and imprisoned him for more than a decade. He died in exile in Moscow in 1963.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2010 Jan 5, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in SF overturned Washington state’s ban on voting by convicted felons. The ruling could extend ballots to prisoners in other states.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.C3)
2010 Jan 5, US sports broadcaster ESPN said it will show some World Cup soccer matches live from South Africa in 3-D and Japan's Sony teamed up with Discovery and IMAX to launch a 3-D TV network in the United States.
(AFP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, Google introduced its Nexus One smart phone.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Jan 5, In California 3 biologists with the California Dept. of Fish and Game were killed along with their helicopter pilot while they were surveying deer in the foothills of Sierra national Forest after their vehicle clipped a power line and crashed.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.C2)
2010 Jan 5, In Illinois a small Learjet cargo plane crashed into the Des Plains River in Glenview killing two pilots onboard.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Kentucky lottery officials said Rob Anderson (39) and his wife were winners of the $128.6 million Powerball jackpot, the largest in the state's history. The central Kentucky autoworker held on to the $128 million Powerball ticket he bought on Christmas Eve during some last-minute shopping, after it was printed by mistake.
(AP, 1/7/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Utah deputy sheriff Josie Greathouse Fox was killed following a traffic stop in Delta. Police searched for suspect Roberto Miramontes Roman, who had just sold drugs to a relative of the slain officer.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Bolivian President Evo Morales said he's inviting activists, scientists and government officials from around the world to an alternative climate conference following the failure of a summit in Copenhagen to produce binding agreements.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Bulgaria gunmen shot dead Bobbie Tsankov, a popular radio show host and crime journalist, and critically injured two other men in a busy part of the capital, Sofia.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, A fire in a coal mine in central China killed at least 25 workers. Search efforts continued for at least three others trapped underground at the Lisheng coal mine in Xiangtan city in Hunan province.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 5, Iceland’s Pres. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson rejected a bill passed by parliament on Dec 30 on a state guarantee for €3.9 billion owed to British and Dutch governments. This amount would cover compensation paid to savers in those countries following the collapse of Landsbanki and its internet-banking scheme, Icesave, one of three stricken Icelandic banks nationalized in October 2008.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 5, In India global car manufacturers eyeing the explosive growth of the Indian market unveiled new compact models at the Delhi auto show as they sought to break the dominance of entrenched local producers.
(AFP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Nairobi, Kenya, public transit was paralyzed after minibus drivers went on a 3-day strike following claims of extortion and corruption by police.
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican-born radical Muslim cleric, was stuck in Kenya despite attempts to deport him because other nations are refusing to allow him to transit through their countries. He has called for Americans, Hindus and Jews to be killed. The British government has said he was a key influence on July 7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, The UN food agency said it is stopping aid distribution to about 1 million people in southern Somalia because of attacks against staff and demands by armed groups that aid organizations remove women from their teams.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, Taiwan’s parliament voted to reinstate a ban on imports of US ground beef and offal amid mad cow concerns, challenging a decision by Pres. Ma Ying-jeou to allow some shipments.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A2)
2011 Jan 5, Claiming power beneath the Capitol dome, resurgent Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives as the 112th Congress convened in an era of economic uncertainty. Dozens of tea party-backed lawmakers took office in both houses.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Federal prosecutors said IRS agent Albert Bront (51) pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to filing false tax returns for himself and two innocent relatives. The false tax form claims included bogus alimony and mortgage deductions.
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 5, The US said it has decided against renewing a $215 million aid program for farming and infrastructure in Honduras.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, A US Border Patrol agent was involved in a shooting on the Arizona border with Mexico that resulted in the death of Ramses Barron Torres (17), who was trying to illegally scale the border fence.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)(SFC, 1/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 5, A US panel spread blame for the deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill beyond BP to Halliburton and Transocean, accusing all three of "systemic" management failures that could happen again. A full report was due in a week.
(AFP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Nebraska Robert Butler Jr. (17) opened fire at Millard South High School in Omaha wounding his principal and killing the vice-principal before killing himself.
(SFC, 1/6/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 5, In Oakland, Tennessee, explosions and a fire at the Kinematics Research ammunition plant killed one worker.
(SFC, 1/6/11, p.A11)
2011 Jan 5, The USS Kittiwake, a decommissioned 1945-vintage submarine rescue ship, was scuttled in the clear Caribbean waters of the Cayman Islands, where officials say the sunken vessel will attract fish and tourists.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Afghanistan's intelligence agencies said that they have thwarted two major attacks in Kabul in the past 20 days: a plot to assassinate the country's first vice president and a bombing near the president's palace. NATO said two of its service members were killed by roadside bombs, one in southern Afghanistan and the second in the east.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Queensland's premier said Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its coal mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a halt. Officials and scientists said the disastrous floods have spread to 40 towns and threatened the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as tons of sludge poured into the sea.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, A lawyer for the Belarus Helsinki Committee said police had seized computers at its office and taken its director in for questioning.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Brazil five sisters in Sao Paulo state went to police and accused their father of sexually abusing them for over 20 years.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 5, China’s state media said Beijing and Shanghai will be among the first places to put marriage databases online this year. The plan is to have records for all of China online by 2015. Officials were putting marriage records online so lovers and spouses could check for cheaters. The Ministry of Civil Affairs a few years ago said such a project would be operational by last year. The plan now is to have records for all of China online by 2015.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, French automaker Renault suspended three top managers suspected of leaking secrets about electric cars, the auto industry's big hope for the future. Renault and the French secret service suspected Chinese involvement in the affair. In March the firm apologized to the managers after it emerged police found no trace of bank accounts the accused men were alleged to have held and that the source of the spying allegations may have been a fraudster.
(AFP, 1/7/11)(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Guyana a grenade that exploded at a bus depot in Georgetown while still in the hands of the man carrying it. He was the only person killed and was described as a Guyana native who had been released from a US prison and deported back to his home country a few years ago. 19 people were wounded by shrapnel in the explosion, including a 4-year-old boy and his 76-year-old grandmother.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Indian officials said near-freezing temperatures and icy Himalayan winds have killed dozens of people in northern India over the past two weeks and forced schools to close in the capital. A sightseeing bus overturned and plunged into a gorge, killing 22 Indian tourists and injuring 12 others who were visiting Mussoorie at the foot of the Himalayas. The driver fled the scene but was arrested the next day.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iran hanged in public a man who committed a sensational murder captured on video, as well as a drug trafficker who was executed in a prison in the northeast of the country. Iranian media in October reported that Yaqub stabbed Mohammad Reza to death in public and in front of two policemen.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iranian authorities arrested an American woman (55), reportedly with a microphone hidden in her teeth, on suspicion of spying. The woman was identified in Farsi as Hall Talayan (Hal Talaian, Hal Fayalan). State television first denied the report and then reversed itself saying the woman was arrested while filming a town on the Iran-Azerbaijan border. On Jan 9 state broadcaster IRIB said the woman was seeking an Iranian visa and never entered Iranian territory. She was denied entry and returned to Armenia on Jan 8. The US State Department confirmed that she was safe and not in Iranian custody.
(AP, 1/6/11)(Reuters, 1/6/11)(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 5, Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (36) returned to Iraq. He led several Shiite uprisings against American forces in Iraq before going into exile in neighboring Iran at least three years ago.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians along the Israel-Gaza border. Troops opened fire at two men trying to cross the border fence into Israel.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Japan a giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo, in the first auction of the year at the world's largest wholesale fish market.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Mali an assailant hurled an explosive at France's embassy in Bamako in an attack that wounded two Malian security guards. The blast appeared to be small, however, and caused only minor damage to an outer gate of the building. A Malian later died of injuries sustained in the attack. On Nov 29 Bachir Simoun (24) of Tunisia was sentenced to death for the attack.
(AP, 1/6/11)(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Mexico a gang of teenagers, most 15-years-old, were detained after a running shootout with officers in Ciudad Juarez. Acapulco police said they found the bodies of three men tossed into a sewer. The victims had been shot in the head and in the chest.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Morocco said it had arrested a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) among 26 others who planned to attack security services and rob banks using weapons they hid in an area of the disputed Western Sahara.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, North Korea proposed "unconditional" talks with Seoul to mend battered cross-border ties, in its most conciliatory remarks since cranking up tensions by shelling a South Korean island. South Korea dismissed the North Korean offer.
(AFP, 1/5/11)(Reuters, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Swedish officials said 50 to 100 jackdaw birds, a type of crow. were found lying in a snow-covered street in the southwestern town of Falkoeping.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Turkey authorities searching for mass graves of Kurds, who disappeared in the 1990s, unearthed the bones of eight people in a field in Bitlis province in southeast Turkey.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Venezuela supporters and opponents of Hugo Chavez held rival rallies to mark the start of a new parliament shorn of power by the radical socialist leader's assumption of decree rule. Larry Tovar Acuna, a convicted drug trafficker who has been in and out of prison, was recaptured by Venezuelan authorities after a shootout with police.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Vietnam police roughed up Christian Marchant, an American diplomat, and repeatedly slammed a car door on his legs when he went to visit a prominent dissident. The encounter prompted a strong US protest.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2012 Jan 5, Pres. Obama announced a new “strategic guidance" regarding the future of American military power.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.30)
2012 Jan 5, A US Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The event was made public a day later and Iran's government on Jan 7 welcomed the rescue, calling it a positive humanitarian gesture. Iran's hard-line Fars news agency called the rescue operation a Hollywood dramatization of a routine event.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 5, Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered the transfer of the prison at Bagram, sometimes called "Afghanistan's Guantanamo," to Afghan control within a month, citing reports of human rights violations there. Four US soldiers from the Indiana National Guard were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan as they worked to clear a supply route.
(AFP, 1/5/12)(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 5, The African Union asked the UN to authorize an increase of its peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia by 5,700 to 17,700 amid mounting attacks by Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Colombia a criminal band called the Urabenos began a 2-day shut down of a northern swathe of the country in retaliation for the Jan 1 death of their leader, Juan de Dios Usaga.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.37)
2012 Jan 5, In Chile shifting winds caused flames to sweep over a group of firefighters battling wildfires, killing six of them, badly burning two and leaving another missing.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, China’s state media said Poyang Lake, the country’s largest freshwater lake, has shrunk to its smallest size in years due to drought, endangering the ecology in the area and fishermen's livelihoods.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Iraq explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, killing at least 27 people. Hours later a suicide attack hit Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, killing 45. A series of bombings targeting members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority claimed the lives of at least 78 people.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was indicted alongside a number of other people for allegedly taking bribes in a massive property scandal.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Japan a deep-pocketed restaurateur shelled out nearly $750,000 for a tuna at the Tsukiji fish market, smashing the record price for a single bluefin.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Wilson Sossion of the Kenya National Union of Teachers said that rioting parents have forcefully closed at least 10 primary schools. They are angry that their children failed national exams that determine if the children get into high school.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Mexican police captured Baltazar Saucedo Estrada (38), an alleged member of the Zetas drug cartel. He was considered the mastermind behind the Aug 25 casino fire that killed 52 people in the northern city of Monterrey.
(AP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, Myanmar's government approved the National League for Democracy to run in upcoming by-elections that will return Aung San Suu Kyi's party to mainstream politics after two decades.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Nigeria the two suspected Boko Haram members were killed after resisting arrest in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators who staged a protest in Kano against soaring fuel prices. Residents said an attack at Good Will Hotel in Mubi killed five people, all of them Igbos. Gunmen opened fire on worshippers at a church on the outskirts of the city of Gombe, killing six people, including the pastor's wife.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Pakistan unidentified gunmen kidnapped British Dr. Khalil Rasjed Dale (60) of the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Baluchistan province. The bullet-scarred bodies of 15 members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary were found, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped on Dec 23 in the militant-infested northwest. On April 29 Dale’s beheaded body was found in Quetta.
(AFP, 1/5/12)(Reuters, 4/29/12)
2012 Jan 5, In the southern Philippines a landslide tore through a tiny gold-mining village, killing at least 31 people in Napnapan village, Mindanao island. Up to 39 people were still missing.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/6/12)(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 5, In southern Sweden dozens of police took to the streets of Malmo to try calm the public and to collect tips about the attacks, which come only a year after a suspected serial shooter was arrested in the city. In less than six weeks, five people have been shot dead in this city of 250,000, including a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Syrian state-TV reported that authorities have released more than 500 prisoners accused of involvement in anti-regime activities. Avaaz, an online global activist group, issued a report saying 617 people have been confirmed killed under torture by President Bashar Assad's forces as they cracked down on the revolt. Avaaz said that 37,000 people remain in detention.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Thai wildlife officials said body parts from a dead wild elephant, found on Jan 2 without its tusks, tail and penis, were likely destined for restaurants in tourist areas. The creature, which was discovered in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Myanmar border.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Tunisia Ammar Gharsalla (48), a jobless father of three, poured petrol and set himself ablaze in front of the main office of the governorate of Gafsa after three ministers visiting the area to look into the unemployment problem refused to meet him. He had been part of a group of protesters staging a sit-in for days in front of the Gafsa government office to highlight the unemployment problem in the phosphate-rich region. Gharsalla died on Jan 9.
(AFP, 1/6/12)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.47)
2012 Jan 5, In Vietnam six police and army officers were injured in the northern port city of Haiphong during a guerrilla-style clash between authorities and farmers who tried to fend off a land eviction by laying homemade land mines and firing improvised shotguns. Doan Van Vuon (49) had long been at odds with authorities who proposed evicting him from 19 hectares (47 acres) of swamp land leased in 1993 on a 14-year contract. He had converted the area into a seafood farm. On Jan 17 PM Nguyen Tan Dung called for an investigation.
(AP, 1/17/12)
2013 Jan 5, In Colorado a gun man in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, fired shots at police before he was gunned down. Inside the home SWAT officers found the bodies of 3 adults.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 5, In North Carolina Pat McCrory was sworn in as governor, becoming the first Republican to head the state in 20 years.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 5, In Canada aboriginal demonstrators disrupted passenger rail service on routes connecting Toronto with Ottawa and Montreal, a day after PM Harper agreed to meet with First Nations leaders to discuss grievances behind a growing native protest movement.
(Reuters, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In the Central African Republic the Seleka alliance rebels took Alindao town raising their control to 11 towns.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Egypt unidentified gunmen shot and killed an Egyptian policeman in northern Sinai's main city of el-Arish.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Hungary journalist Zsolt Bayer, a founding member of the governing Fidesz party, wrote a newspaper column in which he said: "a significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals and they behave like animals."
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 5, Indonesia anti-terror police shot and killed 5 suspected Islamist militants over the last 24 hours in raids on the island of Sumbawa.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 5, In Kenya a poaching gang used gunfire to kill an entire family of 11 elephants in Tsavo National Park for their ivory tusks.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 5, A Moroccan family of 5 returning home died when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Grenoble airport near the French Alps.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In northwest Nigeria suspected armed robbers raided three villages in Zamfara state, killing at least 7 people and wounding 7 more.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2013 Jan 5, Northern Ireland police used water cannons to fend off brick-hurling protesters in Belfast as demonstrations continued over flying the British flag.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 5, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels and government troops clashed in suburbs south of Damascus, including Harasta and Daraya. The Observatory, which relies on reports by activists on the ground, said government troops had arrested several residents in raids in the suburb of Qatana.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Venezuela allies of cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez chose to retain Diosdado Cabello as the National Assembly president. He could be in line to step in as a caretaker leader in some circumstances.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Zimbabwe eight people died in a bus crash that brought the traffic accident death toll during the holiday period to the highest on record in the country. The central police traffic command said 209 people have died in accidents since Dec. 15.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2014 Jan 5, A US Coast Guard heavy icebreaker left Australia for Antarctica to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard Chinese and Russian icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent's eastern edge.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Colorado a co-pilot was killed and two pilots injured when a private jet crashed and burst into flames at the airport that serves Aspen.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Bangladesh held parliamentary elections. The ruling Awami League won 232 of the 300 elected seats as about half the seats were uncontested due to a boycott by the main opposition party. At least 21 people were killed in election-related violence. Alleged ballot stuffing by the ruling party pushed the turnout just over 40%.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)(AP, 1/6/14)(SSFC, 1/12/14, p.A6)
2014 Jan 5, In Burkina Faso 75 officials announced their resignation from the ruling party, ratcheting up political tension before elections scheduled for next year. They said democracy had "disappeared" from President Blaise Compaore's Congress for Democracy and Progress party.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, In the CAR a hand grenade attack on a Bangui market left four people injured, including two women and a Burundian soldier from MISCA, the African force deployed in the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In China worshippers at the Beida Mosque in Guyuan, Ningxia region, were handing out traditional cakes when a rush for food triggered a stampede that left 14 dead.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, An Egyptian court gave suspended one-year sentences to 12 activists including youth leaders of the 2011 uprising for an attack on a former presidential candidate's headquarters.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Iraq a new wave of bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 20 people. Government forces battling an al Qaeda offensive near the Syrian border launched an air strike on Ramadi killing 25 Islamist militants. 22 soldiers and 12 civilians were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 1/5/14)(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Israel over 30,000 African migrants, many holding banners demanding freedom for compatriots jailed as illegal job-seekers, protested in a main Tel Aviv square against a new open-ended detention law.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Lebanon one man was shot dead and six people were wounded in clashes in Tripoli between districts that support rival sides in neighboring Syria's civil war.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Libya's navy blocked an oil tanker from illegally loading crude at an eastern port that has been held for months by armed protesters demanding more autonomy from Tripoli.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, Portuguese football legend Eusebio (71), the top scorer in the 1966 World Cup, died. The Mozambique-born striker made his name at Benfica, winning 11 league titles and one European Cup during a 15-year spell there.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia human body parts fell from the sky in the city of Jeddah, with police saying they could be the remains of a person trapped in an airplane's wheel bay.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, A Saudi court jailed five people for up to 30 years on charges including plotting to blow up an oil refinery on behalf of Al-Qaeda.
(AFP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, Fighting continued across South Sudan, even as peace talks between the government and rebels were set to begin in Ethiopia.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Spanish police arrested Abdeluahid Sadik Mohamed at Malaga airport after arriving on a flight bound from Istanbul. He was suspected of belonging to an al-Qaida linked terror organization and participating in the Syrian conflict.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In southern Switzerland 4 skiers were killed and another was in a critical condition after a series of avalanches hit the Alps.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Syrian opposition fighters seized a compound garrisoned by an al-Qaida-linked rebel faction, in some of the most serious infighting to date within the vast array of rebel groups trying to topple Pres. Assad.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Thailand thousands of anti-government protesters marched through Bangkok, a prelude to a broader action next week when they say they will shut down the city in their bid to scuttle a February election and topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In northern Yemen at least 10 people were killed in a 2nd day of clashes between Shiite rebels and Sunni tribesmen fighting alongside hardline Salafists. In Hadramawt province a tribesman was killed at an army checkpoint.
(AFP, 1/5/14)(AFP, 1/6/14)
2015 Jan 5, The US Justice Department said it has charged two men, Cherno Njie (57) and Papa Faal (46), for their involvement in the failed Dec. 30 attempt to overthrow the government of Gambia.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The California Dept. of Motor Vehicles wrote an advisory saying any passenger vehicle used or maintained for the transportation of persons for hire, compensation of profit is a commercial vehicle.
(SFC, 1/24/15, p.A1)
2015 Jan 5, In NYC Thomas Gilbert Jr., founder of hedge fund Wainscott Capital Partners, was shot and killed by his son Tommy Gilbert (29), who was soon arrested. In 2019 he was sentenced in Manhattan to at least 30 years in prison for the crime.
(SFC, 1/7/15, p.A14)(AP, 9/29/19)
2015 Jan 5, In Miami lesbian and gay couples were wed hours before Florida’s coming out party as the nation’s 36th state to legalize same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 1/6/15, p.A12)
2015 Jan 5, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck near the headquarters of the European police training mission in Kabul, killing one Afghan civilian and wounding 16 people.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Southern Australia. State Premier Jay Weatherill said that hundreds of fire fighters have taken advantage of milder conditions in recent days to attempt to contain the fire which has razed 12,500 hectares (31,000 acres) of countryside in hills northwest of Adelaide.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Bangladesh two men on a motorbike opened fire on a group of anti-government activists in the northwest, killing two amid heightened tensions on the anniversary of a general election boycotted by a major opposition alliance last year. Two more activists from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party were killed during clashes with supporters of the governing party and security forces.
