Today in History - October 31
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c100AD Oct 31, The pagan Celts of Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of the season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited their homes. Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., their fall harvest festival, Poloma Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain to form a major fall festival at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
802 Oct 31, Empress Irene was driven out of Byzantium.
(MC, 10/31/01)
834 Oct 31, This evening became All Hallow’s Eve with the establishment of Nov 1 as Feast of All Saints by Pope Gregory IV.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)
1345 Oct 31, Ferdinand I, the wise one, king of Portugal (built navy), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1448 Oct 31, Johannes VIII Palaeologus (b.1390), Emperor of Byzantium, died.
(www.freeglossary.com/John_VIII_Palaeologus)
1517 Oct 31, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Palace All Saints’ Church. He grew to believe in faith alone as man’s link to the justice of God, and therefore denied the need for the vast infrastructure of the Church. This event signaled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Protestantism in general, shattering the external structure of the medieval church and at the same time reviving the religious consciousness of Europe. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben, Germany. He was a monk in the Catholic Church until 1517, when he founded the Lutheran Church.
(V.D.-H.K.p.163)(CU, 6/87)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)(AP, 10/31/97)(AP, 10/31/97) (HN, 10/31/98)
1541 Oct 31, "The Last Judgement" by Michelangelo on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel at Rome was officially unveiled. It is one of the largest paintings in the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(OG)
1620 Oct 31, John Evelyn (d.1706), British diarist (Life of Mrs. Godolphin), was born. He was a meditative and sententious English diarist.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(MC, 10/31/01)
1632 Oct 31, [Johannes] Jan Vermeer (d.1675), tavern keeper and Dutch painter (Procuress, Astronomer), was born in Delft. Only 35 of his pictures are known to survive. These include: "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (1665-1666), "The Little Street" (1657), "Saint Praxedis" (1655), "Allegory of Faith" (1671) and "The Artist in His Studio." His wife was Catharina Bolnes.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1587)(MC, 10/31/01)
1723 Oct 31, Cosimo III de' Medici (81), ruler of Florence (1670-1723), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1765 Oct 31, Duke of Cumberland, English politician and general, died. He butchered Scots at Culloden. [see Oct 20]
(MC, 10/31/01)
1780 Oct 31, The HMS Ontario was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale on Lake Ontario. In 2008 explorers found the 22-gun British warship. Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake."
(AP, 6/14/08)
1793 Oct 31, Execution of 21 Girondins (moderates) in Paris, stepping up the Reign of Terror. Pierre V. Vergniaud (40), French politician and elegant, impassioned orator of Girondins, was guillotined.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1795 Oct 31, John Keats (d.1821), English poet, was born in London.
(WUD, 1994, p.781) (AP, 10/31/97)(HN, 10/31/98)
1802 Oct 31, Benoit Fourneyron, inventor of the water turbine, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1803 Oct 31, Congress ratified the purchase of the entire Louisiana area in North America, which added territory to the United States for 13 subsequent states.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of London patented miner's safety lamp.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1831 Oct 31, Daniel Butterfield (d.1901), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1831 Oct 31, Nat Turner, rebel slave, was caught by Mr. Benjamin Phipps and locked up in Jerusalem, Va. Thomas Gray, his court appointed attorney, spent 3 days talking to Turner and compiled his notes into "The Confessions of Nat Turner," which were published in 1969.
(ON, 10/99, p.10)
1835 Oct 31, Adelbert Ames (d.1933), Bvt Major General (Union Army), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1835 Oct 31, J.F.W. Adolf Ritter von Baeyer, German chemist (Nobel 1905), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1837 Oct 31, The collision of river boats Monmouth & Trement on Mississippi left 300 dead.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1838 Oct 31, A mob of about 200 attacked a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1846 Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)(www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm)
1858 Oct 31, Jeanie Johnston, a triple-masted barque, sank in the middle of the Atlantic with a load of timber. The crew was rescued by a Dutch ship. She was built in Quebec City for the Donovan family of Tralee. She was the best known of the "famine ships" that carried Irish refugees to the New World during the potato famine and returned with timber and food. A copy of the ship, built in Ireland, was scheduled for completion in 2000.
(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A8,10)
1860 Oct 31, Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1864 Oct 31, Nevada became the 36th state under a proclamation signed by Pres. Lincoln.
(AP, 10/31/97)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(HN, 10/31/98)
1867 Oct 31, William Parson (b.1800), 3rd Earl of Rosse and maker of large telescopes, died. Parsons, an Irish astronomer, built the largest reflecting telescope of the 19th century. He learned to polish metal mirrors (1827) and spent the next few years building a 36-inch telescope. He later completed a giant 72-inch telescope (1845) which he named "Leviathan," It remained the largest ever built until decades after his death. He was the first to resolve the spiral shape of objects, previously seen as only clouds, which were much later identified as galaxies independent of our own Milky Way galaxy and millions of light-years away. His first such sighting was made in 1845, and by 1850 he had discovered 13 more. In 1848, he found and named the Crab Nebula (he thought it resembled a crab), by which name it is still known.
(www.todayinsci.com)
1870 Oct 31, Upon the receipt of news that the Government of National Defense had decided to start negotiations with the Prussians, Paris workers and revolutionary sections of the National Guard rose up in revolt, led by Blanqui. They seized the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and set up their revolutionary government, the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Blanqui. Flourens prevented any members of the Government of National Defense from being shot, as had been demanded by one of the insurrectionists.
(www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/timeline.htm)
1876 Oct 31, In India’s Megna River Delta a tidal wave caused by a cyclone flooded the river delta and the city of Backergunge. Some areas became covered with 40 feet of water. 100,000 people drowned and another 100,000 were reported to have perished from subsequent diseases caused by polluted water.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1887 Oct 31, Chiang Kai-Shek, Chinese Nationalist, was born.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1887 Oct 31, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capricio Espagnol," premiered in St Petersburg.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1895 Oct 31, Basil H. Liddell Hart, English military historian and publicist, was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1896 Oct 31, Ethel Waters, actress and blues singer, was born. She first performed "Stormy Weather" and stared in "The Member of the Wedding" and "Pinkie," was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1902 Oct 31, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet, journalist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1906 Oct 31, Louise Talma, composer (Summer Sounds), was born in Arcachon, France.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1906 Oct 31, George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar & Cleopatra," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1914 Oct 31, Great Britain and France declared war on Turkey. [see Nov 5]
(MC, 10/31/01)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J. Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1917 Oct 31, William H. McNeil, historian, was born. His work include "The Rise of the West."
(HN, 10/31/00)
1917 Oct 31, Eugene O'Neill's "In the Zone," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 Oct 31, In the worst global epidemic of the century, influenza (an acute, contagious respiratory viral infection) had been spreading around the world since May. Before it ended in 1919 some 20 million people were killed worldwide, about twice as many as World War I, with about 500-600,000 of them in the US. October was the deadliest month and about 195,000 died with 21,000 dead the 1st week. It was estimated that 20-40 million people died worldwide. In 1998 the TV show "The American Experience" documented the tragedy: "Influenza 1918." Dr. Alfred Crosby wrote "America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918." [see 1918-1919]
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.11)(SFC, 2/9/98, p.E1)(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A16)(HN, 10/31/99)
1918 Oct 31, Egon Schiele (28), Viennese artist, died in the flu epidemic. He produced some 3,000 drawings and 300 paintings in about 12 years.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E3)(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 Oct 31, Stephen Tisza, Hungarian PM (-1917), was assassinated by soldiers.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1920 Oct 31, Dick Francis, jockey and detective writer (Whip Hand, High Stakes), was born in Wales.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1922 Oct 31, Norodom Sihanouk (d.2012), 2-time king (1941-1955 and 1993-2004), president and premier of Cambodia, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk)
1922 Oct 31, Karel & Josef Capek's "World We Live In," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1922 Oct 31, Mussolini was made prime minister of Italy. He centralized all power in himself as leader of the Fascist party and attempted to create an Italian empire, ultimately in alliance with Hitler's Germany.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1925 Oct 31, Charles Moore, influential post-modern architect, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1925 Oct 31, Contract bridge was introduced by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt on board the S.S. Finland in the Panama Canal.