(AP, 1/5/15)(SFC, 1/6/15, p.A4)
2015 Jan 5, In CongoDRC UN and Democratic Republic of Congo forces seized several rebel bases in an offensive launched against a Burundi rebel group.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Germany thousands of protesters in several cities rallied against Muslim immigration. Rallies organized by a new grassroots movement called PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, have become a weekly event in the eastern city of Dresden.
(Reuters, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, Grenada's PM Keith Mitchell said the eastern Caribbean island will only have to pay half of a $22 million debt it owes Taiwan with a payment plan for loans it awarded over a 10-year period.
(AP, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, Indonesia’s transportation ministry announced harsh measures against everyone who allowed AirAsia Flight 8501 to take off without proper permits, including the suspension of the airport's operator and officials in the control tower.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The Islamic State jihadist group posted a series of pictures online indicating the execution of 8 people, four of them policemen, in Iraq's Salaheddin province.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The US-led coalition launched 20 more air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq over the last 24 hours, targeting fighters for the militant group and hitting its crude oil operations.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Ireland said the United States will permit imports of beef from the country, the first European Union state allowed to resume sales since the mad cow disease scare over 15 years ago.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Lebanon began imposing unprecedented restrictions on the entry of Syrians, as it struggled to cope with well over a million refugees feeling the civil war next door.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Libya's official government banned Palestinians, Syrians and Sudanese from entry because their countries are undermining the oil producing nation's security. The government of PM Abdullah al-Thinni runs only a rump state in eastern Libya and would therefore only be able to enforce the ban at the eastern airports of Tobruk and Labraq and the land crossing with Egypt.
(Reuters, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Mali at least 5 people were killed in a gun attack on an army base close to the Mauritanian frontier.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Pakistan a US drone strike in North Waziristan killed Ubaidullah (aka Qari Imran), in charge of al-Qaida's Indian branch of Afghan affairs, as well as 5 other fighters. In the 3rd week of this month another strike killed deputy chief Raja Suleman (aka Ustad Ahmed Farouq).
(AP, 4/12/15)(http://tinyurl.com/poa2hjd)(Reuters, 4/23/15)
2015 Jan 5, Pakistani troops fired gunshots and mortar shells that killed an Indian soldier in northern Kashmir.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he would no longer comply with the terms of his house arrest and had cut off his monitoring tag.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Bitstamp, a Slovenia-based bitcoin exchange bitcoin, halted operations and reported that 19,000 of the currency units had vanished. Bitstamp resumed operation on Jan 9.
(http://tinyurl.com/ne46mkd)(Econ, 1/10/15, p.58)
2015 Jan 5, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead after they opened fire on rangers in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, South Korean media reported that a young North Korean soldier crossed the border in late December and stole money and food at a house before killing four residents in China's northeastern city of Helong.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Taiwan’s justice ministry granted former president Chen Shui-bian (2000-2006) medical parole as he served a 20-year prison sentence on corruption charges.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.35)
2015 Jan 5, Police in Turkey detained 20 more police officers suspected of conducting illegal wiretaps in a new wave of raids in twelve cities.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In eastern Ukraine 12 servicemen were killed and 21 injured when their bus collided with two heavy trucks on a snowy road.
(AP, 1/6/15)
2016 Jan 5, Pres. Obama announced executive decisions to tighten gun laws.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A1)
2016 Jan 5, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Flint over problems with lead in the city’s drinking water.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A12)
2016 Jan 5, In Afghanistan one US service member was killed and two wounded in an operation near Marjah in Helmand province.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In China a man upset over a financial dispute set fire to a moving bus and fled as the flames trapped people inside, killing 17 and injuring 32. Several hours later police caught Ma Yongping (33) on a construction site in Yinchuan, Ningxia region.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, European equities staged a timid rebound, winning moderate support after Beijing pumped cash into the money market to soothe worries over the slowing Chinese economy.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Pierre Boulez (90), the former principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic, died at his home in Germany. The French conductor moved between conducting, composition and teaching over a long career that made him one of the leading figures in modern classical music.
(AP, 1/6/16)(Econ, 1/16/16, p.92)
2016 Jan 5, India said defense forces have killed the last of the six militants who attacked the Pathankot Air Force base near the Pakistan border over the weekend.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Libya Islamic State militants attacked checkpoints near the oil port of Es Sider for a second day and an oil storage tank in the port was set on fire by a long-range rocket. 2 guards were killed and 16 wounded in the fighting.
(Reuters, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Nigeria three female suicide bombers sneaked into Izghe and detonated bombs hidden under their garments, killing 7 other people and destroying three houses. A male suicide bomber also blew himself up, killing himself and 4 other people.
(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 5, A Palestinian stabbed and wounded a soldier in the southern West Bank before being shot dead.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, The diplomatic crisis surrounding Saudi Arabia and Iran widened as Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Tehran and Bahrain severed air links in the face of growing international concern.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Gunmen in Syria shot and killed Abu Rateb al-Homsy, the commander of an ultraconservative rebel group in the central Homs province.
(AP, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkey’s military said security forces have killed at least 14 militants in the mainly Kurdish southeast over the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Turkey the bodies of 36 migrants, at least seven of them children, were found at two sites along the Aegean coast after they apparently tried to cross to the nearby Greek island of Lesbos.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkish forces, acting on a tip, conducted an operation on a Bolivian-flagged ship in international waters off the coast of Libya and seized 13 tons of marijuana. It was Turkey's first anti-narcotics operation in international waters.
(AP, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov slammed the country's anti-smoking strategy at a televised government meeting. Authorities soon began to force shops to stop selling cigarettes, but a ban on cigarette sales was not yet officially announced or published by the government.
(AFP, 1/14/16)
2016 Jan 5, Venezuela’s opposition took majority control of the National Assembly. 163 of 167 lawmakers were sworn in as the government-stacked Supreme Court barred four from taking their seats under probes of electoral fraud.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A4)
2016 Jan 5, In Yemen the governor of the southern port city of Aden survived a car bomb attack that killed two bodyguards and critically wounded three others.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Zimbabwe media reported that Ellen Chiweshe, whose title was group captain, has been promoted to become the southern African country's first female Air Commodore, the No. 3 post in the air force.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2017 Jan 5, US Pres.-elect Donald Trump selected former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to lead the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A5)
2017 Jan 5, America's top intelligence official said that Russia undoubtedly interfered in the US 2016 presidential election but stopped short of using the explosive description "an act of war," telling lawmakers such a call isn't within the purview of the US intelligence community. Senior US officials said the CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the Democratic National Committee and party leaders to WikiLeaks at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin through third parties.
(AP, 1/5/17)(Reuters, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, The US State and Treasury department said Hamza bin Laden, a son of Osama bin Laden, and Ibrahim al-Banna, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have been added to the US counter-terrorism blacklist, a move to keep them from using the US financial system.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Chicago four people were charged with hate crimes in connection with a video broadcast live on Facebook that showed a mentally disabled white man (18) being beaten and taunted, threatened with a knife and forced to drink from a toilet.
(SFC, 1/6/17, pea)(SFC, 1/7/17, pea)
2017 Jan 5, Mercedes-Benz said it is recalling nearly 48,000 SUVs in the US to fix a sensor problem that could stop the front passenger air bag from inflating in a crash.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Argentine firefighters struggled to control a series of wildfires that have devastated nearly one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of the country's famous pampas. The largest was started by a lightning strike on New Year's weekend and was now 10 km across.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Bahrain announced that it has restored the power of its domestic spy service to make some arrests, reversing a key reform recommended in the wake of the crackdown that followed the country's 2011 Arab Spring protests.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Bahrain's prosecution extended by two weeks the detention of Shiite opposition leader Nabil Rajab over spreading "false information" about the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Brazilian President Michel Temer said the country will build new prisons in every state to relieve overcrowding after a "horrific" riot that left 56 inmates dead.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said women in the Lake Chad basin, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, have been forced to sell sex to survive due to an insurgency by Boko Haram fighters that has driven millions from their homes and left children to starve.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Cyprus' biggest bank said it has fully repaid 11.4 billion euros ($11.9 billion) of emergency cash it received to stay afloat during a 2013 banking crisis that forced the island to need a multibillion euro rescue deal from its eurozone partners.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said one suspect was killed and three others arrested in a police raid in connection with a bomb attack that killed six policemen in Cairo on December 9. Those arrested in the raid on the outskirts of Cairo belonged to a militant group called the Hasm Movement, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, French authorities started slaughtering ducks in the main foie gras-producing region to try to contain a dangerous form of bird flu.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Guyana narrowly passed a bill late today that allows officials to raid the commercial bank accounts of business owners who owe a large amount of unpaid taxes.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Haiti Guy Philippe (48) a key figure in the 2004 ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and later ran for president himself, was arrested. He had been indicted in 2005 on US cocaine trafficking charges but managed to elude capture.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, An Indonesian government minister clarified that the country was suspending only part of its military cooperation with Australia, as that country promised its investigation of an alleged insult of Indonesian beliefs was nearly complete. Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne said the issue began in November, after an Indonesian military officer raised concerns about teaching materials and remarks made at an army language-training facility in western Australia.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Iraqi forces launched an offensive against the Islamic State group near the Syrian border, piling further pressure on the jihadists' crumbling "caliphate".
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Iraq several attacks in and around Baghdad killed at least 27 people including a suicide car bombing in a commercial area in central Baghdad that killed at least 11 civilians.
(AP, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A3)
2017 Jan 5, Israeli police questioned PM Benjamin Netanyahu for a second time as part of a probe into whether he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Namibian plaintiffs, including some from New York, sued Germany over a genocide carried out by German colonial troops in the early 1900s, in which more than 100,000 people were killed. They sued under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 US law often invoked in human rights cases.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, Nigerian soldiers found one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram nearly three years ago wandering in the bush with her baby near the Islamic extremist group's forest stronghold. More than 200 of the girls remain missing.
(AP, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 5, A Nigerian official said three teenage girls suspected of planning a triple suicide bomb attack in a town frequently targeted by Boko Haram have been shot dead. The girls were intercepted at Bakin Dutse village, some five km from Madagali.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Philippines’s police chief Ronald dela Rosa said security forces had effectively broken the backbone of Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines (AKP) with the killing of its leader, Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, and the arrest of his three AKP colleagues.
(Reuters, 1/7/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka hundreds of opposition supporters and farmers protested the government's plan to lease a southern seaport to a Chinese-controlled joint venture in exchange for the heavy loans to build the port.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, A Swiss insurance agency ruled that an Uber driver is an employee for whom the company must pay social security contributions, dealing a blow to the US ride-hailing platform that says drivers are independent contractors.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Syria at least ten people were killed in a car blast in the coastal province of Latakia where two Russian bases are located.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Syria the Jabar citadel on the banks of Lake Assad was taken by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.
(Reuters, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, Thailand’s Interior Ministry said flooding in the south has killed at least five people, disrupted transportation and spoiled tourists' holidays at one of the country's most popular resort islands.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Two senior Turkish military officers were jailed for life for involvement in July's failed coup attempt that killed almost 250 people, marking the first conviction related to the putsch.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In western Turkey a car bombing outside a courthouse in Izmir killed two people. The Kurdish PKK militant group was suspected. Turkish police shot dead two assailants. A day later police detained 18 people in connection to the attack.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 5, Zimbabwe's wildlife agency said it has sold 35 elephants to China to ease overpopulation and raise funds for conservation, amid criticism from animal welfare activists that such sales are unethical.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2018 Jan 5, The US imposed sanctions against five Iranian firms alleged to have been working on an illegal ballistic missile program, linking the move to the protests, and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The United States imposed sanctions on four current or former Venezuelan government officials, including a former food minister accused by the opposition of corruptly managing food imports.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A severe winter storm in the US Northeast brought plunging temperatures, driving regional natural gas prices to all-time highs, disrupting refinery operations and causing electrical outages.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The Mega Millions $450 million grand prize winning ticket was sold at a store in Port Richey, Florida. On Jan 12 Shane Missler (20) of Port Richey claimed the prize and chose to get $282 million at once.
(SSFC, 1/7/18, p.A7)(SFC, 1/13/18, p.A6)
2018 Jan 5, In Louisiana a house fire in Baton Rouge killed a woman and two children. Another young woman and a boy (5) were hospitalized in critical condition.
(SFC, 1/6/18, p.A6)
2018 Jan 5, Astronaut John Young (b.1930) died at his home in Houston. He commanded the Apollo 16 lunar voyage and walked on the moon in April, 1972.
(SSFC, 1/7/18, p.C11)
2018 Jan 5, Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said Crown-of-thorns starfish are feasting on parts of the reef system, which is already threatened by rising ocean temperatures.
(SFC, 1/6/18, p.A2)
2018 Jan 5, Large parts of eastern Canada grappled with extreme weather as temperatures plunged to record lows in Toronto, while heavy winds downed power lines, contributing to power outages affecting more than 85,000 customers in Nova Scotia.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, China tightened limits on critically important energy supplies to North Korea and stepped up other trade restrictions under intensified UN nuclear sanctions.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Egypt a hot air balloon crash near Luxor killed a South African tourist and injured several others. High winds and sandstorms swept the country, clouding the skies at Cairo's main airport and forcing the closure of a number of Red Sea ports.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Hess Corp. reported another significant oil discovery in an area known as the Stabroek Block in deep Atlantic Ocean waters off Guyana.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In France protests over press freedom and the deteriorating state of human rights in Turkey greeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he arrived in Paris for talks with President Emmanuel Macron.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A Georgian court sentenced former leader Mikheil Saakashvili in absentia to three years in prison for seeking to cover up evidence about the murder of a Georgian banker when he was president - a verdict which he denounced as illegal.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A Greek court ruled that two Macedonian men arrested on an international warrant issued by their country on charges related to a wiretapping scandal should be extradited.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Iran's state TV reported that tens of thousands of government supporters rallied across the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and accusing the US of instigating the largest anti-government protests in nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Kashmir 13 people were swept away by three near-simultaneous avalanches at three places in a stretch of about 10 km (6 miles) on a mountainous road in Kupawara district. Two people were rescued. 11 bodies were recovered the next day.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Mexico five decapitated human heads were found on the hood of a taxi in the drug violence-plagued state of Veracruz. Thirty people were killed and seven more suffered gunshot wounds over the last two days of drug trafficking-fueled violence in the northern state of Chihuahua.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Moldova a court temporarily suspended the powers of President Igor Dodon, paving the way for parliament to bypass his veto and enact a law that would restrict Russian TV broadcasts as foreign propaganda.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Myanmar six soldiers were injured in an insurgent attack in northern Rakhine state. The military said the attackers were from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the militant group blamed for attacks on police posts.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Nigeria Julius Ayuk Tabe, the Nigeria-based chairman of the Governing Council of Ambazonia, a Cameroon separatist movement, was taken into custody in Abuja along with six aides.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, North Korea agreed to hold official talks with the South next week, the first in more than two years, hours after the United States and South Korea delayed a military exercise amid a standoff over the North's nuclear and missile programs.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A senior Pakistani senator expressed disappointment at the US decision to suspend military aid, saying it will be detrimental to bilateral relations.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Papua New Guinea the Kadovar Island volcano, thought to be dormant, began spewing ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of more than 500 residents.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In the Philippines Joel Reyes, the ex-governor of the western island of Palawan, was released from jail after a court voided the case against him. He was arrested in 2015 for the killing of Gerry Ortega, a prominent campaigner and radio host who frequently accused Reyes of massive corruption.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile over the kingdom's south near the border with Yemen, hours after Yemeni rebels said they had launched an attack.
(AFP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Angry Sudanese queued outside bakeries in Khartoum as bread prices doubled overnight, with bakers blaming a government decision to stop importing wheat.
(AFP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Sudan closed the border with Eritrea a week after Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir announced a six-month state of emergency in the regions of Kassala and North Kurdufan. Sudanese police fired teargas to disperse some 400 demonstrators who marched through the city of Sennar to protest against a hike in bread prices.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the shutdown of all air and maritime traffic with the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire for the next 72 hours. He accused island leaders of being complicit in the illegal trafficking of goods and resources.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Yemen Brigadier General Taher al-Aqeeli, chief of staff of the Yemeni army, suffered minor injuries in a land mine explosion, while he was inspecting government positions in Khub wa al-Sha'af, the largest district in al-Jouf province.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Zimbabwe former foreign minister Walter Mzembi and ex-energy minister Samuel Undenge were charged with "criminal abuse of office." They both denied wrongdoing. Both granted bail the next day.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2019 Jan 5, Afghan government employee Javid Noori, who also worked as a part-time journalist in the Farah region was kidnapped and killed by Taliban militants. His body was found three days later. Noori was abducted from a bus along with 30 other passengers in a remote part of the province.
(Reuters, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 5, In CongoDRC the country's powerful Catholic church warned of a popular "uprising" if untrue results are announced.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Heavy snow caused travel chaos in parts of Austria and Germany as authorities closed roads and train routes because of avalanche danger and airports reported weather-related cancelations. A 20-year-old skier died in an avalanche on Mount Teisen, near the Austrian border.
(AP, 1/5/19)(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Brazil a special deployment of troops began fanning out in the northern city of Fortaleza with orders to stop a spike in violent attacks by criminal gangs against banks, buses and shops. Intelligence reports published by media suggested gangs were revolting against tough new measures recently imposed in the state's prisons.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, French "yellow vests" marched through Paris and other cities in protest against high living costs and the perceived indifference of Pres. Emmanuel Macron, whose government this week hardened its stance against them. Former light heavyweight boxer Christophe Dettinger (37) was filmed beating up police officers in Paris during the protests. Dettinger turned himself in to investigators on Jan. 7. On February 13 Dettinger was convicted of assault and given a one-year prison sentence.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)(AP, 1/7/19)(AP, 2/14/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Hungary thousands marched through Budapest's city center to protest against a new law that allows employers to ask staff to work up to 400 hours per year of overtime.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In southern India twin arson and bomb attacks rocked Kerala state, continuing a violent backlash that followed the entry of two women into the Sabarimala Hindu temple that forbids female devotees.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, An Indian court declared tycoon Vijay Mallya (62) a "fugitive economic offender," a ruling that empowers authorities to confiscate his properties and other assets. Mallya, who left India in 2016, is accused of money laundering and cheating Indian banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Japan a 612-pound (278-kg) bluefin tuna sold for a record 333.6 million yen ($3 million) at the first auction of 2019, after Tokyo's famed Tsukiji market was moved to a new site on the city's waterfront.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Madagascar police fired teargas to disperse some 500 supporters of the losing candidate in last month's presidential election, in the fifth such protest this week.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Mexico's Pres. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a plan to stimulate economic activity for 43 municipalities in six states just south of the US border.
(SSFC, 1/6/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 5, In Pakistan a car bomb exploded in a Peshawar neighborhood wounding three people and damaging several shops.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Gaza authorities arrested five Palestinians on suspicion of ransacking the offices of President Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestine Television station.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In northeastern Spain four people died and a baby girl in a critical condition was among the injured, in two separate tower block fires.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Switzerland-based shipping company MSC said that it was committed to finding and retrieving the containers that went overboard on Jan. 2 in a North Sea storm until the last one is found.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, The Istanbul-based Orthodox patriarch signed the formal decree confirming the creation of an independent Ukrainian church, marking a break with the Russian church that has angered Moscow.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Vanuatu Mungau Dain (24), a star in the Oscar-nominated film "Tanna," died in the capital Port Vila, after contracting a leg infection that wasn't quickly treated.
(http://tinyurl.com/yclcz2ww)(AP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 5, The National Society of Film Critics chose Chloe Zhao's low-budget debut feature, "The Rider," as best picture of 2018. The society voted for Olivia Colman as best actress in "The Favourite," and Ethan Hawke as best actor in "First Reformed." The top accolade for best supporting actor went to Steve Yeun of "Burning," while Regina King of "If Beale Street Could Talk" nabbed best supporting actress.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Egypt a policeman was killed late today as he was trying to defuse an explosive device near a church in a residential Cairo district.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces handed over IS fighters and civilians from Kazakhstan to their country. This included five fighters, 11 women and 30 children.
(AP, 1/7/19)
2019 Jan 5, In northern India six schoolchildren and their bus driver were killed as the vehicle rolled down a gorge on a hilly road in Himachal Pradesh state.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In eastern Syria a missile attack by the Islamic State group killed at least one Kurdish fighter and wounded two British soldiers embedded with them.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, Venezuela's opposition-controlled but toothless National Assembly declared Nicolas Maduro's presidency illegitimate, calling on the military to support efforts to restore democracy.
(AFP, 1/6/19)
2020 Jan 5, At the 77th Golden Globe Awards World War One movie "1917" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," set in 1960s Tinseltown, won the top movie prizes at the Golden Globes on a night packed with upsets and hot-button issues at the start of Hollywood's awards season.
(Reuters, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that the Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years.
(SSFC, 1/5/20, p.A10)
2020 Jan 5, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote this week on a resolution meant to limit President Donald Trump's war powers.
(Business Insider, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, At least five people were killed and dozens were injured in a crash early today involving multiple vehicles on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that wildfires that have been ravaging swaths of Australia have burned through one-third of Kangaroo Island, killing a father and his son and leaving behind a scorched wasteland and a devastated community. The fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5- 2020 Jan 17, In China hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country with symptoms of the coronavirus.
(AP, 4/14/20)
2020 Jan 5, Croatians voted in an election that may oust the president as frustration over corruption and ambitions for deeper integration in the EU may rebalance politics in the bloc’s newest member. Incumbent Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic faced former PM Zoran Milanovic. Croatians shot down President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s bid for a second term. Zoran Milanovic, who ran the government from 2011 to 2015, won 52.7% of votes.
(Bloomberg, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In India masked assailants beat students and teachers with sticks on the campus of a prestigious university in New Delhi, injuring more than 20 people in an attack opposition lawmakers are trying to link to the government.
(AP, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 5, Black-clad mourners packed Iran's second city Mashhad as the remains of top general Qasem Soleimani were paraded through the streets after he was killed in a US strike. Iran announced that it will no longer abide by the limits contained in the 2015 nuclear deal.
(AFP, 1/5/20)(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Jan 5, Iraq's Parliament called for the expulsion of US forces from the country in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general, raising the prospect of a troop withdrawal that could cripple the battle against the Islamic State group and allow a resurgence of the extremists.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, Canndoc, an Israeli producer of medical grade cannabis, received a shipment of 250 kilos of dried whole cannabis flowers that it says will help alleviate a local shortage. It came from Canada's Tilray's production plant in Portugal.
(Reuters, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In northern Italy a drunken driver plowed into a group of young German tourists, killing six people and injuring 11 others in the Alto Adige region. A 28-year-old man from the nearby town of Chienes, was arrested on suspicion of highway manslaughter and injury.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In Kenya al-Shabab extremists overran a key military base used by US counterterror forces before dawn. One US service member and two American Department of Defense contractors were killed in the attack on the Manda Bay Airfield. Five US aircraft, including fixed-wing and helicopters, were destroyed and one damaged in the hours-long assault at the airfield in coastal Lamu county. Kenyan police arrested three suspected terrorists who tried to force their way into a British training camp in Laikipia County.
(AP, 1/5/20)(AP, 1/6/20)(SFC, 1/7/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 5, In Lebanon Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the US army will "pay the price" for killing top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi commander in a drone strike.
(AFP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, Venezuela's authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro moved to consolidate his grip on power by taking control of the National Assembly and blocking the re-election of Juan Guaido as the opposition's leader.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A4)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that Donald Trump has signed an executive order that asks secretary of state Mike Pompeo to “assess actions of Antifa activists," stop its members from entering the United States, and see whether it can be classified as a terrorist organization.
(The Independent, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, The US Justice Department said the government collected $7 million in Iranian assets for victims of state-sponsored terrorism.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, US District Judge Mark Cohen rejected President Trump's latest lawsuit seeking to decertify Georgia's presidential election results.
(The Week, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, The US Justice Department tapped a new federal prosecutor to lead the Atlanta office, a day after the Trump-appointed US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. “BJay" Pak, abruptly resigned. It was later reported that the White House pushed the prosecutor to resign before Georgia's US Senate runoff because President Donald Trump was unhappy that he wasn't doing enough to investigate Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud.
(Reuters, 1/9/21)
2021 Jan 5, The Trump administration finalized changes that weaken the government's enforcement powers under a century-old law protecting most American wild bird species.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 5, Voters streamed to polling sites in Georgia in a pair of runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate. The Democrats won both Senate runoffs in Georgia, giving them control of the Senate. Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black senator in the state's history. Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly led Republican Sen. David Perdue.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)(NY Times, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, DeVonta Smith, the wide receiver whose speed and acrobatics electrified Alabama’s offense and helped the Crimson Tide to reach next week’s national championship game against Ohio State, won the Heisman Trophy.
(NY Times, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, California to date had 2,453,115 cases of coronavirus and 27,016 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 283,057 cases and 2,703 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 21,042,929 with the death toll at 357,132.
(sfist.com, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Louisville police fired two detectives, one who shot Breonna Taylor and another who sought the warrant that led to the deadly raid last March 13.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, A Wisconsin prosecutor said that police officers involved in the Aug. 23 Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed will not face charges.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Afghan negotiators resumed talks with the Taliban aimed at finding an end to decades of relentless conflict.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A2)
2021 Jan 5, Britain began its third COVID-19 lockdown with citizens under orders to stay at home and the government calling for one last major national effort to stem the virus before mass vaccinations turn the tide. The UK recorded more than 60,000 COVID-19 cases in daily figures for the first time as the government struggles to deal with a more infectious variant of the virus.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In China Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of one of the country's largest state-controlled asset management firms, was sentenced to death for soliciting $260 million in bribes, corruption, and also bigamy.
(The Telegraph, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, China's official media said the fight to contain the coronavirus in northern Hebei province has entered "wartime mode." Hebei reported 19 local infections and 40 asymptomatic cases between Jan. 2 and Jan. 4.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate from Chinese firm Stemirna Therapeutics has obtained approval to conduct human testing from China's medical products regulator. Tibet Rhodiola Pharma is jointly developing the candidate with Stemirna.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, President Ivan Duque said Colombia's food and drug regulator authorized emergency use of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Denmark imposed new lockdown measures aimed at curbing the rapid spread of a new coronavirus variant that is believed to be more transmissible. Authorities said they expected the new virus variant, first detected in Britain, to be the dominant one in Denmark by mid-February.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Ethiopian police released Reuters cameraman Kumerra Gemechu (38) after detaining him without charge for 12 days.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, The European Union said it would redouble its efforts to save the Iran nuclear agreement despite what it calls Tehran’s “important breach" of commitments made in the 2015 deal by starting to enrich uranium to new levels.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Germany's disease control center reported 944 more COVID-19 deaths. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she has agreed with state governors to extend the country's current lockdown by three weeks until Jan. 31.
(AP, 1/5/21)(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A5)
2021 Jan 5, The Iranian government accused South Korea of holding more than £5 billion of its money “hostage" in its banks, a day after its revolutionary guards stormed and captured a Korean tanker in the Persian Gulf.
(The Telegraph, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, An Israeli security officer shot and killed a Palestinian man who allegedly tried to carry out a stabbing attack in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A senior official said Italy will invest in local biotech company ReiThera to support the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, after the government called results of a Phase 1 trial encouraging. ReiThera is developing the vaccine with Germany's Leukocare and Belgium's Univercells.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A Milan-based appeals court ordered Facebook to pay 3.83 million euros ($4.70 million) in damages to an Italian software development company for copying an app.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Lebanon a bronze bust of Gen. Qassem Soleimani was erected by the Ghobeiry municipality in a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut's airport to commemorate the slain general's supportive role in Lebanon's wars with Israel.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that Malaysian researchers have developed a method to transform the fiber found in normally discarded pineapple leaves to make a strong material that can be used to build the frames for unmanned aircraft, or drones.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened the nation's first full ruling party congress in five years with an admission that his economic plans have failed.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Pakistan dozens of Kashmiri activists rallied in Islamabad to urge the UN to ensure Kashmir's right to self-determination under a decades-old resolution on the disputed region.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Portugal started consultations with other European Union countries to find common ground for a new policy on migration, which has caused humanitarian crises and deep political divisions in the bloc over how to respond.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia Gulf Arab leaders signed a declaration to mark a new page in relations following the kingdom's decision to end a 3 1/2-year embargo of Qatar, easing a rift that deeply divided regional US security allies and frayed social ties across the interconnected Arabian Peninsula.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, said it would voluntarily reduce its production by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in February and March, after Russia pushed to increase output, worried about US shale capitalizing on the group's cuts.
(Reuters, 1/9/21)
2021 Jan 5, In South Korea the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus passed 1,000, while an increasing number of gym owners said they would reopen in protest against strict social distancing rules.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Authorities said three men died in a boat carrying more than 40 migrants and another died upon reaching shore on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. 23,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands in 2020, up from some 3,000 in 2019. More than 500 died in the attempt.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Syria and close ally Russia clashed with the US and other nations over a Western initiative to suspend Syria’s voting rights in the global chemical weapons watchdog for failing to provide details of three chemical attacks in 2017 that investigators blamed on President Bashar Assad’s government.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Thailand confirmed 527 new coronavirus cases, most of them migrant workers who already were isolated, and the government said it was tightening movements of people around the country.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Ukrainian officials said they have seized about 1 metric ton (1.1 tons) of heroin that smugglers intended to take into European Union countries and that four Turkish citizens have been detained in the case. The heroin originated in Pakistan and came into the country via the Black Sea port of Odesa.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro was set to extend his grip on power as the ruling socialist party assumed the leadership of Venezuela’s congress, the last institution in the country it didn’t already control.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A court in Vietnam sentenced three freelance journalists known for their criticism of government to between 11 and 15 years in prison, after finding them guilty of spreading anti-state propaganda. Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan were convicted of "making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state" at a one-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2022 Jan 5, The United States imposed fresh sanctions on Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and current and former officials as Washington warned of further action against those linked to destabilization or corruption.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The US began returning migrants to the Mexican city of Tijuana in an restart of a Trump-era program that forces asylum seekers to wait for US court hearings in Mexico.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Filippo Bernardini (29), a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, saying that he “impersonated, defrauded, and attempted to defraud, hundreds of individuals" over five or more years, obtaining hundreds of unpublished manuscripts in the process.
(NY Times, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it expanded the eligibility of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's booster doses to those 12 to 15 years old.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 57,144,541 with the death toll at 830,503.
(sfist.com, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Chicago officials canceled classes in the nation's third-largest school district amid a dispute with the teachers' union, the latest disruption to US education and life as the Omicron variant spurs a record-setting COVID-19 surge.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Louisiana's governor posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the 1896 US Supreme Court case which upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine that allowed for decades of segregationist laws against Black people. Plessy was arrested in 1892 for violating a state law that required Black people to ride in separate train cars.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opened in Las Vegas with attendees required to wear masks due to COVID-19. Attendance for the 3-day event fell more than 75% compared with its previous in-person event two years ago.
(SSFC, 1/9/22, p.A9)
2022 Jan 5, Nevada-based low-cost carrier Allegiant Air confirmed plans to buy 50 new Boeing 737 MAX jets worth $5.5 billion at list prices in a switch of supplier and strategy as it gears up for a post-pandemic rebound in tourism.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In Philadelphia, Pa., a fire killed 12 people, including 8 children in a house belonging to the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
(NY Times, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra said it aims to introduce a "personal autonomous vehicle" by mid-decade.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said the wave of bird flu in Asia and Europe has a greater risk of spreading to humans because of a high number of variants.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Argentina broke its record for COVID-19 infections, approaching 100,000 daily cases as it faces a third wave of the pandemic, driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, A Bristol Crown Court cleared three men and a woman of causing criminal damage for helping to pull down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th century slave trade magnate, and throw it into Bristol harbor in southwest England during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Britain reported record COVID-19 prevalence for the last week of 2021, with one in 15 people in England infected. PM Boris Johnson said cases were increasing at the fastest rate ever. The UK Health Security Agency said people who test positive for COVID-19 on rapid lateral flow tests will not need to confirm their results with a follow-up PCR test if they are not showing symptoms.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China's top market regulator said it has fined units of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd, and Bilibili Inc for failing to properly report about a dozen deals.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China reported a major drop in COVID-19 infections in the northern city of Xi’an, which has been under a tight lockdown for the past two weeks that has sharply disrupted the lives of its 13 million residents. The National Health Commission announced just 35 new cases in Xi’an, down from 95 the day before.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China's foreign minister began a visit to Kenya, where the government has relied on Chinese loans to develop infrastructure but faces criticism over the resulting debt burden.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, El Salvador said it allowed two Cuban journalists to enter the country after the reporters said they were expelled from the Communist-run island and then barred from entering Nicaragua.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In northern Ethiopia an air strike hit a refugee camp in the Tigray region, killing three Eritrean refugees, including two children.
(Reuters, 1/7/22)
2022 Jan 5, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said thousands of ethnic Tigrayans have been detained in Ethiopia after being deported from Saudi Arabia, suffering brutality from guards and atrocious conditions in both nations.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said a "supersonic" rise in French COVID-19 cases is set to continue in the coming days and there are no signs of the trend reversing.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, ExxonMobil said that it made two additional oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana as the South American country prepares to become the world’s newest major oil producer.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the government will introduce a series of new measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, as she warned the city was on the verge of another outbreak.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Hungary reported 5,270 new COVID-19 cases, a sharp rise from the 3,005 recorded a week ago, as the Omicron variant spreads.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Indian police said they had arrested two men (21) and a woman (18) involved in an online app that shared pictures of Muslim women for a virtual "auction" in an apparent case of communal harassment.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, India reported 534 new COVID-19 deaths, taking that toll to 482,551, and confirmed its first Omicron-related death.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Iraqi government said it has given its approval for the Iraqi National Oil Company to acquire Exxon Mobil Corp's stake in the giant West Qurna 1 oilfield.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, A Katyusha rocket hit an Iraqi military base hosting US forces near Baghdad's international airport. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, An Israeli court sentenced Lahav Nagauker to one year in prison for his involvement in a mob attack on an Arab motorist during a spasm of communal violence last May.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, A local Israeli committee approved plans for the construction of more than 3,500 settler housing units in east Jerusalem, nearly half in a particularly controversial area.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Italy reported a record daily number of new COVID-19 cases at 189,109 against 170,844 the day before, while the daily tally of coronavirus-related deaths fell to 231 from 259.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Italy made COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for people from the age of 50, one of very few European countries to take a similar steps, in an attempt to ease pressure on its health service and reduce fatalities.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The southern Japanese island chain of Okinawa emerged as the epicenter of a new coronavirus surge, with cases more than doubling from the previous day and officials were considering imposing emergency curbs.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a two-week state of emergency in the Central Asian nation's biggest city Almaty and in the western Mangistau province where protests turned violent. Protesters in Almaty stormed the presidential residence and the mayor's office and set both buildings on fire. Former Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev was stripped of his role as head of Kazakhstan's powerful Security Council amid violent street protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, PM Ingrida Simonyte said the Lithuanian government has decided against extending a state of emergency along the country's border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who had arrived from the country.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In the Netherlands new coronavirus cases jumped to a record high of around 24,500 as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has become dominant in the country.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, North Korea conducted a second test flight of a hypersonic missile, just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a rail line he hopes will eventually connect the divided Korean peninsula. The test came days after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to bolster his military forces despite pandemic-related difficulties.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)(AP, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Norwegian Cruise Line canceled trips on eight ships, a few whose embarkation dates are as far out as late April, as the spread of the Omicron variant in the US shows no signs of slowing.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Philippines reported 10,775 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily spike since Oct. 10, and more then 60 times the 168 cases recorded on Dec. 21. Authorities cancelled the annual "Black Nazerene" procession, which normally draws millions of Catholic devotees accompanying a black wooden statue of Jesus Christ through the streets of Manila, for a second straight year due to coronavirus concerns.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammed al-Luhaidan (90) died. He once served for years as head of the kingdom's Shariah courts that mirrored the kingdom's decades-long slide toward Wahhabism. He was sacked in 2009 as head of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary after he grabbed international headlines for suggesting that television station executives who broadcast immoral content during the month of Ramadan could face the death penalty for corrupting society.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In South Africa Judge Raymond Zondo, in an 874-page report, found that former president Jacob Zuma advanced the interests of the Indian-born Gupta family and close allies at the expense of the country's people.
(BBC, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung told reporters that he thinks hair regrowth treatments should be covered by the national health insurance program.
(AP, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, In Sweden daily coronavirus cases soared to a record high, with the easily transmissible Omicron variant dominating, though numbers in intensive care remain well below previous pandemic peaks.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Western nations accused Syria of refusing for eight years to clear up 20 outstanding issues about its undeclared research, production and possible weaponization of unknown quantities of chemical weapons.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Thailand reported 3,899 coronavirus cases, up from an average of 2,600 daily cases towards the end of last year, and the Omicron variant itself has tripled from last month's holiday period.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Turkey said it recorded 66,467 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure on record, as infections surge due to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Pope Francis bemoaned the global decline in birthrates — what he described as a “demographic winter" — and was bluntly critical of couples who prefer to have pets rather than children.
(NY Times, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Yemen’s internationally recognized government said its forces have reclaimed large swaths of territory in a southern province from Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
(AP, 1/5/22)
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For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
1066 Jan 5, Edward the Confessor (b.1003), king of England (1043-66), died heirless.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor)
1463 Jan 5, French poet Francois Villon was banished from Paris.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1477 Jan 5, Swiss troops defeated the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1531 Jan 5, Pope Clemens VII forbade English king Henry VIII to re-marry.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1589 Jan 5, Catherine de Medici (b.1519), Queen Mother of France, died at age 69. In 2005 Leonie Frieda authored “Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 8/10/05, p.D12)
1592 Jan 5, Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), was born. He later built the Taj Mahal.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1638 Jan 5, Petition in Recife, Brazil, led to the closing of its two synagogues.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1708 Jan 5, German alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger, under the tutelage of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, succeeded in creating samples resembling pure porcelain at the Jungfernbastei castle in Dresden. Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, had ordered Bottger to re-create the formula for oriental porcelain. Bottger was imprisoned and joined physicist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in a search for the formula. Tschirnhaus died in Oct, 1708. Within 2 years a factory was established in Meissen’s Albrechtsburg and Meissenware became Europe’s first hard-paste porcelain. In 2020 Suzanne Marchand authored "Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe."
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.D12)(Econ, 4/3/10, p.88)(ON, 8/10, p.9)(Econ., 7/18/20, p.69)
1709 Jan 5, Sudden extreme cold killed 1000s of Europeans.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1776 Jan 5, Assembly of New Hampshire adopted its 1st state constitution.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1779 Jan 5, Stephen Decatur (d.1820), U.S. naval hero during actions against the Barbary pirates and the War of 1812, was born. [see 1820 Decatur-Barron duel]
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HN, 1/5/99)
1779 Jan 5, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, explorer, (Pike's Peak), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1781 Jan 5, A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va. Arnold led some 1,600 British and Loyalist troops in the destructive raid on Richmond.
(AP, 1/5/98)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1796 Jan 5, Samuel Huntington (64), US judge (signed Declaration of Independence), died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1804 Jan 5, Ohio legislature passed the 1st laws restricting free blacks movement. [see Mar 28]
(MC, 1/5/02)
1815 Jan 5, Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, drew up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1836 Jan 5, Davy Crockett arrived in Texas just in time to die at the Alamo.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1851 Jan 5, California's 1st Gov. Peter Hardeman Burnett in his State of the State address called Indians "savages" and said a "war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct".
(SSFC, 11/28/21, p.J1)
1852 Jan 5, Serranus Clinton Hastings (1814-1893) began serving as California’s third Attorney General and continued to Jan 2, 1854.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serranus_Clinton_Hastings)
1854 Jan 5, The steamship San Francisco wrecked and 300 died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1855 Jan 5, King Camp Gillette, inventor (safety razor), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1856 Jan 5, Pierre J. David (67), [David d'Angers], French sculptor, died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1861 Jan 5, The merchant vessel Star of the West set sail from New York to Fort Sumter, in response to rebel attack, carrying supplies and 250 troops.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1861 Jan 5, Alabama troops seized Forts Morgan & Gaines at Mobile Bay.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1874 Jan 5, Joseph Erlanger, doctor (shock therapy Nobel 1944), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1876 Jan 5, Conrad Adenauer (d.1967), statesman and first chancellor of post-World War II West Germany, was born. He was chancellor of Germany from 1949-1963. "The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity -- and that's not fair!"