(www.acbl.org/)
1926 Oct 31, Magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1927 Oct 31, In San Francisco the M-Ocean View streetcar line was extended through the Twin Peaks Tunnel to Market Street and the Ferries, at the foot of Market Street.
(METNA News, Aug 2015, p.1)
1930 Oct 31, Michael Collins, U.S. astronaut, was born.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1931 Oct 31, Dan Rather, news anchor (CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes), was born in Wharton Texas.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1936 Oct 31, The Literary Digest published a poll that predicted that Alfred Landon, the governor of Kansas, would win over Pres. Roosevelt with 57% of the popular vote. Landon lost all but two states to Roosevelt.
(WSJ, 10/2/06, p.B1)(www.historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/)
1937 Oct 31, Michael Landon, actor (Bonanza, Highway to Heaven), was born in Forest Hills, NY.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Oct 31, Tom Paxton, folk singer and songwriter (Forest Lawn), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Oct 31, Spanish government moved from Valencia to Barcelona.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1938 Oct 31, The day after his "War of the Worlds" broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the simulated Martian invasion was real.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1939 Oct 31, 27 U boats were sunk this month (135,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1939 Oct 31, Otto Rank, [Rosenfeld], Austria psychoanalyst (Trauma of Geburt), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, 63 U boats were sunk this month (325,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, In the Battle of Britain, the German and British duel for control of English Channel, ended.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, This was the deadline for Warsaw Jews to move into the Warsaw Ghetto.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1941 Oct 31, The Mt. Rushmore sculpture was completed after 14 years of work. [see 1927]
(HFA, '96, p.40)(HN, 10/31/01)
1941 Oct 31, The US Navy destroyer "Reuben James" was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland, killing 115, even though the United States had not yet entered World War II.
(www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/prelude_to_war/uss_reuben_james.html)
1941 Oct 31, 13 U boats were sunk this month (62,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, David Ogden Stiers, actor (Winchester-M*A*S*H, Doc), was born in Peoria, Ill.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, 94 U boats were sunk this month (619,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, The 9th day in battle at El Alamein (Egypt).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1943 Oct 31, Max Reinhardt, Austrian stage manager (Turandot), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1944 Oct 31, Kinky Friedman, country rocker (Ride 'em Jewboy), was born in Palestine, Tx.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1948 Oct 31, By this date some 20 people died and 6,000 were made ill by smog from steel and zinc plants in Donora, Pennsylvania. Between October 26 and October 31, 1948, an air inversion trapped fluoride effluent from the Zinc Works. In three days, 18 people died. After the inversion lifted, another 50 died. Hundreds more finished the rest of their lives with damaged lungs and hearts. Both plants closed in 1966. In 2002, “When Smoke Ran Like Water" was published by Devra Davis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donora,_Pennsylvania)(SSFC, 11/2/08, p.A6)
1950 Oct 31, John Candy, comedian (SCTV, Uncle Buck), was born in Ontario, Canada.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1952 Oct 31, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada was incorporated as a legal entity. It was organized by Tom Patterson. The 1st performance opened Jul 13, 1953.
(WSJ, 7/18/02, p.D10)
1952 Oct 31, A CIA report, declassified in 2005, said ex-Colonel Hattori Takushiro (1901-1960) had led plans since the beginning of July for a coup d'etat against Japan’s PM Yoshida Shigeru. Hattori’s colleague Masanobu Tsuji talked the group out of the coup.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A11)
1953 Oct 31, Alice Eastwood (94), curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences in SF, died.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.E2)
1954 Oct 31, The Algerian Revolution (1954-1962) against the French began. Algerian Muslims of the Front de Libération National (FLN), began open warfare against French rule in Algeria. [see Nov 1]
(DoW, 1999, p.10)
1955 Oct 31, William "Billy" Woodward, Jr. (b.1920), heir to the Hanover National Bank fortune (later Manufacturer's Hanover), the Belair Estate and stud farm and legacy, and a leading figure in racing circles, was shot to death by his wife, Ann. In 1985 Dominick Dunne (1925-2009) authored “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," based on the Woodward murder case. The book was turned into a television movie in 1987.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodward,_Jr.)
1955 Oct 31, Britain's Princess Margaret ended weeks of speculation by announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend because he had been divorced.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1956 Oct 31, President Dwight D. Eisenhower praised the promise by Moscow made the previous day of major concessions to Hungarians in revolt as "the dawning of a new day" in Eastern Europe. Anti-government demonstrations in Budapest a week earlier had forced a reshuffling of the Hungarian government and demands that the new government denounce the Warsaw Pact and seek liberation from Soviet domination. [see Nov 4]
(HNQ, 10/1/99)
1956 Oct 31, Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1956 Oct 31, Great Britain and France attempted to take over the Suez Canal. They bombed Egyptian airfields.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(TOH, 1982, p.1956)
1957 Oct 31, Jamaica, a musical, opened on Broadway at Imperial Theater. The book was by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Lena Horne (1917-2010) starred in the musical. It continued for 558 performances.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_%28musical%29)
1959 Oct 31, A former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald, announced in Moscow that he would never return to the United States.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1959 Oct 31, The USSR and Egypt signed contracts for building the Aswan Dam.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1961 Oct 31, A US Federal judge ruled that Birmingham, Alabama, laws against integrated playing fields were illegal.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1961 Oct 31, Augustus Edwin John (b.1878), Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher, died. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in England. In 1974 Michael Holroyd authored the biography: “Augustus John."
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.P9)
1962 Oct 31, Bobby Pickett (1938-2007) made a one-time hit with “Monster Mash," as it reached No. 1 on Halloween.
(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B9)
1963 Oct 31, J. Edgar Hoover's last meeting with President John F Kennedy.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1963 Ocr 31, In San Francisco the Black Cat café, located in the Canessa Building at 708-710 Montgomery St., closed down for the last time as the state Supreme Court refused to hear its case and lower courts refused to reinstate its liquor license because it catered to homosexuals.
(SFC, 11/15/14, p.C2)
1963 Oct 31, On Halloween night leaking propane gas exploded and killed 64 at the "Holiday on Ice" show at the Indiana State Fair Grounds in Indianapolis.
(http://tinyurl.com/npsda6j)
1967 Oct 31, Nguyen Van Thieu took the oath of office as the first president of South Vietnam's second republic.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1968 Oct 31, President Johnson announced a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, effective the next morning, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Oct 31, Liu Shaoqi (1898-1968), president of China since 1959, was ousted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1971 Oct 31, Saigon began the release of 1,938 Hanoi POW’s.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1971 Oct 31, On the east coast of India a tidal wave and cyclone on Orissa killed more than 15,000 people.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)
1974 Oct 31, Suspected Bundy victim Laura Aime disappeared in Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1978 Oct 31, The US Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed making it illegal to fire women for being pregnant or having a child. It amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
(Econ, 11/19/11, SR p.9)
1979 Oct 31, The US Archeological Resources Protection Act, on behalf of endangered antiquities, became law.
(www.bsos.umd.edu/anth/arch/web/arpa.htm)
1979 Oct 31, A US DC-10, flown by Western Airlines, crashed at Mexico City when it struck a vehicle and 74 were killed.
(http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/Disasters.htm)
1980 Oct 31, In Iran Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the late shah, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1981 Oct 31, In Georgia (US) a Jane Doe murder victim remained nameless after her body was discovered in a cornfield in Dixie on Halloween. George Newsome was arrested shortly after the murder and police found the rope that had been used to strangle the girl in a motor home he owned. Newsome died in 1988, but never revealed the identity of his victim. In 2020 she was identified through DNA testing as Shirlene Cheryl Hammack.
(ABC News, 1/10/20)
1982 Oct 31, The Nehemiah housing plan in New York broke ground in Brownsville. It was fathered by I.D. Robbins (1910-1996) and consisted of low-cost, 3-bedroom brick townhouses that sold for $39,000. The plan was helped by the Industrial Areas Foundation established by the Chicago housing advocate Saul Alinsky.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tow9q)
1982 Oct 31, Pope John Paul II became the 1st pontiff to visit Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pastoral_visits_of_Pope_John_Paul_II_outside_Italy)
1984 Oct 31, The oil tanker Puerto Rican exploded in the Gulf of the Farallones off the coast of San Francisco spilling 2 million gallons of oil as the ship caught fire. A bomb was believed to have caused the blast 10 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. The inferno left one man dead. On Nov 18 a 360-foot remnant of the 600-foot tanker was towed to San Francisco Bay. There was no leakage of some 2.7 million gallons of lube oil in the hold.