(AHD, 1971, p.15)(AP, 7/1/98)(HN, 1/5/99)
1879 Jan 5, The shares of Homestake Mining Co. began trading on the NY Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1892 Jan 5, The 1st successful auroral photograph made.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1895 Jan 5, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. He was ultimately vindicated. Dreyfus, a Jew falsely accused of spying for the Germans, was imprisoned alone on Devil’s Island until 1899.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SSFC, 12/15/02, p.L5)
1896 Jan 5, An Austrian newspaper (Wiener Presse) reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as "X-rays."
(AP, 1/5/98)
1900 Jan 5, Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-British physicist, inventor of 3D laser photography, was born. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1971. [see Jan 5]
(HN, 6/5/98)(MC, 1/5/02)
1904 Jan 5, American Marines arrived in Seoul, Korea to guard U.S. legation there.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1905 Jan 5, Representatives of 35 state Audubon organizations incorporated as the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.12)(MC, 1/5/02)
1911 Jan 5, Portugal expelled the Jesuits.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1914 Jan 5, Henry Ford astounded the world as he announced that he would pay a minimum wage of $5 a day and share with employees $10 million in last year’s profits. The wage increase counter-balanced the increased demand on the workers from the new assembly line production methods.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(HN, 1/5/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1917 Jan 5, Jane Wyman (d.2007), film star, was born as Sarah Jane Mayfield Fulks in St. Joseph, Mo.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A2)
1917 Jan 5, Wieland Wagner, German opera director (grandson of Richard Wagner), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1917 Jan 5, Bulgarian and German troops occupied the Port of Braila in East Romania.
(HN, 1/5/99)(WUD, 1994, p.178)
1919 Jan 5, British ships shelled the Bolshevik headquarters in Riga.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1919 Jan 5, The National Socialist Party (Nazi) formed.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1920 Jan 5, GOP women demanded equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1921 Jan 5, Friedrich Durrenmatt (d.1990), Swiss author and playwright, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1921 Jan 5, Wagner’s "Die Walkyrie" opened in Paris. This was the first German opera performed in Paris since the beginning of WWI.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1922 Jan 5, Sir Ernest Shackleton (47) died of a heart attack at sea enroute from South Georgia Island to Antarctica. He was buried on South Georgia Island. In 1924 Hugh Robert Mill authored “The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton."
(ON, 5/00, p.10)(SSFC, 5/20/01, p.T11)
1923 Jan 5, The Senate debated the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1925 Jan 5, Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) of Wyoming was sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States. She succeeded Frank E. Lucas, who had served as acting governor after the death of Ross' husband, William B. Ross. Ross took office as governor of Wyoming, just 16 days before Miriam A. Ferguson became governor of Texas.
(AP, 1/5/08)(http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/articles/rossbio.htm)
1928 Jan 5, Walter Mondale, 42nd Vice President (1977-1981) of the U.S., was born. He was the Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Ronald Reagan in 1984, and Ambassador to Japan.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1930 Jan 5, Mao Tse-tung wrote "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire."
(MC, 1/5/02)
1931 Jan 5, Alvin Ailey, choreographer (American Dance Theater), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1932 Jan 5, Umberto Eco, Italian novelist who wrote "The Name of the Rose," was born.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1932 Jan 5, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko Gorbachev, Russia's 1st lady (1982-1991), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1933 Jan 5, In San Francisco federal judge Harold Lauderback ordered the auction of 2,245 gallons of moonshine that had been seized in raids.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, DB p.50)
1933 Jan 5, Work on the Golden Gate Bridge began on the Marin County side of SF Bay. The bridge was designed by engineers Leon Moisseiffof New York and Charles Alton Ellis of Chicago under the direction of Joseph Strauss. Ellis was fired by Strauss in 1931.
(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.E10)(SFC, 3/19/22, p.C2)
1933 Jan 5, The 30th president (1923-1929) of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at age 60. In 1998 Robert Sobel published his biography: "Coolidge: An American Enigma." Robert Ferrell published "The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge." In 2006 David Greenberg authored “Calvin Coolidge."
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.D8)
1936 Jan 5, Daggha Bur, Ethiopia, was bombed by the Italians.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1938 Jan 5, Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, was born.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1942 Jan 5, U.S. and Filipino troops completed their withdrawal to a new defensive line along the base of the Bataan peninsula.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1942 Jan 5, 55 German tanks reached North-Africa.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1942 Jan 5, Tina Modotti (b.1896), Italian born actress, model, photographer and secret agent, died in Mexico City. She had been expelled from Mexico in 1930 but returned incognito in 1939. In 1999 her biography by Pino Cacucci was translated into English.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/06, p.E3)(http://tinyurl.com/lklsy)
1943 Jan 5, George Washington Carver, Educator and scientist, died at age 81 at Tuskegee, Alabama. Carver was born the son of a slave woman in the early 1860s, went to college in Iowa and then headed to Alabama in 1896. There, at the Tuskegee Institute, Carver served as an agricultural chemist, experimenter, teacher and administrator, working to improve life for African Americans in the rural South by teaching them better agricultural skills. One of the farming methods Carver devised, using peanut and soybean crops to enrich soil depleted by cotton crops, revolutionized Southern farming. Carver became somewhat of a benevolent example of the potential of black intellectuals. He was well-respected by people such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Josef Stalin and Thomas Edison, whose offer of a job for more than $100 a year Carver refused. Carver worked at Tuskegee until his death.
(AP, 1/5/98)(HNPD, 1/5/99)
1943 Jan 5, The Japanese began a planned withdrawal from Guadalcanal.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1946 Jan 5, Diane Keaton, actress (Annie Hall, Little Drummer Girl), was born in LA.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1947 Jan 5, Great Britain nationalized its coal mines.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1949 Jan 5, In his State of the Union address, President Truman labeled his administration the “Fair Deal." Alben Barkley (1877-1956) served as Truman’s vice-president.
(WUD, 1994 p.120)(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 2/12/02, p.A18)
1950 Jan 5, Carson McCuller's "Member of the Wedding," premiered in NYC.
(www.carson-mccullers.com/mccullers/timeline.htm)
1951 Jan 5, Inchon, South Korea, the sight of General Douglas MacArthur's amphibious flanking maneuver, was abandoned by United Nations force to the advancing Chinese Army.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1952 Jan 5, PM Churchill arrived in Washington to confer with Pres. Truman.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1953 Jan 5, In South Korea the Changgyeong ferry sank as it was cruising from Yeosu to Busan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Korean_ferry_disasters)
1954 Jan 5, Walter Edward Scott (b.1872), Death Valley con man, died. He was supported for much of his life by millionaire Albert Johnson (d.1948).
(ON, 3/04, p.8)( http://mojavedesert.net/walter-scott/)
1956 Jan 5, Elvis Presley, truckdriver, began his 1st recording session for RCA. "Heartbreak Hotel," written by Mae Boren Axton, was the first song recorded. It became the first of his 45 records to sell over a million copies. The second was "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You", and "I Was the One" was the third. In 1971 Jerry Hopkins authored Elvis: A Biography.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/6/97, DB p.65)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A31)
1957 Jan 5, President Eisenhower, in an address to Congress, proposed offering military assistance to Middle Eastern countries so they could resist Communist aggression; this became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. Under this doctrine a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from US military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of US forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism". The phrase "international communism" made the doctrine much broader than simply responding to Soviet military action. A danger that could be linked to communists of any nation could conceivably invoke the doctrine.
(AP, 1/5/07)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Doctrine)
1959 Jan 5, The "Bozo the Clown" live children's show premiered on TV.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1961 Jan 5, The TV show "Mr. Ed" first aired in syndication. The sitcom featured a talking horse and continued to 1966. Alan Young played Wilbur Post and Bamboo Harvester (1946-1979) played Mr. Ed.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Ed)(SFC, 1/24/97, p.D8)
1963 Jan 5, "Camelot" closed at the Majestic Theater, NYC, after 873 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1963 Jan 5, "Carnival!" closes at Imperial Theater, NYC, after 719 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1965 Jan 5, Charles Robert Jenkins (b.1940) deserted his US Army post at the Korean DMZ hoping to be arrested, turned over to Russia and returned to the US. His plan failed and he ended up living in North Korea where he married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s. In 2004 Jenkins reunited with his wife in Indonesia and in September turned himself in to US military authorities in Japan. [see Sep 1, 1965] In 2008 Jenkins with Jim Frederick authored “The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea."
(SFC, 11/2/02, p.A5)(SSFC, 5/23/04, p.A18)(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/1/04)(WSJ, 3/13/08, p.D9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Robert_Jenkins)
1968 Jan 5, The US Justice Dept. indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Coffin of Yale (1924-2006) and 3 others for conspiring to violate draft law.
(SFC, 4/13/06, p.B7)
1968 Jan 5, A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA. Senior executives of the SF Chronicle put out a special edition of the paper on a copy machine.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)(http://tinyurl.com/nkszr8)
1968 Jan 5, Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992) was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
(http://www.radio.cz/en/article/112505)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdubcek.htm)
1969 Jan 5, President Nixon appointed Henry Cabot Lodge as negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1970 Jan 5, The TV soap opera “All My Children" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065272/)
1970 Jan 5, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. Nine people were later charged in the killing including UMW Pres. W.A. Boyle.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1970 Jan 5, In China a 7.7 earthquake in Yunnan province killed over 15,000 people and was covered up by authorities amid the chaos of the cultural revolution.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A8)
1971 Jan 5, Pres. Nixon named Robert Dole as chairman of the Republican National Party.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1971 Jan 5, Sonny Liston (b.1932), World Champion boxer (1962-64), was found dead in his Las Vegas home.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Liston)
1972 Jan 5, President Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1973 Jan 5, San Francisco Int'l. Airport began screening passengers. This followed Pres. Nixon's mandate for screening due to increased hijackings in the 1960s and early 1970s.
(SFC, 3/30/19, p.C1)
1975 Jan 5, "The Wiz," a musical version of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," opened at the Majestic Theater on Broadway with an all-black cast. It ran for 1672 performances.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1981 Jan 5, Berkeley police arrested 8 demonstrators protesting against draft registration. The protest was one of the largest across the country as a 2nd round of draft registration began.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.F2)
1981 Jan 5, Harold C. Urey (b.1893), US chemist (Deuterium, Nobel 1934), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Urey)
1982 Jan 5, A Federal judge voided an Arkansas state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4726786)(HN, 1/5/99)
1983 Jan 5, President Reagan announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as secretary of transportation. Dole became the first woman to head a Cabinet department in Reagan's administration, and the first to head the DOT.
(AP, 1/5/03)
1985 Jan 5, Boris Weisfeiler (43), a Russian émigré and naturalized US citizen, disappeared while hiking in Chile. US declassified documents in 2000 indicated that Boris, a mathematics professor, was detained by the Chilean military and handed over to Colonia Dignidad.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A8)(SFC, 6/12/08, p.A10)
1985 Jan 5, Israel’s 6-week Operation Moses for the resettlement of 8,000 Ethiopian Jews ended. It began Nov 18, 1984, but new was blacked out for security reasons.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ejhist.html)
1988 Jan 5, The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ask Israel not to deport Palestinians from the occupied territories in the first council vote against Israel since 1981.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1988 Jan 5, Basketball star "Pistol" Pete Maravich died of a heart attack during a pickup game in Pasadena, Calif., at age 40. He had recently finished an autobiography. In 2007 Mark Kriegel authored “Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich."
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P13)
1989 Jan 5, Lawrence E. Walsh, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case, asked for a dismissal of two charges against Oliver North, citing the Reagan administration's refusal to release material sought by North.
(AP, 1/5/99)
1990 Jan 5, President Bush told a news conference the United States had a strong case against deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and said he was convinced Noriega would receive a fair trial on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1991 Jan 5, President Bush met at Camp David, Maryland, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. The same day, a pretaped radio address by Bush was broadcast in which the president warned Iraq: “Time is running out."
(AP, 1/5/01)
1992 Jan 5, President Bush arrived in Seoul, South Korea, on the third stop of a 12-day tour focusing on international trade issues.
(AP, 1/5/02)
1993 Jan 5, The state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer, in America's first legal hanging since 1965.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1993 Jan 5, The Braer, a Liberian-registered tanker, ran aground in Scotland's Shetland Islands, spilling some 26 million gallons of light crude oil.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1994 Jan 5, The Clinton administration said North Korea had agreed to allow renewed international inspections of seven nuclear sites.
(AP, 1/5/99)
1994 Jan 5, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, died in Boston at age 81. In 2001 John A. Farrell authored “Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century."
(AP, 1/5/99)(WSJ, 3/15/00, p.A16)
1995 Jan 5, President Clinton received Republican congressional leaders at the White House, declaring that "we can do a lot of business together" on reforming the way government works.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1995 Jan 5, A warrant was issued for the arrest of James “Whitey" Bulger (b.1929), top mobster of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang. He had disappeared with his girlfriend just days before the warrant was issued. Bulger was linked to 21 murders and in 2000 became a fixture on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted" list. In 2007 Kevin Weeks authored “Brutal: The Untold Story Of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob."
(http://tinyurl.com/2c8u37f)(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/29unfq4)
1996 Jan 5, An end to a three-week-old partial government shutdown was in sight as the House acted to restore the jobs and wages of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, Lawyers for Hillary Rodham Clinton released sought-after billing records that were discovered the day before in a White House office.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, US retailers posted their worst holiday sales since 1990.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Jan 5, Lincoln Kirstein (b.1906), American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City, died. In 1946 Balanchine and Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948. Together they made this one of the most innovative dance companies in the world. His books included the 1932 novel “Flesh Is Heir," a historical romance. In 2007 Martin Duberman authored “The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Kirstein)(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.P18)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M3)
1996 Jan 5, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama resigned.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1997 Jan 5, In Afghanistan an air raid killed 4 and wounded 32. A bomb in central Kabul killed 3 and wounded 37.
(WSJ, 1/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 5, In Algeria Muslim guerrillas massacred 16 in Ben Achour village.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, In Burundi the Tutsi-led army attacked and killed hundreds of Hutus in a dispute over land at Bukeye in central Burundi.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 5, In the CAR district of Petevo, French troops killed 10 CAR army mutineers, after 2 French soldiers were killed on a mediation mission.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat held a secret, predawn summit, but fell short of agreement on the issues delaying an Israeli troop withdrawal from Hebron.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1997 Jan 5, Jewish leaders blasted the remark of former Swiss Pres. Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, who called Jewish demands for the compensation of Holocaust victims “blackmail."
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 5, In Kenya the Daily Nation reported that a man stole $1 million by impersonating a Citibank bank employee. The money had been shipped from NY to a Kenyan airport freight terminal at the Nairobi Int’l. Airport.
(SFC, 1/9/97, p.A12)
1997 Jan 5, In Mexico at least 26 people were arrested in Sinaloa state, many of them police officers, at the wedding party for the sister of Amado Carrillo, the reputed top drug trafficker in Mexico.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.A7)
1997 Jan 5, In Rwanda a mother and father and 7 children were murdered. The mother had testified against the former mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, for the murder of some 2,000 villagers.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A13)
1997 Jan 5, In South Africa police arrested 2 white men in connection with 3 bomb blasts near Johannesburg.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A9)
1998 Jan 5, Balloonist Steve Fosset was forced down in Russia after completing 7,300 miles in four days in his effort to circle the globe.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 5, Volkswagen rolled out a new version of the Beetle at the annual Detroit Auto Show.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A2)
1998 Jan 5, Sonny Bono (62), former 1960's pop singer and later Republican congressman, died when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Mary Bono later revealed that he was a heavy user of pain pills.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A1)(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A5)(AP, 1/5/99)
1998 Jan 5, A Canada ice storm knocked out electricity in Quebec & Ontario.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In China Stanford scholar Hua Di (63) was arrested in Beijing on charges of treason for allegedly leaking military secrets.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A23)
1998 Jan 5, In Denmark the bronze head of the Little Mermaid was again sawed off in Copenhagen harbor.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A9)(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In India a train crash in Uttar Pradesh killed at least 48 people.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.1)
1998 Jan 5, In Kenya Daniel Arap Moi was scheduled to be inaugurated as president after the elections gave him 40% or 2,445,801 votes.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 5, In Lithuania Vladas Adamkus (71), former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, won the presidency in a runoff election with 49.9% vs. 49.3% for Arturas Paulauskas.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 5, In Mexico Francisco Labastida took over as the chief of internal security after Emilio Chuayffet resigned under pressure from the Chiapas massacre.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1999 Jan 5, A federal judge approved settlement in a class-action suit filed by African-American farmers. The agreement to compensate for years of racial bias could total $400 million. The farmers will get $50,000 tax-free and their government debts forgiven.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, A new theory on how HIV attacks cells was reported. The production and survival time of T cells was said to be shortened by HIV.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, New research showed that dendritic spines on the nerve branches of the brain sprouted and changed form within fractions of a second.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 5, In Angola Unita rebels shelled Malanje for a 2nd day. 25 people were killed and 100 wounded.
(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, In Iran the Intelligence Ministry said that rogue intelligence officers were responsible for 5 killings last year of government critics.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 5, Four U.S. Air Force and Navy jets fired at Iraqi MiGs testing the "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq in the first such confrontation in more than six years. 6 missiles fired by 2 US F-15s missed the 4 MiG 25s of Iraq.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A6)(AP, 1/5/00)
1999 Jan 5, It was reported that Iraqi security forces killed hundreds of people in the Shiite Muslim south in summary executions directed by Saddam Hussein's 2nd son over the last 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 5, Malaysia admitted that former Deputy Premier Anwar was beaten by police after his arrest in September.
(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 5, Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley engaged in a feisty debate in Durham, New Hampshire.
(AP, 1/5/01)
2000 Jan 5, Touching off angry protests by Cuban-Americans in Miami, the US government decided to send six-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. After a legal battle, and the seizure of Elian from the home of his US relatives, the boy was returned to Cuba in June.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/5/01)
2000 Jan 5, In the Ivory Coast Gen. Robert Guei announced that he was suspending the country's staggering foreign debt payments.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 5, In Nigeria rival youths of the Yoruba and Hausa tribes clashed in Lagos and Ibadan and some 35 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2000 Jan 5, In Karachi, Pakistan, freed militant Masood Azhar called on some 10,000 followers to liberated Kashmir and to destroy India and the US.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A8)
2000 Jan 5, The 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje (14), arrived in India after a week-long flight from Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2001 Jan 5, In a blizzard of last-minute executive orders, President Clinton banned roads and most logging in 58.5 million acres of federal forests in 38 states.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)(AP, 1/5/02)
2001 Jan 5, US Republicans agreed to share power in the Senate with Democrats on committees.
(SFC, 1/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 5, In 2007 it was reported that a French intelligence document dated to this day warned that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot. The information was passed on to the CIA. Documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network were drawn up by the French spy service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2002 Jan 5, It was reported that funds for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the leading opposition group to Saddam Hussein, were suspended due to accounting problems.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.15)
2002 Jan 5, In Florida Charles J. Bishop (15) crashed a stolen Cessna 172 airplane into the 40-story Tampa Bank of American building. Bishop left a note saying he acted alone and expressed sympathy for Osama bin Laden.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 5, Canada reported plans to send 900 troops to assist with peacekeeping in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 5, Italy's foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero, resigned after a spat with PM Silvio Berlusconi over the government's lukewarm reception of the euro.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A5)(AP, 1/5/03)
2002 Jan 5, Singapore reported that authorities had arrested 15 suspected militants between Dec 9-24, some of whom were al Qaeda trained in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 5, In Edinburg, Texas, 6 men were shot to death in a home invasion that involved weapons and drugs.
(SFC, 1/6/03, p.A8)
2003 Jan 5, Jean Kerr (79), author and playwright, died. Her books included "Please Don't Eat the Daisies."
(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A22)
2003 Jan 5, In Algeria rebels killed 13 people form 2 families near the capital in Zabana. The Armed Islamic Group was suspected.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 5, In Bhutan Indian separatists said 50 Indian soldiers attacked their camps. 15 soldiers and 7 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A16)
2003 Jan 5, British anti-terrorism police arrested 6 men of North African origin after finding small quantities of ricin, a lethal poison, in a London apartment.
(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A10)
2003 Jan 5, Roy Jenkins (82), British politician, liberal reformer and biographer, died after collapsing at his home in East Hendred.
(WSJ, 1/14/03, p.D6)
2003 Jan 5, Chinese media reported that an unmanned Chinese space capsule had returned safely to Earth.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2003 Jan 5, In Israel 2 Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up minutes apart in a central Tel Aviv area crowded with foreign workers, killing 23 bystanders in the bloodiest attack in six months.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2003 Jan 5, In Kosovo gunmen killed 3 people including Tahir Zemaj, a former Albanian rebel leader.
(WSJ, 1/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 5, In Lithuania rightist Rolandas Paksas (46), a former stunt pilot and PM in 1999 and 2000, was elected president in a surprise victory over Pres. Adamkus, 54.9% vs. 45%. Paksas promised to keep Lithuania closely aligned with the West. The election of Paksas was bankrolled by Yuri Borisov, a Russian-born dealer in helicopter parts.
(AP, 1/6/03)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.46)
2003 Jan 5, The Laos government declared this day a national holiday in honor of King Fangum, "the father of Lao unity" and the 650th anniversary of the founding of Lan Xang in1353.
(AP, 1/6/03)
2004 Jan 5, After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose publicly admitted that he'd bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, Pres. Bush extended a 1986 order of sanctions against Libya.
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 5, The US began fingerprinting and photographing int'l. passengers at 115 airports and 14 cruise-ship ports.
(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 5, NASA released a 3-D, black-and-white panoramic picture of the bleak surface of Mars snapped by the newly landed rover, Spirit.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, Norman Heatley (92), a scientist whose pioneering work on penicillin production helped save countless lives, died in Oxford, England. It was Heatley and his Oxford University colleagues who produced enough for the first clinical tests on humans.
(AP, 1/17/04)(SFC, 1/19/04, p.B4)
2004 Jan 5, Kiharu Nakamura (90), Japanese geisha, died in the US. Her 10 books included "The Memoir of a Tokyo-born Geisha."
(Econ, 1/24/04, p.78)
2004 Jan 5, Tug McGraw (59), baseball pitcher, died near Nashville, Tenn.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jan 5, China confirmed its first SARS case since an outbreak of the disease was contained in July and authorities ordered the emergency slaughter of some 10,000 civet cats and related species after tests linked a virus found in the animals to the patient.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as NATO's top official.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, A letter bomb addressed to a senior member of the European Parliament burst into flames. Italian anarchists were suspected in the 7 mail attacks since Dec 27.
(AP, 1/5/04)(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A10)
2004 Jan 5, In Mexico heavily armed men in military and police-style uniforms raided the western prison at Apatzingan in Michoacan state and freed 25 inmates.
(AP, 1/6/04)
2004 Jan 5, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf held much-anticipated, face-to-face talks with Indian leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the sidelines of a South Asian summit.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 5, In Thailand 2 bombs exploded in the southern town of Pattani, killing 2 policemen and injuring several people, police said. Two other bombs were found before they could go off.
(AP, 1/5/04)(WPR, 3/04, p.32)
2005 Jan 5, President Bush opened a new drive for caps on medical malpractice awards, contending the limits would lower health care costs.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a Marine charged with desertion in Iraq after mysteriously disappearing from his post was again declared a deserter, this time for failing to report to his U.S. base.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, It was reported that PolyMedix, a research firm in Philadelphia, was targeting bacteria with synthetic molecules that prevented the development of resistance.
(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.B2A)
2005 Jan 5, Julius Axelrod, NIH neuroscientist, died in Rockville, Md. He shared a 1970 Nobel Prize with 2 others for work on neuro-transmitters.
(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Jan 5, Australian PM John Howard pledged $765 million over five years to Indonesian tsunami reconstruction and development due to the Dec 26 disaster.
(AP, 1/6/05)(Econ, 1/15/05, p.38)
2005 Jan 5, The head of the IAEA said Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is linked to a secret nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, Iraq's intelligence chief said as many as 30,000 well-trained terrorists are actively operating throughout Iraq at the behest of former regime leaders based in Syria.
(AP, 1/6/05)
2005 Jan 5, A car bomb exploded outside a police academy south of Baghdad during a graduation ceremony, killing at least 20 people. Hours earlier, another car bomb killed two Iraqis in Baghdad. A 2nd car bomber killed five Iraqi policemen in Baqouba.
(AP, 1/5/05)(AP, 1/6/05)
2005 Jan 5, The bodies of 18 young Iraqi Shiites taken off a bus and executed in December 2005 were found in a field near Mosul.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2005 Jan 5, A group calling itself "The Free People of the Galilee" claimed that it abducted Dana Bennet, an Israeli-American woman, in Aug 2003, and demanded that Israel release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information about her fate.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, Two homemade Palestinian rockets fell into an army base in southern Israel, wounding 12 people, one of them seriously.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, In western Nepal soldiers backed by helicopters raided a communist rebel hideout, killing at least 30 guerrillas and foiling a planned attack on an army base.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 5, The UN said that camps for up to 500,000 tsunami refugees will be built on devastated Sumatra island, while world leaders headed to Indonesia to discuss how to distribute billions of dollars in aid.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2006 Jan 5, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for “dividing God’s land." Robertson later apologized.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2006 Jan 5, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger in his State of the State speech called for over $222 billion for public works projects.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 5, The Florida Supreme Court struck down the voucher system that allowed some children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense, saying that it violates the state constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public schools.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Afghanistan a suicide attacker in Kandahar detonated explosives strapped to his body during a visit by the US ambassador, killing 10 Afghans and wounding 50.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, The wife of Dragomir Abazovic, a Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, was killed in a shoot-out when European Union (EUFOR) peacekeepers moved in to arrest her husband at their home. Abazovic and the couple's 11-year-old son were also shot and injured.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, The UN said around 2,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi in the past month, many saying they feel insecure in Rwanda or are being refused permission to cultivate their land.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, China’s government announced the closing 5,290 coal mines in a safety crackdown on the world's deadliest mining industry.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In China Feng Bingxian (59), a businessman who led investors against the government seizure of oil fields in northern China, was convicted along with 2 co-defendants of organizing illegal protests and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/6/06, p.A8)
2006 Jan 5, In China an oil spill occurred at Gongyi city in neighboring Henan province when a frozen pipe broke, causing six tons of oil to spill into a tributary of the Yellow River.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 5, In western China violent blizzards have forced the evacuation of 97,000 people in a largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, as the nation braced for its worst winter in 20 years.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Colombia local TV reported that 2 soldiers had been arrested for giving weapons to leftist rebels, their main battlefield enemy, in exchange for cocaine. 14 FARC guerrillas and two soldiers were killed in clashes in a coca-growing area on the edge Sierra Macarena National Park in southern Colombia.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, In France a 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp's (1917) "Fountain," a porcelain urinal, with a hammer at the Pompidou Center.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, The leader of Haiti's largest business association called for a general strike next week to protest the wave of kidnappings that has sparked fear in the capital and contributed to the chaos that prompted authorities to postpone elections.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, A shootout between inmates at Honduras' biggest prison left at least 13 inmates dead and another 30 wounded.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, A suicide bomber infiltrated a line of police recruits in Ramadi, killing at least 58 and wounding dozens including a US Marine and soldier. 11 US troops were slain during the day. 5 soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb south of Karbala. 2 soldiers were killed in the Baghdad area when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. 2 US Marines were killed by separate small arms attacks while conducting combat operations in Fallujah. An explosion near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines killed at least 5 people. The day’s death toll rose to at least 136 people in a series of attacks as politicians tried to form a coalition government.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, Iraq's largest oil refinery closed again, a day after insurgents ambushed a convoy of tanker trucks carrying gas from the facility.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon (77) fought for his life following seven hours of emergency surgery to stop widespread bleeding in his brain. The massive stroke made it unlikely that he would return to power. Vice Premier Ehud Olmert was named acting PM and convened the Cabinet for a special session.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Suspected rebels killed 3 police and wounded 4 more in attacks across Nepal, while hundreds of protesters marched through Kathmandu, demanding restoration of democracy.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Pakistan said it had taken all "appropriate action" to break up the underground nuclear network run by its former chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, Peru recalled its ambassador from Venezuela, accusing President Hugo Chavez of meddling in Peru's upcoming presidential race.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia a building used as a hostel by pilgrims in Mecca collapsed as millions of Muslims converged for the annual hajj, and at least 76 people were killed.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, A Turkish teenager whose brother died of bird flu also succumbed to the disease. Fatma Kocyigit (15) died in a hospital in the eastern city of Van, four days after the death of her brother, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit (14). The children helped raise poultry on a small farm in the eastern town of Dogubeyazit, close to Iranian border, and were in close contact with sick birds. Their 11-year-old sister died the next day.
(AP, 1/5/06)(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 5, In Venezuela a viaduct, carrying the motorway that crosses the mountains between Caracas and the int’l. airport, was closed due to geologic and structural problems. Travel time one way rose up to 5 hours.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.44)
2007 Jan 5, Pres. Bush nominated Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral, to be the next director of national intelligence (DNI). He would follow John Negroponte, who served 18 months as the 1st head over 16 intelligence agencies.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 5, The White House announced a planned shuffling of military leaders in the Iraq war. Adm. William Fallon ended up replacing Gen. John Abizaid as top US commander in the Middle East; Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus succeeded Gen. George Casey as top American general in Iraq; Casey replaced retiring Gen. Peter Schoomaker as Army chief of staff.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2007 Jan 5, US House Democrats approved new budget rules that required new spending or tax cuts to be paid for by other spending cuts or tax increases. The new rules also required lawmakers to disclose which spending items (earmarks), they have added to bills.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, SF signed a contract with EarthLink and Google to install and operate a free wireless Internet service across the city.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 5, Momofuko Ando (b.1910), inventor of instant noodles (1958), died in Japan.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.94)
2007 Jan 5, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber in a car wounded four soldiers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China have ratified a nuclear agreement clearing the way for the export of uranium to feed Beijing's giant nuclear power program.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Bangladesh police over the last 2 days detained about 1,500 activists ahead of a two-day nationwide general strike aimed at forcing electoral reform and the postponement of a general election this month.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese police raided an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near the border with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 at a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Critics accused Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Pres. Bozize of the Central African Republic. Zhaoxing was set to sign a series of accords as part of seven-nation tour highlighting China's increasing interest in the African continent.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In central Congo a diamond mine collapsed in Tshikapa. 2 people were soon rescued and 15 bodies were later pulled from the mine. Further rescue efforts were abandoned. The group appeared to have been teenagers who hoped that recent rains had uncovered diamonds in the community mine.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Leon Febres Cordero, Former President of Ecuador (1984-1988), resigned from Congress and political life, citing unspecified medical problems. His center-right Social Christian Party long dominated Ecuadorian politics.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Nicolas Cocaigne, a French prisoner in Rouen, confessed to killing his cellmate and then eating part of the man's body. Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was found Jan 3 by a guard at the prison. A third cellmate who claimed he slept though the attack was charged with complicity in homicide.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, A prominent Sunni Arab group charged that some officials in the Iraqi government have links with Shiite militias involved in sectarian violence and said authorities should be held responsible for any attacks by the armed groups. Mortar rounds killed four civilians on Baghdad's outskirts, and gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint north of the capital, killing four soldiers. Police in the southern city of Basra reported that an American contractor and two Iraqis were abducted. The 2 Iraqis were later found dead. The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji (28), an Associated Press employee, was found in Baghdad shot in the back of the head, 6 days after he was last seen by his family leaving for work. A US soldier died from combat wounds sustained in Iraq's Anbar province.
(AP, 1/5/07)(AP, 1/6/07)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A5)(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Mexican officials in Michoacan state said they had found nine bodies in a shallow grave in the city of Uruapan.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen kidnapped five Chinese workers fixing overhead telephone lines.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries warned that some 790,000 salmon and trout escaped from Norwegian fish farms in 2006, up 10% on the previous year and a trend that poses a serious threat to wild salmon.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Pakistan's part of Kashmir a landslide triggered by recent heavy rains swamped a minibus and a car on a narrow mountainous road, killing 15 people and injuring three others.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Gaza Adel Nasar, an anti-Hamas cleric, was shot by men in a car after he delivered a sermon warning that God would punish those responsible for seven killings the previous day.
(AP, 1/5/07)(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Stanislaw Wielgus, Warsaw's incoming archbishop, admitted he had cooperated with the Communist-era secret police and said he was leaving his fate in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka an explosion inside a passenger bus killed 6 people in Nittambuwa. Officials blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Sudanese aircraft carried out strikes on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state near the border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 5, Taiwan's high-speed rail system welcomed its 1st paying passengers amid lingering safety concerns and embarrassing ticketing glitches. Construction of the system began in 2000 with an original launch date of October 2005, but a delay in the completion of the project's core electrical systems forced a postponement to October 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania's Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro to the deputy secretary-general post at the UN, calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who has championed the developing world. A senior UN official said the United Nations has investigated more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Senior doctors at Zimbabwe's state hospitals joined junior doctors in a strike over pay that has left patients stranded at the country's major medical centers. Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told state radio meanwhile that he had met with representatives of the striking doctors and that they had agreed to return to work.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2008 Jan 5, Georgia authorities served a warrant charging Gary Michael Hilton (61) with the kidnapping with bodily injury of Meredith Emerson (24). Emerson was last seen on New Year's Day hiking with her black Labrador retriever, Ella, in Vogel State Park. On Jan 7 he led investigators to a spot in a wooded area in north Georgia where they found her body. In March Hilton was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/6/08)(AP, 1/8/08)(SFC, 3/24/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 5, In Hayden, Idaho, a man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 5, A levee break flooded hundreds of homes In Nevada as a storm that has pummeled the West Coast with high wind and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, In Alaska a small plane crashed at the end of a runway off Kodiak Island killing 6 people enroute to celebrate Eastern Orthodox Christmas.
(SFC, 1/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 5, Heavy rains caused flooding across parts of eastern Australia, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people as rural towns throughout the area were put on flood alert.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Georgians voted to determine whether to keep Mikhail Saakashvili as president in the former Soviet republic, where he was once considered a symbol of democratic reform but now faces accusations of authoritarian leanings. Saakashvili's supporters poured onto the streets, tooting car horns and waving white-and-red national flags, celebrating victory based on exit poll results. Saakashvili received 52.8% of the vote according to preliminary results.
(AP, 1/5/08)(AP, 1/6/08)(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 5, In Iraq a roadside bomb struck a passing minibus north of the town of Muqdadiyah, killing six people. In Baqouba another roadside bomb wounded three civilians.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, The Israeli army wound up a large 3-day operation in Nablus saying they had discovered another explosives laboratory there.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.A18)
2008 Jan 5, Kenya’s government said President Kibaki is ready to form "a government of national unity" to help resolve disputed elections that caused deadly riots. Some 300 people have been killed and the UN said 250,000 made homeless in violent protests and clashes since the vote.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Malaysia’s New Straits Times said Malaysian police have arrested a beauty parlor owner and a farmer suspected of distributing a sex video showing a former Health Minister Chua Soi Lek committing adultery. Soi Lek resigned Jan 2 after admitting he was the man in the video.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Jacob Zuma, the new African National Congress leader and would-be national president, took another wife, in a Zulu tradition of polygamy that coexists uneasily with calls for gender equality in modern South Africa.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 5, Syria joined other Arab nations in endorsing the head of Lebanon's army as that country's next president, putting pressure on the Lebanese opposition to drop demands that have blocked a compromise over the post.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2009 Jan 5, President George W. Bush authorized the immediate use of US aircrafts to transport supplies to the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, Pres. Elect Obama named William Panetta (70) to head the CIA.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, The US Federal Reserve began buying mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, in an effort to make home financing more affordable.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.C3)
2009 Jan 5, The California Supreme Court decided that churches that break away from a national denomination may not take church assets with them.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 5, Alexander James Trabulse (61) of Colma, Ca., was arrested at San Francisco Airport, after arriving from France. He had been charged 3 days earlier with mail fraud. Authorities said he had sent account statements to investors in his Fahey Fund that inflated the hedge fund’s returns by as much as 200%. On Nov 3 Trabulse pleaded guilty for defrauding investors of some $8.3 million. In 2010 Trabulse was sentenced to over 8 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.C1)(SFC, 11/4/09, p.D3)(SFC, 5/5/10, p.C5)
2009 Jan 5, Former US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy said Citgo Petroleum, the US refiner owned by the Venezuelan government, planned to stop deliveries to his Boston-based nonprofit, Citizens’ Energy, due to falling oil prices. The stop order was removed 2 days later.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A7)(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 5, A Minnesota board certified results showing Democrat Al Franken winning the state’s US Senate recount by 225 votes over Republican Norm Coleman, whose lawyer promised a legal challenge.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, Boeing signed a $2.1 billion deal with India for eight P-81 maritime patrol aircraft.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 5, In Illinois Steven L. Good (52), chief executive of Sheldon Good & Co, one of the nation’s largest real estate auction firms, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a forest outside Chicago. In 2003 he authored “Churches, Jails and Gold Mines… Mega-Deals from a Real Estate Maverick."
(WSJ, 1/7/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 5, In Afghanistan 9 Taliban militants were killed in a gunfight by Afghan and NATO troops in the southern province of Kandahar. 2 gunmen shot a Muslim cleric to death inside a mosque in Kandahar city.
(AFP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, British company Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the maker of classic china and crystal, filed for bankruptcy protection after attempts to restructure the struggling business or find a buyer failed.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Chile’s Pres. Michelle Bachelet announced a $4 billion economic stimulus package.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 5, China launched a major crackdown on Internet pornography targeting popular online portals and major search engines such as Google.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, A Chinese woman (19) died from bird flu in a Beijing hospital, but the World Health Organization said the case did not appear to signal a new public health threat.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, In eastern Congo rival rebel chief of staff Bosco Ntaganda announced the dismissal of Laurent Nkunda and has taken control of the CNDP rebel movement.
(AFP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 5, Germany’s ruling coalition agreed to a 2-year fiscal stimulus package of as much as $69 billion (€50 billion).
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 5, In southwestern Germany the body of billionaire Adolf Merckle (74) was found near railway tracks at Blaubeuren. He had committed suicide after his business empire ran into trouble in the global financial crisis. Merckle’s VEM holding company controlled Ratiopharm, building materials giant HeidelbergCement and one of Europe's biggest wholesale drug distributors, Phoenix. In 2008 Forbes Magazine ranked Merckle as the world’s 94th richest man.
(AP, 1/6/09)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.58)(AP, 3/18/10)
2009 Jan 5, In Greece gunmen sprayed Athens riot police with automatic weapons fire, seriously wounding a policeman in an escalation of violence that broke out after the fatal police shooting of a teenager on Dec 6. The Revolutionary Struggle group later claimed responsibility.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 9/30/11)
2009 Jan 5, In Hong Kong a new survey said one in five residents is considering leaving the city because of its dire air quality, raising fears over the financial hub's competitiveness.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, India handed to Pakistan what it said was evidence linking the country to the Islamic militants who attacked Mumbai in November.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, In Iraq the US inaugurated its largest embassy ever in the heart of the Green Zone, officially opening the $700 million fortress-like compound that was built as a testament to America's commitment to Iraq. Four bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad just before noon, killing four people and wounding 19. Subhi Hassan, who handles political relations for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and a bodyguard were killed after unidentified gunmen chased down their car after it passed through a checkpoint. US troops killed a civilian in a vehicle after the driver failed to heed warnings to stop in Baqouba.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, Israel consolidated its hold on parts of the Gaza Strip, seizing high-rise buildings on the outskirts of the territory's biggest city as a stream of world leaders headed for the region to press for a truce. About 12 Palestinian children were killed. The 10th day of fighting put the Palestinian death toll at an estimated 550. 3 Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded by friendly fire. Gaza health officials said an Israeli airstrike outside a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip killed 39 people, many of them children. An Israeli missile struck a building in Zeitoun where Palestinians had been herded. At least 30 people were killed. 4 members of the Haji family, including their three-year-old daughter, were killed and another nine people were injured when an Israeli tank opened fire on them in the Zeitun area, despite the fact that they were holding a white flag. In 2011 Israel's military advocate general closed an investigation into the white flag incident due to lack of evidence.