(http://216.7.174.234/sandcrabs/oil.asp)(SSFC, 11/15/09, DB p.46)
1984 Oct 31, In Decatur, Illinois, 2 young girls were assaulted and killed. In 2009 DNA evidence revealed that Melvin Johnson (d.2003) was the murderer.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A4)
1984 Oct 31, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard. This sparked Hindu-Sikh clashes across the country. Four days of anti-Sikh rioting followed in India. The government said more than 2,700 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed, while newspapers and human-rights groups put the death toll between 10,000 and 17,000. In 2002 Katherine Frank authored the biography "Indira."
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 10/31/97)(http://tinyurl.com/ypb6kl)(WSJ, 2/13/02, p.A18)
1987 Oct 31, Noburo Takeshita, leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, was elected party president in his first official step toward replacing Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1987 Oct 31, Joseph Campbell (b.1904), American writer and professor of mythology, died in Hawaii at age 83.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell)
1988 Oct 31, John Houseman (86), actor (Paper Chase), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0002144/)
1988 Oct 31, In Lebanon the kidnappers of American hostage Terry Anderson released a videotape in which The Associated Press correspondent accused the Reagan administration of blocking his release.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1989 Oct 31, President Bush announced he and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would hold an early December summit aboard ships in the Mediterranean near Malta.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1990 Oct 31, During a campaign swing in suburban Washington, President Bush said "I have had it" with the way Iraq was treating American diplomats and hostages, but added he had no timetable for deciding on a possible military strike.
(AP, 10/31/00)
1991 Oct 31, Theatrical producer Joseph Papp died in New York at age 70.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct 31, On the second day of the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arab delegates clashed bitterly over land issues.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct 31, In Zambia Pres. Kaunda was voted out of office. Pres. Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy won in the first multi-party elections.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.B5A)(BBC, 6/17/21)
1992 Oct 31, Roman Catholic church rehabilitated Galileo Galilei after 359 years. Galileo was tortured and imprisoned by the Holy Office during the Inquisition, and was forced to recant his heretical views that the earth and planets revolve around the Sun. Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the church had erred in condemning Galileo. [see 1984]
(/www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html)
1992 Oct 31, It was announced that five American nuns in Liberia had been shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1993 Oct 31, In Oregon 7 men robbed the Oki Semiconductor facility in Portland of microchips valued at several million dollars. There were convicted in 2001 and 4 of the men were sentenced to prison terms in 2002.
(SFC, 6/29/02, p.A16)
1993 Oct 31, Germany unemployment hit a country record of 3.5 million.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1993 Oct 31, Federico Fellini, Italian film director, died in Rome at age 73. He made some 24 films including "La Strada," "La Dolce Vita," "8 1/2," and "Amarcord" through the 50’s and 60’s.
(WSJ, 4/19/95, p.A-14) (AP, 10/31/98)
1993 Oct 31, Actor River Phoenix died in Los Angeles at age 23.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1994 Oct 31, An American Eagle French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed in Roselawn, Ind., and killed 68 people. In 1997 American Airlines and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110 million.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A4)(AP, 10/31/97)
1995 Oct 31, Stung by defeat in the secession referendum, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau said he would resign as head of the bitterly divided province at year’s end.
(AP, 10/31/00)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich., Dr. Jack Kevorkian was charged with assisting three suicides since June 1996. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich., Jenny Jones testified at the trial of one of her talk show guests, Jonathan Schmitz, who was accused of killing another guest, Scott Amedure in March, 1995.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, A grand jury indicted a number of corrupt officials in Kansas City, Missouri. As members of the Port Authority charged with assigning licenses to riverboat gambling establishments, they accepted a $250,000 bribe in 1993 from Hilton Hotels Corp. Named in the indictments were Michelle Lathan, Elbert Anderson (chmn. of the Port Authority), James Ramsey, and a family friend of Anderson's, Charles Maurice Herron.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A10)(www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/1996/08/26/story2.html)
1996 Oct 31, In Brazil a Dutch-made Fokker-100, TAM Regional Airlines Flight 402, crashed after take-off from Sao Paulo into the streets of Vila Santa Catarina. All 96 people on board and three on the ground were killed.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, An outbreak of the Ebola virus killed at least 17 people. It was the 4th outbreak in Africa since 1995.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A21)(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T5)
1997 Oct 31, The US announced a plan to increase spending over the next decade to $1 billion per year to clear the world of land mines that threaten civilian populations by 2010.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 31, Chinese President Jiang Zemin rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange to open the day's trading.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, British au pair Louise Woodward received a mandatory life sentence, a day after a jury in Cambridge, Mass., convicted her of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The verdict was later reduced to manslaughter, and Woodward was set free.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, The FBI began an investigation into the use of pepper spray by law authorities in Humboldt County, California, after a video tape showed the spray applied directly to the eyes of protestors.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 31, Indonesia was awarded a $23 billion economic rescue package by the Int’l. Monetary Fund. Japan and Singapore promised an additional 5 million each and the US promised an additional $3 billion in loans to be used in case the $23 billion was insufficient to stabilize the situation.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.D1)(SFEC, 11/2/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 31, Letsie III (34) was crowned king of Lesotho, a figurehead position.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A7)
1997 Oct 31, Jerzy Buzek (57), a chemical engineering professor, became PM of Poland and served until Oct 19, 2001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Buzek)
1997 Oct 31, Russia’s lower house ratified a global ban on chemical weapons. After the Duma it goes to the Federation Council for approval. The upper house approved the ban Nov 5.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A8)(SFC, 11/6/97, p.C3)
1998 Oct 31, A genetic study was released suggesting President Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1998 Oct 31, The US and Israel signed a strategic cooperation agreement to protect the Jewish state from ballistic missiles.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A23)
1998 Oct 31, Abe Hirschfeld, New York real estate magnate, handed Paula Jones a $1 million check to cash for settlement of the sexual harassment case against Pres. Clinton.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A4)
1998 Oct 31, Stephanie Condon (14) vanished while babysitting a cousin's twins in Riddle, Oregon. Her remains were found in 2009 in Glide, Ore., about 30 miles from Riddle. Dale Wayne Hill, was arrested in Dayton, Nev., on March 25, 2009, on a charge of failure to register as a felon. He was the last person known to have seen her alive.
(AP, 3/25/09)
1998 Oct 31, In Congo it was reported that a lightning bolt killed all 11 members of a soccer team in eastern Kasai province.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 31, Iraq said that it was suspending all cooperation with int’l. arms inspectors and would close down their long-term monitoring operations in response to a Security Council rejection of demands that a review of its relations with the UN should automatically result in a lifting of sanctions. The move condemned by the Security Council.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A21)(AP, 10/31/99)
1998 Oct 31, In Northern Ireland Brian Service (35) was killed in Belfast. Later the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility. A red-colored hand is the traditional symbol of the province of Ulster.
(SFC, 11/2/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 31, In Pakistan the government planned to use direct rule in Karachi, where near daily violence this year has left 750 people dead.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Oct 31, In Russia the government approved an economic plan that centered on tax cuts, bank rescues, state intervention and printing more rubles.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A21)
1999 Oct 31, Jesse Martin of Australia became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe, sailing solo, non-stop and unsupported. He sailed from Melbourne, Australia, on December 8, 1998 aged 18 years 104 days and returned on October 31 1999, taking 327 days 12 hours 52 minutes.
(AP, 8/27/09)
1999 Oct 31, The pagan Celts of Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of the season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited their homes. Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., their fall harvest festival, Poloma Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain to form a major fall festival at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
1999 Oct 31, An EgyptAir jetliner, Flight 990, enroute from New York to Cairo crashed off Nantucket Island and all 217 people aboard were killed. Captains Ahmed al-Habashy and Raouf Noureldin were at the controls. Relief pilot Gamil al-Batouti (59), the father of five, was suspected to have caused the crash. In 2002 the National Transportation Safety Board reported that el-Batouty was solely responsible for the crash.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A3)(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C5)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A3)
1999 Oct 31, In East Timor the last 900 Indonesian soldiers departed. Indonesian forces had burned about 80% of East Timor’s government buildings and infrastructure following the vote for independence.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/10/04, p.A1)
1999 Oct 31, In Augsburg, Germany, leaders of the Roman Catholic and modern Lutheran Churches signed the Augsburg Accord, a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," in a step toward reconciliation. The accord gave weight to the Lutheran position on salvation through faith and embraced the Catholic ethic of earthly service.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11,12)
1999 Oct 31, In Macedonia elections Tito Petkovski, representing the former communist Social Democratic Party, led with 38% of the vote vs. Boris Trajkovski (VMRO) with 24.6%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 cOct 31, In Sudan 25 Sudanese fighters were massacred by rival militiamen when they arrived for talks with Paulino Matep at Benitu
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 31, In Ukraine elections were held and Pres. Kuchma was favored. Kuchma came in 1st with 36.5% of the vote vs. Communist leader Petro Symonenko with 22.2%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 31, In Uruguay Tabare Vazquez, the former mayor of Montevideo, led the presidential vote with 38% against 31% for Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party. A runoff Nov 28 runoff was planned.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
2000 Oct 31, American astronaut Bill Shepherd and Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev of Russia rocketed into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket for the Int’l. Space Station for a 4-month stay. They would become the first residents of the international space station.
(www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/shepherd.html)(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)(AP, 10/31/01)
2000 Oct 31, Ring Lardner Jr., a Hollywood screenwriter, died at age 85. He was one of the Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted in the 1947 McCarthy hearings.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.a23)
2000 Oct 31, Samuel R. Pierce Jr. (78), former US Housing Secretary, died.
(AP, 10/31/01)
2000 Oct 31, In Angola a Russian Antonov 26 charter plane burst into flames after takeoff and all 48 people aboard were killed. Unita rebels later claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A13)(WSJ, 11/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 31, In Germany the Expo 2000 closed in Hanover.
(WSJ, 6/29/00, p.A24)
2000 Oct 31, In Jerusalem Yasser Arafat called for renewed resistance. At least 4 Palestinians were killed along the eastern Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A16)
2000 Oct 31, An Italian cargo ship sank in the English Channel with 6,000 tons of chemicals that included the toxic styrene, a known carcinogen, along with isopropyl alcohol and methyl ethyl ketone.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A17)
2000 Oct 31, A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 jet crashed on takeoff from Taiwan as Typhoon Xangsane approached. Flight SQ006 was bound for Los Angeles. The plane apparently hit construction equipment on a closed runway. The airlines announced a $400,000 payment to victim’s families after admitting to pilot error. 83 people were killed when the pilots took off on the wrong runway. The pilots were not prosecuted.
(WSJ, 11/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A16)(SFEC, 11/5/00, p.A1)(AP, 6/14/02)
2001 October 31, The New York Yankees played the Arizona Diamondbacks in game four of the World Series; the game ended just a few minutes after midnight as Derek Jeter hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Yankees over the Diamondbacks 4-3 and tie the Series at two games each.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, US bombing in Afghanistan was reported to be the heaviest in the 4-week campaign.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 31, The US Commerce Dept. reported a 3rd quarter 0.4% annualized fall in the GDP. The decline marked an end to 33 straight quarters of economic growth.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 31, The Bush administration said it would adopt stricter arsenic standard for drinking water as proposed in the final days of the Clinton administration.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A13)
2001 Oct 31, The Bush administration said the Saudi government has issued an order to freeze assets of people and groups suspected of links to terrorism.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A5)
2001 Oct 31, Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft announced plans to block hostile foreigners from entering the US.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A10)
2001 Oct 31, The US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, received a letter that was later confirmed to contain anthrax.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A10)
2001 October 31, Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty to 2 felony accounts in Los Angeles to the attempted murder of police officers from activities with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1975. She was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 October 31, Microsoft and the Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the historic antitrust case against the software giant.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, In Connecticut Joseph Ganim (42), the mayor of Bridgeport, was charged in a federal racketeering indictment with soliciting over $425,000 in bribes.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C2)
2001 Oct 31, The SEC inquiry into Enron Corp. became a formal investigation.
(SFC, 1/16/02, p.A12)
2001 Oct 31, Halloween this year came with a blue moon, the 2nd full moon of the month.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)
2001 Oct 31, Kathy Nguyen (61), a NYC hospital worker, died of anthrax. She was the 4th person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism. The source of infection remained a mystery.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 October 31, Cold War arms negotiator Paul C. Warnke died at age 81.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, An Israeli helicopter missile in Hebron killed Jamil Jadallah, a senior Hamas member. 5 other Palestinians were also killed in West Bank attacks.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A13)
2001 Oct 31, In Pakistan Pres. Musharraf ordered the arrest of anyone using a mosque loudspeaker for anything other than the traditional call to prayer. He also banned the use of mosques to "spread sectarian hatred."
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 31, In Peru Congress unanimously approved embezzlement charges against former Pres. Fujimori.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2002 Oct 31, The US enacted the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) as a replacement for the similar Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA). It granted duty-free access to a wide range of exports from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean_Trade_Promotion_and_Drug_Eradication_Act)
2002 Oct 31/Nov 1, Inmates at San Quentin performed the verse drama "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet under the direction of Joseph De Francesca.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.D1)(EW)
2002 Oct 31, Authorities charged the two Washington sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo with murder in a Louisiana attack that came just two days after a similar slaying in Alabama.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2002 Oct 31, The Securities and Exchange Commission ordered an investigation into allegations that Chairman Harvey Pitt had concealed information on the corporate ties of William Webster. Pitt and Webster both ended up resigning.
(AP, 10/31/03)(AP, 10/31/07)
2002 Oct 31, The Central African Republic claimed to have put down a coup attempt by rebels backing an ousted army chief of staff.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, Chechen rebels killed six Russian servicemen, a Chechen policeman and a local administrator, as Russian forces intensified searches for rebels in the wake of the Moscow theater siege.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, In Greece Michalis Stasinopoulos (99), a legal scholar who challenged Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship and served as president after it collapsed, died.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, A strong earthquake rocked central and southern Italy, trapping about 50 children in a school in San Giuliano di Puglia after the building's roof collapsed. The death reached at least 28.
(AP, 10/31/02)(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas, was sentenced in absentia to 200 years' jail, as government and rebel officials began talks in Thailand to try to end 19 years of war.
(Reuters, 10/31/02)
2003 Oct 31, A new e-mail virus, "Mimail.C.," started spreading to corporate computers and is headed for home computers, but computer security experts said they expect the outbreak to wind down over the weekend.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, In California lawyer Gerald Curry was shot 5 times by William Strier outside a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. The shooting was caught on videotape by crews covering actor Robert Blake's murder case in Van Nuys. In 2006 Strier (66) was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.
(SFC, 1/21/06, p.B2)(AP, 10/31/08)
2003 Oct 31, In SF Victor Bach (71) was killed at his Mission District office, Western Plumbing and Heating on Halloween. His wife was later charged with defrauding the business and a trust account that he was overseeing. In 2008 Kathy Bach (57) was convicted of 13-theft related charges for defrauding her husband’s business and a private trust that he oversaw.
(SFC, 3/16/05, p.B4)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.B2)
2003 Oct 31, Bethany Hamilton, teen surfing star, lost her left arm in a shark attack off Kauai, Hawaii.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2003 Oct 31, The EPA rejected new restrictions on weed-killer atrazine. It was suspected of causing mutations in frogs.
(WSJ, 11/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 31, Richard E. Neustadt (84), the noted presidential adviser, scholar and historian who was a founder of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, died in England. His 1960 book "Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership," offered insight into government decision-making.