(AP, 1/5/09)(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A3)(AP, 1/11/09)(Econ, 1/17/09, p.49)(AFP, 4/12/11)
2009 Jan 5, Israeli forces directly targeted the house of Wa’el Fares Hamdi al-Samouni, and its vicinity, killing 21 persons and injuring many others. Between January 4-7, 27 members of the Samouni family were killed, including 11 children and 6 women, and 35 others were injured. On May 2, 2012, the Israeli military said it has closed its investigation into the shelling deaths of 21 members of a single Palestinian family and would not file any charges. Italian filmmaker Stefano Savona spent nine years trying to piece together what happened. In 2018 her film "Samouni Road", which uses animation and 3D images to reconstruct what happened, received rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.
(http://tinyurl.com/6m5sh7h)(AFP, 5/2/12)(AFP, 5/16/18)
2009 Jan 5, In Indian Kashmir Omar Abdullah (38), a young pro-India Muslim, was sworn in as the new chief minister after elections that attracted a higher turnout than many politicians and voters expected.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Ahmed Aboutaleb (47), a Moroccan immigrant, was installed as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, In Pakistan three bullet-riddled bodies were found along a road some 16 miles east of Miran Shah. Police said suspected Taliban militants had executed a Pakistani construction contractor and two Afghan men they accused of spying for the US.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Sri Lanka’s government troops captured a strategic Tamil Tiger-held town and moved closer to a key rebel base, as citizens raised flags and held a moment of silence to honor the military as it battles to end the country's 25-year-old civil war. The rebels, as well has hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting, were confined to a jungle area slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, The Vatican said that Bishop Allen H. Vigneron will replace Cardinal Adam Joseph Maida at the head of the Detroit archdiocese. The pope also named the auxiliary bishop of Halifax, Claude Champagne, as the new bishop of Edmundston in Canada. Benedict appointed the Rev. Cirilo Flores as new auxiliary bishop of Orange, California.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 5, Turkey restored the citizenship of its most famous poet Monday in a symbolic step meant to show it was addressing criticism of its human rights record in hopes of joining the European Union. Turkey had stripped Nazim Hikmet of his nationality in 1951 at the height of the Cold War because of his communist views, branded him a traitor and imprisoned him for more than a decade. He died in exile in Moscow in 1963.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2010 Jan 5, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in SF overturned Washington state’s ban on voting by convicted felons. The ruling could extend ballots to prisoners in other states.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.C3)
2010 Jan 5, US sports broadcaster ESPN said it will show some World Cup soccer matches live from South Africa in 3-D and Japan's Sony teamed up with Discovery and IMAX to launch a 3-D TV network in the United States.
(AFP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, Google introduced its Nexus One smart phone.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Jan 5, In California 3 biologists with the California Dept. of Fish and Game were killed along with their helicopter pilot while they were surveying deer in the foothills of Sierra national Forest after their vehicle clipped a power line and crashed.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.C2)
2010 Jan 5, In Illinois a small Learjet cargo plane crashed into the Des Plains River in Glenview killing two pilots onboard.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Kentucky lottery officials said Rob Anderson (39) and his wife were winners of the $128.6 million Powerball jackpot, the largest in the state's history. The central Kentucky autoworker held on to the $128 million Powerball ticket he bought on Christmas Eve during some last-minute shopping, after it was printed by mistake.
(AP, 1/7/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Utah deputy sheriff Josie Greathouse Fox was killed following a traffic stop in Delta. Police searched for suspect Roberto Miramontes Roman, who had just sold drugs to a relative of the slain officer.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Bolivian President Evo Morales said he's inviting activists, scientists and government officials from around the world to an alternative climate conference following the failure of a summit in Copenhagen to produce binding agreements.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Bulgaria gunmen shot dead Bobbie Tsankov, a popular radio show host and crime journalist, and critically injured two other men in a busy part of the capital, Sofia.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, A fire in a coal mine in central China killed at least 25 workers. Search efforts continued for at least three others trapped underground at the Lisheng coal mine in Xiangtan city in Hunan province.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 5, Iceland’s Pres. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson rejected a bill passed by parliament on Dec 30 on a state guarantee for €3.9 billion owed to British and Dutch governments. This amount would cover compensation paid to savers in those countries following the collapse of Landsbanki and its internet-banking scheme, Icesave, one of three stricken Icelandic banks nationalized in October 2008.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 5, In India global car manufacturers eyeing the explosive growth of the Indian market unveiled new compact models at the Delhi auto show as they sought to break the dominance of entrenched local producers.
(AFP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, In Nairobi, Kenya, public transit was paralyzed after minibus drivers went on a 3-day strike following claims of extortion and corruption by police.
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican-born radical Muslim cleric, was stuck in Kenya despite attempts to deport him because other nations are refusing to allow him to transit through their countries. He has called for Americans, Hindus and Jews to be killed. The British government has said he was a key influence on July 7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, The UN food agency said it is stopping aid distribution to about 1 million people in southern Somalia because of attacks against staff and demands by armed groups that aid organizations remove women from their teams.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 5, Taiwan’s parliament voted to reinstate a ban on imports of US ground beef and offal amid mad cow concerns, challenging a decision by Pres. Ma Ying-jeou to allow some shipments.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A2)
2011 Jan 5, Claiming power beneath the Capitol dome, resurgent Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives as the 112th Congress convened in an era of economic uncertainty. Dozens of tea party-backed lawmakers took office in both houses.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Federal prosecutors said IRS agent Albert Bront (51) pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to filing false tax returns for himself and two innocent relatives. The false tax form claims included bogus alimony and mortgage deductions.
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 5, The US said it has decided against renewing a $215 million aid program for farming and infrastructure in Honduras.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, A US Border Patrol agent was involved in a shooting on the Arizona border with Mexico that resulted in the death of Ramses Barron Torres (17), who was trying to illegally scale the border fence.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)(SFC, 1/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 5, A US panel spread blame for the deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill beyond BP to Halliburton and Transocean, accusing all three of "systemic" management failures that could happen again. A full report was due in a week.
(AFP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Nebraska Robert Butler Jr. (17) opened fire at Millard South High School in Omaha wounding his principal and killing the vice-principal before killing himself.
(SFC, 1/6/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 5, In Oakland, Tennessee, explosions and a fire at the Kinematics Research ammunition plant killed one worker.
(SFC, 1/6/11, p.A11)
2011 Jan 5, The USS Kittiwake, a decommissioned 1945-vintage submarine rescue ship, was scuttled in the clear Caribbean waters of the Cayman Islands, where officials say the sunken vessel will attract fish and tourists.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Afghanistan's intelligence agencies said that they have thwarted two major attacks in Kabul in the past 20 days: a plot to assassinate the country's first vice president and a bombing near the president's palace. NATO said two of its service members were killed by roadside bombs, one in southern Afghanistan and the second in the east.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Queensland's premier said Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its coal mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a halt. Officials and scientists said the disastrous floods have spread to 40 towns and threatened the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as tons of sludge poured into the sea.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, A lawyer for the Belarus Helsinki Committee said police had seized computers at its office and taken its director in for questioning.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Brazil five sisters in Sao Paulo state went to police and accused their father of sexually abusing them for over 20 years.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 5, China’s state media said Beijing and Shanghai will be among the first places to put marriage databases online this year. The plan is to have records for all of China online by 2015. Officials were putting marriage records online so lovers and spouses could check for cheaters. The Ministry of Civil Affairs a few years ago said such a project would be operational by last year. The plan now is to have records for all of China online by 2015.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, French automaker Renault suspended three top managers suspected of leaking secrets about electric cars, the auto industry's big hope for the future. Renault and the French secret service suspected Chinese involvement in the affair. In March the firm apologized to the managers after it emerged police found no trace of bank accounts the accused men were alleged to have held and that the source of the spying allegations may have been a fraudster.
(AFP, 1/7/11)(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Guyana a grenade that exploded at a bus depot in Georgetown while still in the hands of the man carrying it. He was the only person killed and was described as a Guyana native who had been released from a US prison and deported back to his home country a few years ago. 19 people were wounded by shrapnel in the explosion, including a 4-year-old boy and his 76-year-old grandmother.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Indian officials said near-freezing temperatures and icy Himalayan winds have killed dozens of people in northern India over the past two weeks and forced schools to close in the capital. A sightseeing bus overturned and plunged into a gorge, killing 22 Indian tourists and injuring 12 others who were visiting Mussoorie at the foot of the Himalayas. The driver fled the scene but was arrested the next day.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iran hanged in public a man who committed a sensational murder captured on video, as well as a drug trafficker who was executed in a prison in the northeast of the country. Iranian media in October reported that Yaqub stabbed Mohammad Reza to death in public and in front of two policemen.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iranian authorities arrested an American woman (55), reportedly with a microphone hidden in her teeth, on suspicion of spying. The woman was identified in Farsi as Hall Talayan (Hal Talaian, Hal Fayalan). State television first denied the report and then reversed itself saying the woman was arrested while filming a town on the Iran-Azerbaijan border. On Jan 9 state broadcaster IRIB said the woman was seeking an Iranian visa and never entered Iranian territory. She was denied entry and returned to Armenia on Jan 8. The US State Department confirmed that she was safe and not in Iranian custody.
(AP, 1/6/11)(Reuters, 1/6/11)(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 5, Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (36) returned to Iraq. He led several Shiite uprisings against American forces in Iraq before going into exile in neighboring Iran at least three years ago.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians along the Israel-Gaza border. Troops opened fire at two men trying to cross the border fence into Israel.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Japan a giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo, in the first auction of the year at the world's largest wholesale fish market.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Mali an assailant hurled an explosive at France's embassy in Bamako in an attack that wounded two Malian security guards. The blast appeared to be small, however, and caused only minor damage to an outer gate of the building. A Malian later died of injuries sustained in the attack. On Nov 29 Bachir Simoun (24) of Tunisia was sentenced to death for the attack.
(AP, 1/6/11)(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Mexico a gang of teenagers, most 15-years-old, were detained after a running shootout with officers in Ciudad Juarez. Acapulco police said they found the bodies of three men tossed into a sewer. The victims had been shot in the head and in the chest.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Morocco said it had arrested a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) among 26 others who planned to attack security services and rob banks using weapons they hid in an area of the disputed Western Sahara.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, North Korea proposed "unconditional" talks with Seoul to mend battered cross-border ties, in its most conciliatory remarks since cranking up tensions by shelling a South Korean island. South Korea dismissed the North Korean offer.
(AFP, 1/5/11)(Reuters, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Swedish officials said 50 to 100 jackdaw birds, a type of crow. were found lying in a snow-covered street in the southwestern town of Falkoeping.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Turkey authorities searching for mass graves of Kurds, who disappeared in the 1990s, unearthed the bones of eight people in a field in Bitlis province in southeast Turkey.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Venezuela supporters and opponents of Hugo Chavez held rival rallies to mark the start of a new parliament shorn of power by the radical socialist leader's assumption of decree rule. Larry Tovar Acuna, a convicted drug trafficker who has been in and out of prison, was recaptured by Venezuelan authorities after a shootout with police.
(AP, 1/5/11)(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Vietnam police roughed up Christian Marchant, an American diplomat, and repeatedly slammed a car door on his legs when he went to visit a prominent dissident. The encounter prompted a strong US protest.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2012 Jan 5, Pres. Obama announced a new “strategic guidance" regarding the future of American military power.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.30)
2012 Jan 5, A US Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The event was made public a day later and Iran's government on Jan 7 welcomed the rescue, calling it a positive humanitarian gesture. Iran's hard-line Fars news agency called the rescue operation a Hollywood dramatization of a routine event.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 5, Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered the transfer of the prison at Bagram, sometimes called "Afghanistan's Guantanamo," to Afghan control within a month, citing reports of human rights violations there. Four US soldiers from the Indiana National Guard were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan as they worked to clear a supply route.
(AFP, 1/5/12)(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 5, The African Union asked the UN to authorize an increase of its peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia by 5,700 to 17,700 amid mounting attacks by Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Colombia a criminal band called the Urabenos began a 2-day shut down of a northern swathe of the country in retaliation for the Jan 1 death of their leader, Juan de Dios Usaga.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.37)
2012 Jan 5, In Chile shifting winds caused flames to sweep over a group of firefighters battling wildfires, killing six of them, badly burning two and leaving another missing.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, China’s state media said Poyang Lake, the country’s largest freshwater lake, has shrunk to its smallest size in years due to drought, endangering the ecology in the area and fishermen's livelihoods.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Iraq explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, killing at least 27 people. Hours later a suicide attack hit Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, killing 45. A series of bombings targeting members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority claimed the lives of at least 78 people.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was indicted alongside a number of other people for allegedly taking bribes in a massive property scandal.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Japan a deep-pocketed restaurateur shelled out nearly $750,000 for a tuna at the Tsukiji fish market, smashing the record price for a single bluefin.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Wilson Sossion of the Kenya National Union of Teachers said that rioting parents have forcefully closed at least 10 primary schools. They are angry that their children failed national exams that determine if the children get into high school.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Mexican police captured Baltazar Saucedo Estrada (38), an alleged member of the Zetas drug cartel. He was considered the mastermind behind the Aug 25 casino fire that killed 52 people in the northern city of Monterrey.
(AP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, Myanmar's government approved the National League for Democracy to run in upcoming by-elections that will return Aung San Suu Kyi's party to mainstream politics after two decades.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Nigeria the two suspected Boko Haram members were killed after resisting arrest in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators who staged a protest in Kano against soaring fuel prices. Residents said an attack at Good Will Hotel in Mubi killed five people, all of them Igbos. Gunmen opened fire on worshippers at a church on the outskirts of the city of Gombe, killing six people, including the pastor's wife.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Pakistan unidentified gunmen kidnapped British Dr. Khalil Rasjed Dale (60) of the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Baluchistan province. The bullet-scarred bodies of 15 members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary were found, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped on Dec 23 in the militant-infested northwest. On April 29 Dale’s beheaded body was found in Quetta.
(AFP, 1/5/12)(Reuters, 4/29/12)
2012 Jan 5, In the southern Philippines a landslide tore through a tiny gold-mining village, killing at least 31 people in Napnapan village, Mindanao island. Up to 39 people were still missing.
(AP, 1/5/12)(AFP, 1/6/12)(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 5, In southern Sweden dozens of police took to the streets of Malmo to try calm the public and to collect tips about the attacks, which come only a year after a suspected serial shooter was arrested in the city. In less than six weeks, five people have been shot dead in this city of 250,000, including a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Syrian state-TV reported that authorities have released more than 500 prisoners accused of involvement in anti-regime activities. Avaaz, an online global activist group, issued a report saying 617 people have been confirmed killed under torture by President Bashar Assad's forces as they cracked down on the revolt. Avaaz said that 37,000 people remain in detention.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Thai wildlife officials said body parts from a dead wild elephant, found on Jan 2 without its tusks, tail and penis, were likely destined for restaurants in tourist areas. The creature, which was discovered in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Myanmar border.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Tunisia Ammar Gharsalla (48), a jobless father of three, poured petrol and set himself ablaze in front of the main office of the governorate of Gafsa after three ministers visiting the area to look into the unemployment problem refused to meet him. He had been part of a group of protesters staging a sit-in for days in front of the Gafsa government office to highlight the unemployment problem in the phosphate-rich region. Gharsalla died on Jan 9.
(AFP, 1/6/12)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.47)
2012 Jan 5, In Vietnam six police and army officers were injured in the northern port city of Haiphong during a guerrilla-style clash between authorities and farmers who tried to fend off a land eviction by laying homemade land mines and firing improvised shotguns. Doan Van Vuon (49) had long been at odds with authorities who proposed evicting him from 19 hectares (47 acres) of swamp land leased in 1993 on a 14-year contract. He had converted the area into a seafood farm. On Jan 17 PM Nguyen Tan Dung called for an investigation.
(AP, 1/17/12)
2013 Jan 5, In Colorado a gun man in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, fired shots at police before he was gunned down. Inside the home SWAT officers found the bodies of 3 adults.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 5, In North Carolina Pat McCrory was sworn in as governor, becoming the first Republican to head the state in 20 years.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 5, In Canada aboriginal demonstrators disrupted passenger rail service on routes connecting Toronto with Ottawa and Montreal, a day after PM Harper agreed to meet with First Nations leaders to discuss grievances behind a growing native protest movement.
(Reuters, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In the Central African Republic the Seleka alliance rebels took Alindao town raising their control to 11 towns.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Egypt unidentified gunmen shot and killed an Egyptian policeman in northern Sinai's main city of el-Arish.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Hungary journalist Zsolt Bayer, a founding member of the governing Fidesz party, wrote a newspaper column in which he said: "a significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals and they behave like animals."
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 5, Indonesia anti-terror police shot and killed 5 suspected Islamist militants over the last 24 hours in raids on the island of Sumbawa.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 5, In Kenya a poaching gang used gunfire to kill an entire family of 11 elephants in Tsavo National Park for their ivory tusks.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 5, A Moroccan family of 5 returning home died when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Grenoble airport near the French Alps.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In northwest Nigeria suspected armed robbers raided three villages in Zamfara state, killing at least 7 people and wounding 7 more.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2013 Jan 5, Northern Ireland police used water cannons to fend off brick-hurling protesters in Belfast as demonstrations continued over flying the British flag.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 5, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels and government troops clashed in suburbs south of Damascus, including Harasta and Daraya. The Observatory, which relies on reports by activists on the ground, said government troops had arrested several residents in raids in the suburb of Qatana.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Venezuela allies of cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez chose to retain Diosdado Cabello as the National Assembly president. He could be in line to step in as a caretaker leader in some circumstances.
(AP, 1/5/13)
2013 Jan 5, In Zimbabwe eight people died in a bus crash that brought the traffic accident death toll during the holiday period to the highest on record in the country. The central police traffic command said 209 people have died in accidents since Dec. 15.
(AP, 1/6/13)
2014 Jan 5, A US Coast Guard heavy icebreaker left Australia for Antarctica to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard Chinese and Russian icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent's eastern edge.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Colorado a co-pilot was killed and two pilots injured when a private jet crashed and burst into flames at the airport that serves Aspen.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Bangladesh held parliamentary elections. The ruling Awami League won 232 of the 300 elected seats as about half the seats were uncontested due to a boycott by the main opposition party. At least 21 people were killed in election-related violence. Alleged ballot stuffing by the ruling party pushed the turnout just over 40%.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)(AP, 1/6/14)(SSFC, 1/12/14, p.A6)
2014 Jan 5, In Burkina Faso 75 officials announced their resignation from the ruling party, ratcheting up political tension before elections scheduled for next year. They said democracy had "disappeared" from President Blaise Compaore's Congress for Democracy and Progress party.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, In the CAR a hand grenade attack on a Bangui market left four people injured, including two women and a Burundian soldier from MISCA, the African force deployed in the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In China worshippers at the Beida Mosque in Guyuan, Ningxia region, were handing out traditional cakes when a rush for food triggered a stampede that left 14 dead.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, An Egyptian court gave suspended one-year sentences to 12 activists including youth leaders of the 2011 uprising for an attack on a former presidential candidate's headquarters.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Iraq a new wave of bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 20 people. Government forces battling an al Qaeda offensive near the Syrian border launched an air strike on Ramadi killing 25 Islamist militants. 22 soldiers and 12 civilians were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 1/5/14)(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Israel over 30,000 African migrants, many holding banners demanding freedom for compatriots jailed as illegal job-seekers, protested in a main Tel Aviv square against a new open-ended detention law.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Lebanon one man was shot dead and six people were wounded in clashes in Tripoli between districts that support rival sides in neighboring Syria's civil war.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Libya's navy blocked an oil tanker from illegally loading crude at an eastern port that has been held for months by armed protesters demanding more autonomy from Tripoli.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, Portuguese football legend Eusebio (71), the top scorer in the 1966 World Cup, died. The Mozambique-born striker made his name at Benfica, winning 11 league titles and one European Cup during a 15-year spell there.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia human body parts fell from the sky in the city of Jeddah, with police saying they could be the remains of a person trapped in an airplane's wheel bay.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, A Saudi court jailed five people for up to 30 years on charges including plotting to blow up an oil refinery on behalf of Al-Qaeda.