(AP, 11/2/03)(Econ, 11/15/03, p.81)
2003 Oct 31, Fighting between Afghan soldiers and police in a tense province in southern Afghanistan killed two military commanders and up to eight policemen.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, Thousands of Argentines banged pots and pans on street corners and apartment balconies across the capital to protest rising crime.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Ilham Aliev was inaugurated as Azerbaijan's new president, succeeding his ailing father as leader of the oil-rich former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, A wildlife expert said a rabies outbreak is threatening the few hundred remaining Ethiopian wolves, one of the world's rarest animals.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Kamato Hongo (116), a Japanese woman believed to have been the world's oldest person, died.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Malaysia's first new prime minister in a generation, succeeding Mahathir Mohamad.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Taiwan's Pres. Chen Shui-bian took his campaign for a new constitution to New York, as Taiwanese media widely reported protests by Beijing supporters against his visit. He described his campaign for a new constitution as an effort to increase government efficiency.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, The UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption and requested that the Secretary-General designate the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as secretariat for the Convention’s Conference of States Parties (resolution 58/4).
(Econ, 12/15/12, p.61)(www.un.org/en/events/anticorruptionday/)
2004 Oct 31, In the closing hours of their bitter campaign, President Bush and challenger Sen. John Kerry charged through the critical battlegrounds of Florida and Ohio, with promises to keep America safe.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2004 Oct 31, In Brazil Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suffered major defeats in an electoral test of his ruling party's influence. Silva’s PT Party won in 11 of the 23 cities where it fielded candidates. Jose Serra won the mayoral election in Sao Paulo over Marta Suplicy.
(AP, 11/1/04)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.35)
2004 Oct 31, In Chechnya a car bomb exploded outside Grozny’s main hospital, injuring 17 people.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Chile voters gave strong support to the center-left government of President Ricardo Lagos in nationwide municipal elections.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Iran's parliament unanimously approved the outline of a bill that would require the government to resume uranium enrichment.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Iraq a rocket attack in Tikrit killed 15 Iraqis and wounded 8.
(SFC, 11/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 31, In Italy unusually high tides sent sea water sweeping through Venice, covering 80 percent of the city by afternoon.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Japan condemned the beheading of a Japanese hostage in Iraq as a despicable act of terrorism and vowed to keep its troops in the country on their reconstruction mission.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, African and Asian leaders opened a two-day conference in Tokyo to spur trade and investment between the two regions. The gathering is a follow-up meeting of the Third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III) held last year and is co-hosted by Japan, the World Bank. TICAD, a Japanese initiative, was started in 1993 to raise international support for African development and has been held every five years.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Nigeria unions declared the top oil multinational here, Royal Dutch/Shell, "an enemy of the Nigerian people" and called a Nov. 16 nationwide strike.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Ukrainians cast ballots in a presidential vote. The opposition complained of violations just hours into the polling. Key contenders included pro-Russian PM Viktor Yanukovych and former PM Viktor Yushchenko, a reformist candidate. Yushchenko won by .5%, but failed to get a majority setting up a runoff vote for Nov 21. Observers from NATO and Europe said the balloting did not meet democratic standards.
(AP, 10/31/04)(AP, 11/1/04)(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A12)
2004 Oct 31, In Uruguay elections socialist Tabare Vazquez (65), a cancer specialist and former mayor of Montevideo, won Uruguay's presidential election, becoming the nation's first leftist leader. Voters also called for all water resources to be put under state administration. Some 20% of the country’s work force was employed by the state.
(AP, 10/31/04)(SFC, 11/1/04, p.A2)(WSJ, 11/5/04, p.A13)
2004 Oct 31, In Venezuela candidates backed by President Hugo Chavez swept all but two of 23 governorships in regional elections.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2005 Oct 31, President Bush nominated veteran judge Samuel Alito in a bid to reshape the Supreme Court and mollify his conservative allies. Ready-to-rumble Democrats warned that Alito may be an extremist who would curb abortion rights.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by, Thomas Huckaby, a Tennessee man who was charged by NY state for taxes on all of his income derived from his employer in NY.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported that US Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a stake in Gilead Sciences valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld. Tamiflu is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005. Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense.
(http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/)
2005 Oct 31, A transit strike in Philadelphia brought the city’s buses, subways and trolleys to a halt.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, In SF some 30,000 people gathered in the Castro district for the annual Halloween party.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.B2)
2005 Oct 31, BSkyB and Vodafone announced that a quarter of a million subscribers to Vodafone's third-generation (3G) telecommunications service were now able to watch on their mobiles live news and sports provided by satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Chiron Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca., merged with the Swiss firm Novartis. Novartis paid $5.1 billion for Chiron.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported that Pluto has three moons, not one, according to new images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest. The two new moons were named Nix and Hydra. Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was spotted in 1978. Two more moons were discovered in 2011 and 2012.
(AP, 11/1/05)(Econ, 7/11/15, p.70)
2005 Oct 31, In Brazil a man accused of torturing and killing five people was killed in a Sao Paulo shantytown gunfight with police who were trying to arrest him. Celso Alencar dos Santos (33) and an accomplice allegedly killed five members of the Yonekura family in September, when the family returned to Brazil with thousands of dollars they had saved while living for six years in Japan.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, China's Pres. Hu Jintao arrived in Vietnam on a mission to expand booming trade ties between the communist nations.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Hundreds of government troops backed by U.N. peacekeepers began flushing heavily armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Congo, destroying insurgent camps and sending smoke rising above the restive region.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Farmers brought California vegetables, North Carolina turkeys and Arkansas rice to Cuba's annual trade fair, showing that Americans are still hungry for the communist country's market despite U.S. rules that make trade difficult.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN-sanctioned panel investigating human rights violations during Indonesia's bloody 24-year occupation of East Timor presented its findings to the country's president.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, French rower Emmanuel Coindre ended a landmark 129-day solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean between Japan and the United States, setting a new record, according to his team.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US military said 6 American soldiers were killed in two bombings, making October one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. A car bomb exploded in a commercial district of Basra, killing at least 20 with 40 injured.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 11/1/05)(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi named a new Cabinet, putting outspoken conservatives, and potential successors, in top positions and retaining his economic team.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Okinawa's governor told Japan's central government that a plan to build a U.S. heliport on the southern island as part of a realignment of the American military presence there was unacceptable.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A Myanmar court sentenced a lawyer to seven years in prison for advising a group of farmers to file grievances with the International Labor Organization.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Oct 31, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has officially named a minority conservative government headed by Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, President Vladimir Putin said he won't seek a third term in 2008, but vowed not to allow "destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the door open for drastic action in the event of a crisis.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A new survey reported that more than half of Russians think everyone in power is dishonest, from the president and parliament, to government and the courts. Transparency International recently ranked Russia joint 126th on its list of cleanest countries, on a par with Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica announced an agreed $31.5 billion takeover of mobile-phone operator O2, to be paid in cash.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.65)
2005 Oct 31, UN envoy Jan Pronk condemned the killing of 2 deminers contracted to the United Nations in southern Sudan in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN resolution sponsored by the US, France and Britain demanded that Syria assist fully with a probe into the February killing of former Lebanese leader Hariri. The P-5 ambassadors (the five permanent council nations) from the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, conducted intense negotiations to try to reach agreement on the resolution.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.A1)(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Oct 31, Live news broadcasts began on a new Latin American TV station backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an alternative to large corporate media outlets.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2006 Oct 31, President George W. Bush ordered that assets be frozen of dissident general Laurent Nkunda and six others considered by the White House to be destabilizing forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, NASA agreed to dispatch a shuttle on a repair mission to keep the Hubble Space Telescope in operation until at least 2013.
(WSJ, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, In Long Beach, Ca., 9 African-American youths accosted and severely beat 3 white women in a racially charged attack on Halloween night. In 2007 a judge ruled the attack a hate crime and the 9 youths were convicted in juvenile court in Long Beach, Calif.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A3)(AP, 1/26/08)
2006 Oct 31, In SF gunfire broke out between two groups at a massive Halloween street party in the city's Castro district, wounding at least 10 people, including innocent bystanders.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Bechtel Corp.’s last government contract in Iraq expired. During its 3 years of work there 52 employees were killed.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, Enrico’s Sidewalk Café in SF’s North Beach district closed after negotiations for a new lease collapsed. Enrico Banducci had opened it in 1958.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.B5)
2006 Oct 31, In Roanoke, Virginia, Sheriff Frank Cassell and 12 of his uniformed employees were indicted in a racketeering case that claims drugs seized from criminals were being resold, sometimes out of a sergeant's home.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Reno, Nev., a fire at the Mizpah Hotel killed 12 people. Valerie Moore (47), a casino cook, was arrested the next day for starting the fire.
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.A4)(AP, 11/5/06)(SFC, 11/6/06, p.A3)(AP, 10/31/07)
2006 Oct 31, A leading researcher said large species of coral that form underwater reefs and create rich habitat for marine life are disappearing from around the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Researchers reported that elephants recognize themselves in mirrors.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.A4)
2006 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 3 NATO soldiers. A suicide bombing in southern Ghazni province's Taliban-dominated Ander district killed one policeman. Polio cases were reported to be on the rise along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
(AFP, 10/31/06)(WSJ, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, Australia pointed an accusing finger at China and India as major polluters as it refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change despite a major new report warning of impending catastrophe.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, President Evo Morales backed off his plan to nationalize Bolivia's mining industry, saying that his government can't afford it for now but he still wants to eventually recover control of the nation's mineral wealth.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Britain unveiled plans to regulate Internet gambling and said it opposed the US government's banning of the industry.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, A joint British and Lebanese initiative in London launched the world's first qualification covering all aspects of Islamic finance. The Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) was developed by British industry body the Securities and Investment Institute (SII) and Lebanese business school Ecole Superieure des Affaires.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, Cambodian police said an American police officer, killed himself while in custody in the capital. Donald Rene Ramirez of SF was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Ramirez had been going on vacation to Asia for at least 2 decades.
(AP, 10/31/06)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Oct 31, In Canada Finance Minister Jim Flaherty shocked markets when he announced plans to tax income trusts. Flaherty signaled concern that the flow of conversions to income trusts could become an uncontrollable torrent that would damage the economy and erode government revenues. Income trusts were first set up in the mid-1980s by property and energy companies who chose to pass profits to investors and thus avoid corporate income tax.
(AP, 10/31/06)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
2006 Oct 31, A small clash between ethnic Arab and ethnic African villagers along Chad's border with Darfur escalated into a large-scale attack in which Arabs killed 128 Africans. The fight broke out in Amtiman in southeastern Chad between two small groups after a member of one group insulted the other.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Oct 31, China's legislature barred all but the nation's highest court from approving death sentences, a move that state media called the country's biggest change to capital punishment in more than 20 years. In northwest Gansu province gas exploded in a coal mine, killing about 20 miners.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, Scientists reported that the Fujian-strain of H5N1 avian influenza has become dominant in southern China.
(SFC, 10/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Oct 31, A parliament speaker said Egypt it will amend its constitution to make it easier for candidates to run for president, part of long-delayed political reforms that President Hosni Mubarak plans to carry out next year. Talaat Sadat (52), the nephew of Egypt's late President Anwar Sadat, was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, after saying in an interview that Egyptian generals had masterminded his uncle's assassination.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Ethiopia 4 days of devastating floods along the eastern border killed dozens of people and prowling crocodiles hampered rescue efforts as rain continued to fall.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, France's Defense Minister ordered that 105 secret intelligence reports be handed over to a judge investigating allegations that Paris helped Rwanda's former Hutu government massacre ethnic Tutsis in a 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, India's central bank warned of overheating and juggled interest rates in a mid-term policy review aimed at keeping prices in check. In southern India a passenger train crashed into an auto-rickshaw at an unmanned rail crossing, killing all 18 people in the rickshaw.
(AFP, 10/31/06)(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Al-Sadr ordered Sadr City closed to the Iraqi government until US troops lifted what he called their "siege" of the neighborhood. US troops abandoned checkpoints around Sadr City on orders from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Iraqi state television presenter, Sherin Hamid, and her driver were found dead in central Baghdad, a day after they were abducted by gunmen. 3 people were killed and five injured by a car bomb in Sadr City. At least three Iraqi policemen were also reported killed in Baghdad and Fallujah. The bodies of five unidentified people, including a woman, were found dumped in eastern Baghdad. 5 more bodies in similar condition were floating in the Tigris River near Suwayrah. The morgue in the town of Kut reported receiving 10 bodies, including those of five people allegedly killed by US forces in a raid on a house in the Shejeriyah area. In Baqouba unidentified gunmen killed 3 people in a downtown market and attacked a police patrol, killing one officer and injuring two others. 5 bodies were found in the Abu Seida district, 25 kilometers northeast of the city. More than 40 Shiites were abducted along a dangerous highway just north of Baghdad near the town of Tarmiyah. At least 8 other people were either found dead or slain in new attacks. A suicide bombing at a wedding party in Baghdad killed 23, including 9 children. Haidar Muhsin, an Iraqi translator with US forces, was shot dead in front of his home in Diwaniyah. US troops killed five suspected insurgents and detained one during a raid in Baghdad. The US military announced the deaths of two soldiers in fighting in the Baghdad area, one from small arms fire, the other from a roadside bomb.
(AP, 10/31/06)(AP, 11/1/06)(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, Italy said it would beef up security in Naples by adding 1,000 patrol officers and surveillance cameras amid an upsurge of slayings around a city already known for street violence and organized crime.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, PM Shinzo Abe said Japan will continue assisting Equatorial Guinea in its efforts to promote democracy. Abe made the pledge during a 45-minute meeting with Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Tokyo.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Kuwait an Iraqi government spokesman said Iraq needs around $100 billion in the next four to five years to recover and rebuild its infrastructure at the opening of an international aid meeting.
(AP, 110/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Mexico youths roamed the streets of Oaxaca tossing gasoline bombs, hijacking vehicles and vowing to keep fighting for the state governor's ouster. Congress urged the governor to resign and leftist leaders urged national support for the movement.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, North Korea agreed to rejoin six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in a surprise diplomatic breakthrough.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Pakistan an appeals court overturned the convictions of four terror suspects in a 2002 car bombing outside the US Consulate in Karachi that killed 14 Pakistanis. Some 15,000 bearded men wearing turbans burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and shouted "Death to Musharraf" in the troubled Bajaur tribal region, which borders Afghanistan.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In South Africa P.W. Botha (b.1916), the apartheid-era leader (1978-1989) who resisted pressure to release Nelson Mandela from prison in the 1980s, died.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Attacks in West Darfur, Sudan, killed at least 63 people, half of them children. Some 300 to 500 Arab militiamen on horseback raided at least eight villages as well as the Hajlija IDP camp.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Oct 31, Flooding from torrential rains killed 22 people across Turkey, including 14 who died when a minibus carrying wedding guests was swept away.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Typhoon Cimaron headed toward eastern Vietnam after leaving at least 15 dead in landslides and flooding in the northern Philippines.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2007 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed into law a measure barring states from levying taxes on Internet access through 2014.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, The US acknowledged that it had undertaken military moves against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, including spy planes and providing Turkey with more intelligence.
(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 31, The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point to 4.5%. The DJIA rose 137.54 to 13,930.01. Nasdaq rose 42.41 to 2,859. Oil futures rose to a new record high closing at $94.53 per barrel on the NY mercantile Exchange. Gold traded above $800 an ounce for the first time since 1980.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.C1)(AP, 10/31/08)
2007 Oct 31, In California Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona faced arraignment on seven counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering, according to a sweeping indictment unsealed a day earlier. Carona and others allegedly accepted $350,000 in gifts and cash in exchange for political favors in a scheme that began as early as 1998, the year he was first elected.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In Alameda, Ca., Ichinkhorloo Bayarsaikhan (15) was shot in the back and killed in a robbery attempt by a group of teenage boys. She had been out with some 10 friends on Halloween when they were accosted at Washington Park. Quochuy Tran (16), the suspected shooter, was arrested Nov 7 and 5 others were picked up the next day. 3 boys arrested earlier in the week were released. On Dec 14 three teenage boys were convicted in juvenile court of first degree murder. Charges were still pending against 3 others. On Jan 25 Tran was sentenced to 7 years. His younger brother (15) and another boy (13) were sentenced to a wilderness camp for 2 years. In 2010 Quochuy Tran was tried as an adult and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for first degree murder.