(AFP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 5, Fighting continued across South Sudan, even as peace talks between the government and rebels were set to begin in Ethiopia.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Spanish police arrested Abdeluahid Sadik Mohamed at Malaga airport after arriving on a flight bound from Istanbul. He was suspected of belonging to an al-Qaida linked terror organization and participating in the Syrian conflict.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In southern Switzerland 4 skiers were killed and another was in a critical condition after a series of avalanches hit the Alps.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, Syrian opposition fighters seized a compound garrisoned by an al-Qaida-linked rebel faction, in some of the most serious infighting to date within the vast array of rebel groups trying to topple Pres. Assad.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Thailand thousands of anti-government protesters marched through Bangkok, a prelude to a broader action next week when they say they will shut down the city in their bid to scuttle a February election and topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 5, In northern Yemen at least 10 people were killed in a 2nd day of clashes between Shiite rebels and Sunni tribesmen fighting alongside hardline Salafists. In Hadramawt province a tribesman was killed at an army checkpoint.
(AFP, 1/5/14)(AFP, 1/6/14)
2015 Jan 5, The US Justice Department said it has charged two men, Cherno Njie (57) and Papa Faal (46), for their involvement in the failed Dec. 30 attempt to overthrow the government of Gambia.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The California Dept. of Motor Vehicles wrote an advisory saying any passenger vehicle used or maintained for the transportation of persons for hire, compensation of profit is a commercial vehicle.
(SFC, 1/24/15, p.A1)
2015 Jan 5, In NYC Thomas Gilbert Jr., founder of hedge fund Wainscott Capital Partners, was shot and killed by his son Tommy Gilbert (29), who was soon arrested. In 2019 he was sentenced in Manhattan to at least 30 years in prison for the crime.
(SFC, 1/7/15, p.A14)(AP, 9/29/19)
2015 Jan 5, In Miami lesbian and gay couples were wed hours before Florida’s coming out party as the nation’s 36th state to legalize same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 1/6/15, p.A12)
2015 Jan 5, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck near the headquarters of the European police training mission in Kabul, killing one Afghan civilian and wounding 16 people.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Southern Australia. State Premier Jay Weatherill said that hundreds of fire fighters have taken advantage of milder conditions in recent days to attempt to contain the fire which has razed 12,500 hectares (31,000 acres) of countryside in hills northwest of Adelaide.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Bangladesh two men on a motorbike opened fire on a group of anti-government activists in the northwest, killing two amid heightened tensions on the anniversary of a general election boycotted by a major opposition alliance last year. Two more activists from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party were killed during clashes with supporters of the governing party and security forces.
(AP, 1/5/15)(SFC, 1/6/15, p.A4)
2015 Jan 5, In CongoDRC UN and Democratic Republic of Congo forces seized several rebel bases in an offensive launched against a Burundi rebel group.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Germany thousands of protesters in several cities rallied against Muslim immigration. Rallies organized by a new grassroots movement called PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, have become a weekly event in the eastern city of Dresden.
(Reuters, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, Grenada's PM Keith Mitchell said the eastern Caribbean island will only have to pay half of a $22 million debt it owes Taiwan with a payment plan for loans it awarded over a 10-year period.
(AP, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, Indonesia’s transportation ministry announced harsh measures against everyone who allowed AirAsia Flight 8501 to take off without proper permits, including the suspension of the airport's operator and officials in the control tower.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The Islamic State jihadist group posted a series of pictures online indicating the execution of 8 people, four of them policemen, in Iraq's Salaheddin province.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, The US-led coalition launched 20 more air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq over the last 24 hours, targeting fighters for the militant group and hitting its crude oil operations.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Ireland said the United States will permit imports of beef from the country, the first European Union state allowed to resume sales since the mad cow disease scare over 15 years ago.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Lebanon began imposing unprecedented restrictions on the entry of Syrians, as it struggled to cope with well over a million refugees feeling the civil war next door.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Libya's official government banned Palestinians, Syrians and Sudanese from entry because their countries are undermining the oil producing nation's security. The government of PM Abdullah al-Thinni runs only a rump state in eastern Libya and would therefore only be able to enforce the ban at the eastern airports of Tobruk and Labraq and the land crossing with Egypt.
(Reuters, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Mali at least 5 people were killed in a gun attack on an army base close to the Mauritanian frontier.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In Pakistan a US drone strike in North Waziristan killed Ubaidullah (aka Qari Imran), in charge of al-Qaida's Indian branch of Afghan affairs, as well as 5 other fighters. In the 3rd week of this month another strike killed deputy chief Raja Suleman (aka Ustad Ahmed Farouq).
(AP, 4/12/15)(http://tinyurl.com/poa2hjd)(Reuters, 4/23/15)
2015 Jan 5, Pakistani troops fired gunshots and mortar shells that killed an Indian soldier in northern Kashmir.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he would no longer comply with the terms of his house arrest and had cut off his monitoring tag.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Bitstamp, a Slovenia-based bitcoin exchange bitcoin, halted operations and reported that 19,000 of the currency units had vanished. Bitstamp resumed operation on Jan 9.
(http://tinyurl.com/ne46mkd)(Econ, 1/10/15, p.58)
2015 Jan 5, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead after they opened fire on rangers in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, South Korean media reported that a young North Korean soldier crossed the border in late December and stole money and food at a house before killing four residents in China's northeastern city of Helong.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, Taiwan’s justice ministry granted former president Chen Shui-bian (2000-2006) medical parole as he served a 20-year prison sentence on corruption charges.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.35)
2015 Jan 5, Police in Turkey detained 20 more police officers suspected of conducting illegal wiretaps in a new wave of raids in twelve cities.
(AP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In eastern Ukraine 12 servicemen were killed and 21 injured when their bus collided with two heavy trucks on a snowy road.
(AP, 1/6/15)
2016 Jan 5, Pres. Obama announced executive decisions to tighten gun laws.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A1)
2016 Jan 5, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Flint over problems with lead in the city’s drinking water.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A12)
2016 Jan 5, In Afghanistan one US service member was killed and two wounded in an operation near Marjah in Helmand province.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In China a man upset over a financial dispute set fire to a moving bus and fled as the flames trapped people inside, killing 17 and injuring 32. Several hours later police caught Ma Yongping (33) on a construction site in Yinchuan, Ningxia region.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, European equities staged a timid rebound, winning moderate support after Beijing pumped cash into the money market to soothe worries over the slowing Chinese economy.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Pierre Boulez (90), the former principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic, died at his home in Germany. The French conductor moved between conducting, composition and teaching over a long career that made him one of the leading figures in modern classical music.
(AP, 1/6/16)(Econ, 1/16/16, p.92)
2016 Jan 5, India said defense forces have killed the last of the six militants who attacked the Pathankot Air Force base near the Pakistan border over the weekend.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Libya Islamic State militants attacked checkpoints near the oil port of Es Sider for a second day and an oil storage tank in the port was set on fire by a long-range rocket. 2 guards were killed and 16 wounded in the fighting.
(Reuters, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Nigeria three female suicide bombers sneaked into Izghe and detonated bombs hidden under their garments, killing 7 other people and destroying three houses. A male suicide bomber also blew himself up, killing himself and 4 other people.
(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 5, A Palestinian stabbed and wounded a soldier in the southern West Bank before being shot dead.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, The diplomatic crisis surrounding Saudi Arabia and Iran widened as Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Tehran and Bahrain severed air links in the face of growing international concern.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Gunmen in Syria shot and killed Abu Rateb al-Homsy, the commander of an ultraconservative rebel group in the central Homs province.
(AP, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkey’s military said security forces have killed at least 14 militants in the mainly Kurdish southeast over the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, In Turkey the bodies of 36 migrants, at least seven of them children, were found at two sites along the Aegean coast after they apparently tried to cross to the nearby Greek island of Lesbos.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkish forces, acting on a tip, conducted an operation on a Bolivian-flagged ship in international waters off the coast of Libya and seized 13 tons of marijuana. It was Turkey's first anti-narcotics operation in international waters.
(AP, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 5, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov slammed the country's anti-smoking strategy at a televised government meeting. Authorities soon began to force shops to stop selling cigarettes, but a ban on cigarette sales was not yet officially announced or published by the government.
(AFP, 1/14/16)
2016 Jan 5, Venezuela’s opposition took majority control of the National Assembly. 163 of 167 lawmakers were sworn in as the government-stacked Supreme Court barred four from taking their seats under probes of electoral fraud.
(SFC, 1/6/16, p.A4)
2016 Jan 5, In Yemen the governor of the southern port city of Aden survived a car bomb attack that killed two bodyguards and critically wounded three others.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 5, Zimbabwe media reported that Ellen Chiweshe, whose title was group captain, has been promoted to become the southern African country's first female Air Commodore, the No. 3 post in the air force.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2017 Jan 5, US Pres.-elect Donald Trump selected former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to lead the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A5)
2017 Jan 5, America's top intelligence official said that Russia undoubtedly interfered in the US 2016 presidential election but stopped short of using the explosive description "an act of war," telling lawmakers such a call isn't within the purview of the US intelligence community. Senior US officials said the CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the Democratic National Committee and party leaders to WikiLeaks at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin through third parties.
(AP, 1/5/17)(Reuters, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, The US State and Treasury department said Hamza bin Laden, a son of Osama bin Laden, and Ibrahim al-Banna, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have been added to the US counter-terrorism blacklist, a move to keep them from using the US financial system.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Chicago four people were charged with hate crimes in connection with a video broadcast live on Facebook that showed a mentally disabled white man (18) being beaten and taunted, threatened with a knife and forced to drink from a toilet.
(SFC, 1/6/17, pea)(SFC, 1/7/17, pea)
2017 Jan 5, Mercedes-Benz said it is recalling nearly 48,000 SUVs in the US to fix a sensor problem that could stop the front passenger air bag from inflating in a crash.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Argentine firefighters struggled to control a series of wildfires that have devastated nearly one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of the country's famous pampas. The largest was started by a lightning strike on New Year's weekend and was now 10 km across.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Bahrain announced that it has restored the power of its domestic spy service to make some arrests, reversing a key reform recommended in the wake of the crackdown that followed the country's 2011 Arab Spring protests.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Bahrain's prosecution extended by two weeks the detention of Shiite opposition leader Nabil Rajab over spreading "false information" about the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Brazilian President Michel Temer said the country will build new prisons in every state to relieve overcrowding after a "horrific" riot that left 56 inmates dead.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said women in the Lake Chad basin, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, have been forced to sell sex to survive due to an insurgency by Boko Haram fighters that has driven millions from their homes and left children to starve.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Cyprus' biggest bank said it has fully repaid 11.4 billion euros ($11.9 billion) of emergency cash it received to stay afloat during a 2013 banking crisis that forced the island to need a multibillion euro rescue deal from its eurozone partners.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said one suspect was killed and three others arrested in a police raid in connection with a bomb attack that killed six policemen in Cairo on December 9. Those arrested in the raid on the outskirts of Cairo belonged to a militant group called the Hasm Movement, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, French authorities started slaughtering ducks in the main foie gras-producing region to try to contain a dangerous form of bird flu.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Guyana narrowly passed a bill late today that allows officials to raid the commercial bank accounts of business owners who owe a large amount of unpaid taxes.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Haiti Guy Philippe (48) a key figure in the 2004 ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and later ran for president himself, was arrested. He had been indicted in 2005 on US cocaine trafficking charges but managed to elude capture.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, An Indonesian government minister clarified that the country was suspending only part of its military cooperation with Australia, as that country promised its investigation of an alleged insult of Indonesian beliefs was nearly complete. Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne said the issue began in November, after an Indonesian military officer raised concerns about teaching materials and remarks made at an army language-training facility in western Australia.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Iraqi forces launched an offensive against the Islamic State group near the Syrian border, piling further pressure on the jihadists' crumbling "caliphate".
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Iraq several attacks in and around Baghdad killed at least 27 people including a suicide car bombing in a commercial area in central Baghdad that killed at least 11 civilians.
(AP, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A3)
2017 Jan 5, Israeli police questioned PM Benjamin Netanyahu for a second time as part of a probe into whether he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Namibian plaintiffs, including some from New York, sued Germany over a genocide carried out by German colonial troops in the early 1900s, in which more than 100,000 people were killed. They sued under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 US law often invoked in human rights cases.
(AP, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, Nigerian soldiers found one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram nearly three years ago wandering in the bush with her baby near the Islamic extremist group's forest stronghold. More than 200 of the girls remain missing.
(AP, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/6/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 5, A Nigerian official said three teenage girls suspected of planning a triple suicide bomb attack in a town frequently targeted by Boko Haram have been shot dead. The girls were intercepted at Bakin Dutse village, some five km from Madagali.
(AFP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Philippines’s police chief Ronald dela Rosa said security forces had effectively broken the backbone of Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines (AKP) with the killing of its leader, Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, and the arrest of his three AKP colleagues.
(Reuters, 1/7/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka hundreds of opposition supporters and farmers protested the government's plan to lease a southern seaport to a Chinese-controlled joint venture in exchange for the heavy loans to build the port.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, A Swiss insurance agency ruled that an Uber driver is an employee for whom the company must pay social security contributions, dealing a blow to the US ride-hailing platform that says drivers are independent contractors.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Syria at least ten people were killed in a car blast in the coastal province of Latakia where two Russian bases are located.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In Syria the Jabar citadel on the banks of Lake Assad was taken by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.
(Reuters, 1/6/17)
2017 Jan 5, Thailand’s Interior Ministry said flooding in the south has killed at least five people, disrupted transportation and spoiled tourists' holidays at one of the country's most popular resort islands.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, Two senior Turkish military officers were jailed for life for involvement in July's failed coup attempt that killed almost 250 people, marking the first conviction related to the putsch.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 5, In western Turkey a car bombing outside a courthouse in Izmir killed two people. The Kurdish PKK militant group was suspected. Turkish police shot dead two assailants. A day later police detained 18 people in connection to the attack.
(Reuters, 1/5/17)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 5, Zimbabwe's wildlife agency said it has sold 35 elephants to China to ease overpopulation and raise funds for conservation, amid criticism from animal welfare activists that such sales are unethical.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2018 Jan 5, The US imposed sanctions against five Iranian firms alleged to have been working on an illegal ballistic missile program, linking the move to the protests, and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The United States imposed sanctions on four current or former Venezuelan government officials, including a former food minister accused by the opposition of corruptly managing food imports.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A severe winter storm in the US Northeast brought plunging temperatures, driving regional natural gas prices to all-time highs, disrupting refinery operations and causing electrical outages.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The Mega Millions $450 million grand prize winning ticket was sold at a store in Port Richey, Florida. On Jan 12 Shane Missler (20) of Port Richey claimed the prize and chose to get $282 million at once.
(SSFC, 1/7/18, p.A7)(SFC, 1/13/18, p.A6)
2018 Jan 5, In Louisiana a house fire in Baton Rouge killed a woman and two children. Another young woman and a boy (5) were hospitalized in critical condition.
(SFC, 1/6/18, p.A6)
2018 Jan 5, Astronaut John Young (b.1930) died at his home in Houston. He commanded the Apollo 16 lunar voyage and walked on the moon in April, 1972.
(SSFC, 1/7/18, p.C11)
2018 Jan 5, Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said Crown-of-thorns starfish are feasting on parts of the reef system, which is already threatened by rising ocean temperatures.
(SFC, 1/6/18, p.A2)
2018 Jan 5, Large parts of eastern Canada grappled with extreme weather as temperatures plunged to record lows in Toronto, while heavy winds downed power lines, contributing to power outages affecting more than 85,000 customers in Nova Scotia.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, China tightened limits on critically important energy supplies to North Korea and stepped up other trade restrictions under intensified UN nuclear sanctions.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Egypt a hot air balloon crash near Luxor killed a South African tourist and injured several others. High winds and sandstorms swept the country, clouding the skies at Cairo's main airport and forcing the closure of a number of Red Sea ports.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Hess Corp. reported another significant oil discovery in an area known as the Stabroek Block in deep Atlantic Ocean waters off Guyana.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In France protests over press freedom and the deteriorating state of human rights in Turkey greeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he arrived in Paris for talks with President Emmanuel Macron.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A Georgian court sentenced former leader Mikheil Saakashvili in absentia to three years in prison for seeking to cover up evidence about the murder of a Georgian banker when he was president - a verdict which he denounced as illegal.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A Greek court ruled that two Macedonian men arrested on an international warrant issued by their country on charges related to a wiretapping scandal should be extradited.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Iran's state TV reported that tens of thousands of government supporters rallied across the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and accusing the US of instigating the largest anti-government protests in nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Kashmir 13 people were swept away by three near-simultaneous avalanches at three places in a stretch of about 10 km (6 miles) on a mountainous road in Kupawara district. Two people were rescued. 11 bodies were recovered the next day.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Mexico five decapitated human heads were found on the hood of a taxi in the drug violence-plagued state of Veracruz. Thirty people were killed and seven more suffered gunshot wounds over the last two days of drug trafficking-fueled violence in the northern state of Chihuahua.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Moldova a court temporarily suspended the powers of President Igor Dodon, paving the way for parliament to bypass his veto and enact a law that would restrict Russian TV broadcasts as foreign propaganda.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Myanmar six soldiers were injured in an insurgent attack in northern Rakhine state. The military said the attackers were from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the militant group blamed for attacks on police posts.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Nigeria Julius Ayuk Tabe, the Nigeria-based chairman of the Governing Council of Ambazonia, a Cameroon separatist movement, was taken into custody in Abuja along with six aides.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, North Korea agreed to hold official talks with the South next week, the first in more than two years, hours after the United States and South Korea delayed a military exercise amid a standoff over the North's nuclear and missile programs.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, A senior Pakistani senator expressed disappointment at the US decision to suspend military aid, saying it will be detrimental to bilateral relations.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Papua New Guinea the Kadovar Island volcano, thought to be dormant, began spewing ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of more than 500 residents.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In the Philippines Joel Reyes, the ex-governor of the western island of Palawan, was released from jail after a court voided the case against him. He was arrested in 2015 for the killing of Gerry Ortega, a prominent campaigner and radio host who frequently accused Reyes of massive corruption.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile over the kingdom's south near the border with Yemen, hours after Yemeni rebels said they had launched an attack.
(AFP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Angry Sudanese queued outside bakeries in Khartoum as bread prices doubled overnight, with bakers blaming a government decision to stop importing wheat.
(AFP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, Sudan closed the border with Eritrea a week after Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir announced a six-month state of emergency in the regions of Kassala and North Kurdufan. Sudanese police fired teargas to disperse some 400 demonstrators who marched through the city of Sennar to protest against a hike in bread prices.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the shutdown of all air and maritime traffic with the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire for the next 72 hours. He accused island leaders of being complicit in the illegal trafficking of goods and resources.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Yemen Brigadier General Taher al-Aqeeli, chief of staff of the Yemeni army, suffered minor injuries in a land mine explosion, while he was inspecting government positions in Khub wa al-Sha'af, the largest district in al-Jouf province.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 5, In Zimbabwe former foreign minister Walter Mzembi and ex-energy minister Samuel Undenge were charged with "criminal abuse of office." They both denied wrongdoing. Both granted bail the next day.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2019 Jan 5, Afghan government employee Javid Noori, who also worked as a part-time journalist in the Farah region was kidnapped and killed by Taliban militants. His body was found three days later. Noori was abducted from a bus along with 30 other passengers in a remote part of the province.
(Reuters, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 5, In CongoDRC the country's powerful Catholic church warned of a popular "uprising" if untrue results are announced.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Heavy snow caused travel chaos in parts of Austria and Germany as authorities closed roads and train routes because of avalanche danger and airports reported weather-related cancelations. A 20-year-old skier died in an avalanche on Mount Teisen, near the Austrian border.