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/14/07, p.B5)(SFC, 12/15/07, p.B1)(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B3)(SFC, 8/21/10, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, San Francisco energy officials approved a new $230 million power plant near Potrero Hill, which would let it close an older, dirtier plant nearby.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, Physicists at UC Berkeley said they had produced the world’s smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than human hair. They had it play “Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and said it could also function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, In Hawaii state lawmakers voted to allow the new inter-island ferry to resume service. The Superferry law overrode court decisions requiring an environmental study.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A4)
2007 Oct 31, Officials said Afghan, US and Canadian troops have surrounded a pocket of some 250 Taliban fighters who have commandeered people's homes in villages just outside Kandahar. In western Farah province six police officers were killed and two others wounded, and 14 Afghan army troops were missing after clashes with Taliban militants. A nighttime raid in eastern Afghanistan by Afghan troops with US support sparked a gunbattle that killed three people, including two children.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Oct 31, In London King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met PM Gordon Brown to discuss Middle East issues and counter-terrorism, amid a swirl of protests.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, China's worst fuel crisis in two years spread to the capital and other inland areas, and one man was killed in a brawl at a petrol station queue, upping pressure on the government to intervene.
(Reuters, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In Dubai more than 4,000 south Asian workers who had been jailed since a weekend labor strike were released, in an incident that has highlighted labor tensions in this booming city.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Authorities said French police had arrested 20 suspects as part of a Europe-wide crackdown on child pornography over the Internet.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Alcatel-Lucent, the struggling French-US telecommunications equipment maker, announced it would cut an additional 4,000 jobs by 2009 as it unveiled a sharp third quarter net loss.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, The Iraqi government rejected the findings of a US oversight panel that a dam near the northern city of Mosul is on the verge of a collapse that could cause flooding along the Tigris River "all the way to Baghdad." US helicopters opened fire after a ground patrol came under attack southeast of Baghdad, and Iraqi police said three officers were killed and one wounded in the strike. Two American soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle in Iraq's northern Ninevah province.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 31, More than 100 Buddhist monks marched in northern Myanmar for nearly an hour, the first public demonstration since the government's deadly crackdown last month on pro-democracy protesters.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In southern Nigeria one navy officer was killed and four other naval personnel injured in an overnight attack on a vessel protecting a Shell oilfield.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Pakistan military helicopter gunships strafed Islamic militant positions in the northwestern Swat Valley as a shaky truce collapsed.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, A bomb ripped through a passenger bus in the central Russian city of Togliatti, killing eight people and injuring 48. Togliatti is a city on the Volga River known as the headquarters of Russia's largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, which returned to state control in 2005. The city has a reputation for gang violence as varying groups have competed for control over the lucrative factory.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Spanish lawmakers passed historic legislation condemning Gen. Francisco Franco's coup and nearly 40-year fascist dictatorship, brushing aside complaints from the conservative opposition that the bill would reopen old divides. 3 lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that killed 191 people were convicted of murder by the Spanish court. Four other top suspects were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges. In all 21 of the 28 defendants were convicted. The law of "historical memory" aimed to remove fascist symbols from public buildings and recognize the mistreatment of of Franco's victims.
(AP, 10/31/07)(Econ., 9/19/20, p.50)
2007 Oct 31, The Turkish army said it killed 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border, as ministers discussed possible economic sanctions against Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government.
(AFP, 10/31/07)
2008 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed an executive order restoring the Libyan government’s immunity from terror-related lawsuits and dismissing pending compensation cases in response to Libya’s payment of $1.5 billion into a fund to compensate the families of victims the 1986 bombing of a German disco and the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 31, A jury of US military officers at Guantanamo's second war-crimes trial reached a verdict that could put Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, Osama bin Laden's alleged "media secretary" and video maker, in prison for life. Announcement of the decision was postponed to Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. launched a plan to modify the terms of $70 billion in mortgages for borrowers who were either behind on their payments or soon could be. As many as 400,000 borrowers could be moved into lower rate mortgages.
(WSJ, 11/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 31, Airship Ventures began operating zeppelin flights from Moffett field in Mountain View, Ca. Passenger tickets were set at $495 per person for one hour and $950 for 2 hours.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 31, VeraSun Energy, one of America’s biggest ethanol producers, filed for bankruptcy after being caught in the gyrations of the prices of corn and gasoline.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.79)
2008 Oct 31, The Leakey Foundation awarded its Leakey Prize to American primatologist Jane Goodall and Japanese scientist Toshidada Nishida for their work with chimpanzees.
(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 31, Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonymous cryptography buff, unveiled a project he dubbed bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
(Econ, 5/9/15, SR p.16)
2008 Oct 31, Studs Terkel (b.1912), Chicago radio personality and writer, died. His books included “The Good War," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a series of operations by US forces targeted an al-Qaida leader and a bomb-making cell, killing 19 militants in Nangarhar and Khost provinces. Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the militant group has released two aid workers from Bangladesh whom they had kidnapped in Ghazni province late last month.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Oct 31, Brazil's state-run oil company signed an agreement to explore for oil in deep Caribbean waters north of Cuba that officials in Havana say could contain 20 billion barrels of crude.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Petrofac evacuated 56 non-essential workers from the North Sea Heather Alpha oil rig after a reports of 10-20 ton oil spill.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Top British filmmaker Danny Boyle's new Mumbai-based film "Slumdog Millionaire" won rave reviews after its screening at the close of the London Film Festival.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Middle East investors will own up to one third of Barclays Plc after Abu Dhabi and Qatar provided most of 7.3 billion pounds ($12.1 billion) raised by the bank to repair damage from the global financial crisis and avoid taking UK government rescue funds.
(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Heavily-armed pirates swarmed aboard an oil industry support vessel working off the coast of Cameroon and kidnapped 10 of 15 crew members, including six Frenchmen. A man claiming to represent a rebel group opposed to Cameroon's takeover of the Bakassi Peninsula warned the hostages would be killed unless Cameroonian officials agreed to reopen the issue.
(AFP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Canada an explosion damaged a natural gas wellhead in the same area of northeast British Columbia where two pipelines have been bombed this month.
(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In southern China a truck driver killed 4 people and injured 20 by driving into a crowd of high school students coming out of class. The male driver was shot dead by police after the incident in the city of Zhuhai in Guangdong province.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Oct 31, Thousands of war-weary refugees set out on foot for their homes in eastern Congo, taking advantage of a cease-fire as American and UN envoys joined efforts there to find a political solution to the region's long-running rebellion.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In southern Egypt tourist bus overturned, killing six Belgian tourists and injuring 26 other Belgian passengers.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Israeli settlers clashed with Israeli police and Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron following the overnight demolition of an unauthorized settler outpost. Israelis from across the political spectrum slammed a decision to air the first-ever television interview with Yigal Amir (43), the extremist Jew who assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
(AP, 10/31/08)(AFP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Japan an essay by Gen. Toshio Tamogami, head of Japan’s air force, was published. He had won a competition for best essay denying Japan’s wartime role as an aggressor and sponsor of atrocities. The contest was sponsored by Toshio Motoya, the head of a hotel chain. Within hours of publication Gen. Toshio Tamogami was out of a job.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.57)
2008 Oct 31, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, starting his first visit to post-Soviet Russia, planned to discuss opening a Russian naval base in Libya to counterbalance US interests in the region.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Mexico police arrested Antonio Galarza, the reputed leader of the violent Gulf drug cartel for the border city of Reynosa, in the northern city of Monterrey on suspicion of weapons violations and organized crime.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Oct 31, A suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles into a house in Mir Ali town in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border. Al-Qaida member Abu Kasha Iraqi was among those killed. Abu Jihad al-Masri, described by the US as al-Qaida’s propaganda chief, was among 3 people killed when a missile hit their truck. A second house was hit, killing 12 including suspected foreign militants in Kari Kot in South Waziristan. 29 people were reported killed in the 2 attacks. A suicide bomber attacked the convoy of a regional police chief, killing 3 police officers and 5 civilians in Mardan in the North West Frontier Province.