(AP, 1/5/19)(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Brazil a special deployment of troops began fanning out in the northern city of Fortaleza with orders to stop a spike in violent attacks by criminal gangs against banks, buses and shops. Intelligence reports published by media suggested gangs were revolting against tough new measures recently imposed in the state's prisons.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, French "yellow vests" marched through Paris and other cities in protest against high living costs and the perceived indifference of Pres. Emmanuel Macron, whose government this week hardened its stance against them. Former light heavyweight boxer Christophe Dettinger (37) was filmed beating up police officers in Paris during the protests. Dettinger turned himself in to investigators on Jan. 7. On February 13 Dettinger was convicted of assault and given a one-year prison sentence.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)(AP, 1/7/19)(AP, 2/14/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Hungary thousands marched through Budapest's city center to protest against a new law that allows employers to ask staff to work up to 400 hours per year of overtime.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In southern India twin arson and bomb attacks rocked Kerala state, continuing a violent backlash that followed the entry of two women into the Sabarimala Hindu temple that forbids female devotees.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, An Indian court declared tycoon Vijay Mallya (62) a "fugitive economic offender," a ruling that empowers authorities to confiscate his properties and other assets. Mallya, who left India in 2016, is accused of money laundering and cheating Indian banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Japan a 612-pound (278-kg) bluefin tuna sold for a record 333.6 million yen ($3 million) at the first auction of 2019, after Tokyo's famed Tsukiji market was moved to a new site on the city's waterfront.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Madagascar police fired teargas to disperse some 500 supporters of the losing candidate in last month's presidential election, in the fifth such protest this week.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Mexico's Pres. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a plan to stimulate economic activity for 43 municipalities in six states just south of the US border.
(SSFC, 1/6/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 5, In Pakistan a car bomb exploded in a Peshawar neighborhood wounding three people and damaging several shops.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Gaza authorities arrested five Palestinians on suspicion of ransacking the offices of President Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestine Television station.
(Reuters, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In northeastern Spain four people died and a baby girl in a critical condition was among the injured, in two separate tower block fires.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, Switzerland-based shipping company MSC said that it was committed to finding and retrieving the containers that went overboard on Jan. 2 in a North Sea storm until the last one is found.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, The Istanbul-based Orthodox patriarch signed the formal decree confirming the creation of an independent Ukrainian church, marking a break with the Russian church that has angered Moscow.
(AFP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Vanuatu Mungau Dain (24), a star in the Oscar-nominated film "Tanna," died in the capital Port Vila, after contracting a leg infection that wasn't quickly treated.
(http://tinyurl.com/yclcz2ww)(AP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 5, The National Society of Film Critics chose Chloe Zhao's low-budget debut feature, "The Rider," as best picture of 2018. The society voted for Olivia Colman as best actress in "The Favourite," and Ethan Hawke as best actor in "First Reformed." The top accolade for best supporting actor went to Steve Yeun of "Burning," while Regina King of "If Beale Street Could Talk" nabbed best supporting actress.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In Egypt a policeman was killed late today as he was trying to defuse an explosive device near a church in a residential Cairo district.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces handed over IS fighters and civilians from Kazakhstan to their country. This included five fighters, 11 women and 30 children.
(AP, 1/7/19)
2019 Jan 5, In northern India six schoolchildren and their bus driver were killed as the vehicle rolled down a gorge on a hilly road in Himachal Pradesh state.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, In eastern Syria a missile attack by the Islamic State group killed at least one Kurdish fighter and wounded two British soldiers embedded with them.
(AP, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 5, Venezuela's opposition-controlled but toothless National Assembly declared Nicolas Maduro's presidency illegitimate, calling on the military to support efforts to restore democracy.
(AFP, 1/6/19)
2020 Jan 5, At the 77th Golden Globe Awards World War One movie "1917" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," set in 1960s Tinseltown, won the top movie prizes at the Golden Globes on a night packed with upsets and hot-button issues at the start of Hollywood's awards season.
(Reuters, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that the Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years.
(SSFC, 1/5/20, p.A10)
2020 Jan 5, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote this week on a resolution meant to limit President Donald Trump's war powers.
(Business Insider, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, At least five people were killed and dozens were injured in a crash early today involving multiple vehicles on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that wildfires that have been ravaging swaths of Australia have burned through one-third of Kangaroo Island, killing a father and his son and leaving behind a scorched wasteland and a devastated community. The fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5- 2020 Jan 17, In China hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country with symptoms of the coronavirus.
(AP, 4/14/20)
2020 Jan 5, Croatians voted in an election that may oust the president as frustration over corruption and ambitions for deeper integration in the EU may rebalance politics in the bloc’s newest member. Incumbent Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic faced former PM Zoran Milanovic. Croatians shot down President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s bid for a second term. Zoran Milanovic, who ran the government from 2011 to 2015, won 52.7% of votes.
(Bloomberg, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In India masked assailants beat students and teachers with sticks on the campus of a prestigious university in New Delhi, injuring more than 20 people in an attack opposition lawmakers are trying to link to the government.
(AP, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 5, Black-clad mourners packed Iran's second city Mashhad as the remains of top general Qasem Soleimani were paraded through the streets after he was killed in a US strike. Iran announced that it will no longer abide by the limits contained in the 2015 nuclear deal.
(AFP, 1/5/20)(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Jan 5, Iraq's Parliament called for the expulsion of US forces from the country in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general, raising the prospect of a troop withdrawal that could cripple the battle against the Islamic State group and allow a resurgence of the extremists.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, Canndoc, an Israeli producer of medical grade cannabis, received a shipment of 250 kilos of dried whole cannabis flowers that it says will help alleviate a local shortage. It came from Canada's Tilray's production plant in Portugal.
(Reuters, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In northern Italy a drunken driver plowed into a group of young German tourists, killing six people and injuring 11 others in the Alto Adige region. A 28-year-old man from the nearby town of Chienes, was arrested on suspicion of highway manslaughter and injury.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, In Kenya al-Shabab extremists overran a key military base used by US counterterror forces before dawn. One US service member and two American Department of Defense contractors were killed in the attack on the Manda Bay Airfield. Five US aircraft, including fixed-wing and helicopters, were destroyed and one damaged in the hours-long assault at the airfield in coastal Lamu county. Kenyan police arrested three suspected terrorists who tried to force their way into a British training camp in Laikipia County.
(AP, 1/5/20)(AP, 1/6/20)(SFC, 1/7/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 5, In Lebanon Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the US army will "pay the price" for killing top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi commander in a drone strike.
(AFP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 5, Venezuela's authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro moved to consolidate his grip on power by taking control of the National Assembly and blocking the re-election of Juan Guaido as the opposition's leader.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A4)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that Donald Trump has signed an executive order that asks secretary of state Mike Pompeo to “assess actions of Antifa activists," stop its members from entering the United States, and see whether it can be classified as a terrorist organization.
(The Independent, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, The US Justice Department said the government collected $7 million in Iranian assets for victims of state-sponsored terrorism.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, US District Judge Mark Cohen rejected President Trump's latest lawsuit seeking to decertify Georgia's presidential election results.
(The Week, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, The US Justice Department tapped a new federal prosecutor to lead the Atlanta office, a day after the Trump-appointed US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. “BJay" Pak, abruptly resigned. It was later reported that the White House pushed the prosecutor to resign before Georgia's US Senate runoff because President Donald Trump was unhappy that he wasn't doing enough to investigate Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud.
(Reuters, 1/9/21)
2021 Jan 5, The Trump administration finalized changes that weaken the government's enforcement powers under a century-old law protecting most American wild bird species.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 5, Voters streamed to polling sites in Georgia in a pair of runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate. The Democrats won both Senate runoffs in Georgia, giving them control of the Senate. Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black senator in the state's history. Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly led Republican Sen. David Perdue.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)(NY Times, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, DeVonta Smith, the wide receiver whose speed and acrobatics electrified Alabama’s offense and helped the Crimson Tide to reach next week’s national championship game against Ohio State, won the Heisman Trophy.
(NY Times, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, California to date had 2,453,115 cases of coronavirus and 27,016 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 283,057 cases and 2,703 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 21,042,929 with the death toll at 357,132.
(sfist.com, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Louisville police fired two detectives, one who shot Breonna Taylor and another who sought the warrant that led to the deadly raid last March 13.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, A Wisconsin prosecutor said that police officers involved in the Aug. 23 Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed will not face charges.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Afghan negotiators resumed talks with the Taliban aimed at finding an end to decades of relentless conflict.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A2)
2021 Jan 5, Britain began its third COVID-19 lockdown with citizens under orders to stay at home and the government calling for one last major national effort to stem the virus before mass vaccinations turn the tide. The UK recorded more than 60,000 COVID-19 cases in daily figures for the first time as the government struggles to deal with a more infectious variant of the virus.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In China Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of one of the country's largest state-controlled asset management firms, was sentenced to death for soliciting $260 million in bribes, corruption, and also bigamy.
(The Telegraph, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, China's official media said the fight to contain the coronavirus in northern Hebei province has entered "wartime mode." Hebei reported 19 local infections and 40 asymptomatic cases between Jan. 2 and Jan. 4.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate from Chinese firm Stemirna Therapeutics has obtained approval to conduct human testing from China's medical products regulator. Tibet Rhodiola Pharma is jointly developing the candidate with Stemirna.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, President Ivan Duque said Colombia's food and drug regulator authorized emergency use of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Denmark imposed new lockdown measures aimed at curbing the rapid spread of a new coronavirus variant that is believed to be more transmissible. Authorities said they expected the new virus variant, first detected in Britain, to be the dominant one in Denmark by mid-February.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Ethiopian police released Reuters cameraman Kumerra Gemechu (38) after detaining him without charge for 12 days.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, The European Union said it would redouble its efforts to save the Iran nuclear agreement despite what it calls Tehran’s “important breach" of commitments made in the 2015 deal by starting to enrich uranium to new levels.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Germany's disease control center reported 944 more COVID-19 deaths. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she has agreed with state governors to extend the country's current lockdown by three weeks until Jan. 31.
(AP, 1/5/21)(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A5)
2021 Jan 5, The Iranian government accused South Korea of holding more than £5 billion of its money “hostage" in its banks, a day after its revolutionary guards stormed and captured a Korean tanker in the Persian Gulf.
(The Telegraph, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, An Israeli security officer shot and killed a Palestinian man who allegedly tried to carry out a stabbing attack in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A senior official said Italy will invest in local biotech company ReiThera to support the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, after the government called results of a Phase 1 trial encouraging. ReiThera is developing the vaccine with Germany's Leukocare and Belgium's Univercells.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A Milan-based appeals court ordered Facebook to pay 3.83 million euros ($4.70 million) in damages to an Italian software development company for copying an app.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Lebanon a bronze bust of Gen. Qassem Soleimani was erected by the Ghobeiry municipality in a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut's airport to commemorate the slain general's supportive role in Lebanon's wars with Israel.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, It was reported that Malaysian researchers have developed a method to transform the fiber found in normally discarded pineapple leaves to make a strong material that can be used to build the frames for unmanned aircraft, or drones.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened the nation's first full ruling party congress in five years with an admission that his economic plans have failed.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Pakistan dozens of Kashmiri activists rallied in Islamabad to urge the UN to ensure Kashmir's right to self-determination under a decades-old resolution on the disputed region.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Portugal started consultations with other European Union countries to find common ground for a new policy on migration, which has caused humanitarian crises and deep political divisions in the bloc over how to respond.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia Gulf Arab leaders signed a declaration to mark a new page in relations following the kingdom's decision to end a 3 1/2-year embargo of Qatar, easing a rift that deeply divided regional US security allies and frayed social ties across the interconnected Arabian Peninsula.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, said it would voluntarily reduce its production by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in February and March, after Russia pushed to increase output, worried about US shale capitalizing on the group's cuts.
(Reuters, 1/9/21)
2021 Jan 5, In South Korea the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus passed 1,000, while an increasing number of gym owners said they would reopen in protest against strict social distancing rules.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Authorities said three men died in a boat carrying more than 40 migrants and another died upon reaching shore on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. 23,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands in 2020, up from some 3,000 in 2019. More than 500 died in the attempt.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Syria and close ally Russia clashed with the US and other nations over a Western initiative to suspend Syria’s voting rights in the global chemical weapons watchdog for failing to provide details of three chemical attacks in 2017 that investigators blamed on President Bashar Assad’s government.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Thailand confirmed 527 new coronavirus cases, most of them migrant workers who already were isolated, and the government said it was tightening movements of people around the country.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, Ukrainian officials said they have seized about 1 metric ton (1.1 tons) of heroin that smugglers intended to take into European Union countries and that four Turkish citizens have been detained in the case. The heroin originated in Pakistan and came into the country via the Black Sea port of Odesa.
(AP, 1/6/21)
2021 Jan 5, Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro was set to extend his grip on power as the ruling socialist party assumed the leadership of Venezuela’s congress, the last institution in the country it didn’t already control.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Jan 5, A court in Vietnam sentenced three freelance journalists known for their criticism of government to between 11 and 15 years in prison, after finding them guilty of spreading anti-state propaganda. Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan were convicted of "making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state" at a one-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City.
(Reuters, 1/5/21)
2022 Jan 5, The United States imposed fresh sanctions on Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and current and former officials as Washington warned of further action against those linked to destabilization or corruption.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The US began returning migrants to the Mexican city of Tijuana in an restart of a Trump-era program that forces asylum seekers to wait for US court hearings in Mexico.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Filippo Bernardini (29), a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, saying that he “impersonated, defrauded, and attempted to defraud, hundreds of individuals" over five or more years, obtaining hundreds of unpublished manuscripts in the process.
(NY Times, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it expanded the eligibility of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's booster doses to those 12 to 15 years old.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 57,144,541 with the death toll at 830,503.
(sfist.com, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Chicago officials canceled classes in the nation's third-largest school district amid a dispute with the teachers' union, the latest disruption to US education and life as the Omicron variant spurs a record-setting COVID-19 surge.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Louisiana's governor posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the 1896 US Supreme Court case which upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine that allowed for decades of segregationist laws against Black people. Plessy was arrested in 1892 for violating a state law that required Black people to ride in separate train cars.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opened in Las Vegas with attendees required to wear masks due to COVID-19. Attendance for the 3-day event fell more than 75% compared with its previous in-person event two years ago.
(SSFC, 1/9/22, p.A9)
2022 Jan 5, Nevada-based low-cost carrier Allegiant Air confirmed plans to buy 50 new Boeing 737 MAX jets worth $5.5 billion at list prices in a switch of supplier and strategy as it gears up for a post-pandemic rebound in tourism.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In Philadelphia, Pa., a fire killed 12 people, including 8 children in a house belonging to the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
(NY Times, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra said it aims to introduce a "personal autonomous vehicle" by mid-decade.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said the wave of bird flu in Asia and Europe has a greater risk of spreading to humans because of a high number of variants.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Argentina broke its record for COVID-19 infections, approaching 100,000 daily cases as it faces a third wave of the pandemic, driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, A Bristol Crown Court cleared three men and a woman of causing criminal damage for helping to pull down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th century slave trade magnate, and throw it into Bristol harbor in southwest England during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Britain reported record COVID-19 prevalence for the last week of 2021, with one in 15 people in England infected. PM Boris Johnson said cases were increasing at the fastest rate ever. The UK Health Security Agency said people who test positive for COVID-19 on rapid lateral flow tests will not need to confirm their results with a follow-up PCR test if they are not showing symptoms.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China's top market regulator said it has fined units of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd, and Bilibili Inc for failing to properly report about a dozen deals.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China reported a major drop in COVID-19 infections in the northern city of Xi’an, which has been under a tight lockdown for the past two weeks that has sharply disrupted the lives of its 13 million residents. The National Health Commission announced just 35 new cases in Xi’an, down from 95 the day before.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, China's foreign minister began a visit to Kenya, where the government has relied on Chinese loans to develop infrastructure but faces criticism over the resulting debt burden.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, El Salvador said it allowed two Cuban journalists to enter the country after the reporters said they were expelled from the Communist-run island and then barred from entering Nicaragua.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In northern Ethiopia an air strike hit a refugee camp in the Tigray region, killing three Eritrean refugees, including two children.
(Reuters, 1/7/22)
2022 Jan 5, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said thousands of ethnic Tigrayans have been detained in Ethiopia after being deported from Saudi Arabia, suffering brutality from guards and atrocious conditions in both nations.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said a "supersonic" rise in French COVID-19 cases is set to continue in the coming days and there are no signs of the trend reversing.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, ExxonMobil said that it made two additional oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana as the South American country prepares to become the world’s newest major oil producer.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the government will introduce a series of new measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, as she warned the city was on the verge of another outbreak.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Hungary reported 5,270 new COVID-19 cases, a sharp rise from the 3,005 recorded a week ago, as the Omicron variant spreads.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Indian police said they had arrested two men (21) and a woman (18) involved in an online app that shared pictures of Muslim women for a virtual "auction" in an apparent case of communal harassment.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, India reported 534 new COVID-19 deaths, taking that toll to 482,551, and confirmed its first Omicron-related death.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Iraqi government said it has given its approval for the Iraqi National Oil Company to acquire Exxon Mobil Corp's stake in the giant West Qurna 1 oilfield.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, A Katyusha rocket hit an Iraqi military base hosting US forces near Baghdad's international airport. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, An Israeli court sentenced Lahav Nagauker to one year in prison for his involvement in a mob attack on an Arab motorist during a spasm of communal violence last May.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, A local Israeli committee approved plans for the construction of more than 3,500 settler housing units in east Jerusalem, nearly half in a particularly controversial area.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Italy reported a record daily number of new COVID-19 cases at 189,109 against 170,844 the day before, while the daily tally of coronavirus-related deaths fell to 231 from 259.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Italy made COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for people from the age of 50, one of very few European countries to take a similar steps, in an attempt to ease pressure on its health service and reduce fatalities.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The southern Japanese island chain of Okinawa emerged as the epicenter of a new coronavirus surge, with cases more than doubling from the previous day and officials were considering imposing emergency curbs.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a two-week state of emergency in the Central Asian nation's biggest city Almaty and in the western Mangistau province where protests turned violent. Protesters in Almaty stormed the presidential residence and the mayor's office and set both buildings on fire. Former Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev was stripped of his role as head of Kazakhstan's powerful Security Council amid violent street protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, PM Ingrida Simonyte said the Lithuanian government has decided against extending a state of emergency along the country's border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who had arrived from the country.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In the Netherlands new coronavirus cases jumped to a record high of around 24,500 as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has become dominant in the country.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, North Korea conducted a second test flight of a hypersonic missile, just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a rail line he hopes will eventually connect the divided Korean peninsula. The test came days after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to bolster his military forces despite pandemic-related difficulties.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)(AP, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Norwegian Cruise Line canceled trips on eight ships, a few whose embarkation dates are as far out as late April, as the spread of the Omicron variant in the US shows no signs of slowing.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, The Philippines reported 10,775 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily spike since Oct. 10, and more then 60 times the 168 cases recorded on Dec. 21. Authorities cancelled the annual "Black Nazerene" procession, which normally draws millions of Catholic devotees accompanying a black wooden statue of Jesus Christ through the streets of Manila, for a second straight year due to coronavirus concerns.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammed al-Luhaidan (90) died. He once served for years as head of the kingdom's Shariah courts that mirrored the kingdom's decades-long slide toward Wahhabism. He was sacked in 2009 as head of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary after he grabbed international headlines for suggesting that television station executives who broadcast immoral content during the month of Ramadan could face the death penalty for corrupting society.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, In South Africa Judge Raymond Zondo, in an 874-page report, found that former president Jacob Zuma advanced the interests of the Indian-born Gupta family and close allies at the expense of the country's people.
(BBC, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung told reporters that he thinks hair regrowth treatments should be covered by the national health insurance program.
(AP, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, In Sweden daily coronavirus cases soared to a record high, with the easily transmissible Omicron variant dominating, though numbers in intensive care remain well below previous pandemic peaks.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Western nations accused Syria of refusing for eight years to clear up 20 outstanding issues about its undeclared research, production and possible weaponization of unknown quantities of chemical weapons.
(AP, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Thailand reported 3,899 coronavirus cases, up from an average of 2,600 daily cases towards the end of last year, and the Omicron variant itself has tripled from last month's holiday period.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Turkey said it recorded 66,467 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure on record, as infections surge due to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 5, Pope Francis bemoaned the global decline in birthrates — what he described as a “demographic winter" — and was bluntly critical of couples who prefer to have pets rather than children.
(NY Times, 1/6/22)
2022 Jan 5, Yemen’s internationally recognized government said its forces have reclaimed large swaths of territory in a southern province from Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
(AP, 1/5/22)
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