(AP, 10/31/08)(AFP, 11/1/08)(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 31, Gunmen in Peshawar, Pakistan, kidnapped Zia ul-Haq Ahadi, the brother of Afghanistan's finance minister, while he was walking to his mother's home after praying at a mosque. Ahadi, a businessman who lives in Afghanistan, was in Peshawar to visit his mother.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Oct 31, Spain approved a measure to let descendants of people who fled into exile after its 1936-39 Civil War apply for Spanish citizenship. The government said it believes up to 500,000 children and grandchildren of such emigres are eligible. The government says 300,000 of those people live in Argentina.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2009 Oct 31, Pres. Obama hosted a Halloween party at the White House for children of military personnel and White House administrators. In 2012 New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party in “The Obamas."
(http://tinyurl.com/7f667ha)
2009 Oct 31, In Mendota, Ca., searchers found the body of Alex Mercado (4) stuffed into a clothes dryer. Raul Renato Castro (14) later told investigators that he drowned his neighbor in a bathtub and then hid the body in a dryer because the child was going to reveal that the teen had molested him.
(SFC, 11/5/09, p.C3)
2009 Oct 31, In Seattle, Wa., gunfire on a police patrol car killed police officer Timothy Brenton (39). He became the first city police officer killed in the line of duty since 2006. On Nov 6 suspect Christopher Monfort was shot by police as he drew a gun on officers investigating the death of Brenton. Monfort was in serious condition following surgery.
(SFC, 11/2/09, p.A5)(SSFC, 11/8/09, p.A14)
2009 Oct 31, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and aides in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi before flying to Israel, where she is expected to meet senior Israeli officials in a push to restart peace negotiations. A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians are unlikely to resume negotiations if Israel does not halt Jewish settlement building. After the talks Clinton called for an unconditional resumption of peace talks and welcomed Israel's offer for a slowdown in settlement activity.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, said authorities have arrested eight people, including one in Saudi Arabia, in connection with this week's deadly attack on a guest house used by UN employees. He said those arrested claimed the assailants came from Pakistan's Swat Valley. In southern Helmand province a British soldier was killed in an explosion. An American died of wounds suffered from a bomb attack.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AFP, 11/1/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, A British government official said the Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, and Lloyds Banking Group are to sell off as many as 700 branches in the next few years in exchange for the public aid they received during the economic meltdown.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Canada 2 men sought by the FBI and linked to a Detroit Muslim leader killed by US authorities were arrested in Windsor, Ontario. Mohammad Al-Sahli (33) and Yassir Ali Kahn (30) were wanted by the FBI for conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
(Reuters, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, China's legislature removed Zhou Ji (63), the country's unpopular education minister, amid a corruption scandal in a city he used to oversee and widespread public dissatisfaction with the education system.
(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Qian Xuesen (b.1911), a rocket scientist known as the father of China's space technology program, died in Beijing. Qian left for the US after winning a scholarship to graduate school in 1936. He studied at MIT and later at the California Institute of Technology, where he helped start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Qian, also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics before returning to China in 1955, driven out of the US at the height of anticommunist fervor.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Guatemala gunmen killed one prison guard and wounded four others outside a prison in Guatemala City.
(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected a UN-backed plan to ship much of the country's uranium abroad for further enrichment, raising further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will finally approve the deal.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, Italian police arrested one of the country's most wanted mafia fugitives after tearing down a wall in a dawn raid at a chicken farm near Naples where he had built a hideout. Salvatore Russo (51), the head of a Camorra clan carrying his name, had been sentenced to life in prison for homicide and links to organized crime and was on the run since 1995.
(AFP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Mexico Mayor Mauricio Fernandez told cheering supporters in San Pedro Garza Garcia, near Monterrey, that "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was asking for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City." Hours later Mexican officials found four bound bodies in a sport utility vehicle with hand-lettered messages identifying the dead men as kidnappers. Hector “Black" Soldana was not identified for another 2 days. Fernandez later said US authorities had tipped him off that somebody intercepted cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him, and he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was dead hours before the bodies were found.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)
2009 Oct 31, Pakistani soldiers closed in on two major Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan, as government jets pounded insurgent hide-outs and the prime minister said the country had no choice but to defeat the militants. Pakistani jets bombed three hide-outs of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the Orkazai tribal region, killing at least 8 militants and wounding several others. Another airstrike, about 40 miles (70km) from the first and near the Afghan border, killed 7 militants in the Kurram tribal region. The army said government soldiers had killed a total of 33 militants over the past 24 hours, discovered a factory for making roadside bombs and seized a handful of weapons. 7 paramilitary soldiers driving through the Khyber tribal area were killed in a roadside bomb planted by suspected Taliban militants. In Karachi police arrested 3 suspected militants and seized 30 kilograms (65 pounds) of explosives and other weaponry.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Playa Blanca, Panama, 2 teenage boys wounded an American and a Russian tourist in a botched robbery attempt. Police announced the arrest of the 2 teenagers on Nov 3.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Oct 31, In the Philippines Typhoon Mirinae, the 4th since late September, battered Manila and surrounding provinces, sending residents of one town clambering onto rooftops to escape rising waters. 20 people wee left dead with east 5 missing.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, A Russian news agency reported that Moscow plans to buy a French amphibious assault ship, the first such purchase from a NATO country, as the Kremlin seeks to reaffirm Russia's global reach.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, Ahmed Gadaf, a self-described spokesman for Somali pirates, said that boats from other countries are plundering Somalia's fish-rich waters.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, The Ukrainian government ordered schools nationwide to close for 3 weeks due to swine flu, which has left 33 people dead. Public gatherings were also banned and restrictions on travel were imposed to stop the spread of the virus.
(SSFC, 11/1/09, p.A6)
2009 Oct 31, The Vatican said it will admit married Anglican priests to the Catholic priesthood case by case. In no case could a married man become a bishop, and the new rules would exclude any married Anglican bishop from retaining that post.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2010 Oct 31, A US military judge, under a plea bargain, sentencing Omar Khadr (24) to eight more years in custody for war crimes. The young Canadian had admitted to five war crimes charges, including killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. The sentence called for him to stay at the Guantanamo prison another year before he can ask Canada's government to allow him to return to his homeland to serve out his sentence or seek early release on parole.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Texas the SF Giants won game 4 of the World Series 4-0 against the Texas Rangers putting them up 3 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 31, Theodore Sorenson (b.1928), special counsel to Pres. John F. Kennedy, died in NY. His memoir “Counselor" was published in 2008.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.C8)
2010 Oct 31, Afghan militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for the police, Education Ministry, and the UN's World Food Program in western Nimroz province. Six militants were killed and one policeman was wounded in the gunbattle. A two-day battle over a bomb-making factory in Reg-i-Khan Nishin district ended with NATO and Afghan troops killing 15 insurgents.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Brazil held elections. Dilma Rousseff (62), the hand-picked candidate of Pres. Lula da Silva was the heavy favorite to replace him in the runoff election. Dilma Rousseff was elected over centrist rival Jose Serra 56 percent to 44 percent and will be the first woman to direct Latin America's biggest nation.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, China wrapped up its record-breaking World Expo with a lavish display of national pride, as organizers of the mammoth event pledged to continue pursuing more sustainable, balanced growth. Over 72 million visitors surpassed the record 1970 fair in Osaka, Japan, which drew 64 million.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.D2)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Iraq an al Qaeda attack left 68 people dead including 46 hostages, 7 police and 5 attackers, at the Sayidat al-Nejat Syriac Christian cathedral (Our Lady of Salvation) in Baghdad. The attack ended with police storming the church to free more than 100 hostages. Officials said most of the casualties were killed or wounded when the security forces raided the place and that the attack was aimed at driving the Christian minority out of the country. Al-Qaida cited the cases of 2 Egyptian women, wives of Coptic priests, who had converted to Islam in order to get away from their abusive husbands. On August 2, 2011, a Baghdad court convicted 3 Iraqis and sentenced them to death for their role in the church siege. A fourth man was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/2/11)
2010 Oct 31, Ivory Coast held a long-awaited presidential election, the first since civil war erupted in 2002 and split the world's leading cocoa producer in half. Pres. Laurent Gbagbo won 38% followed by 32% for Alassane Ouattara, the main opposition leader. Former Pres. Henri Konan Bedie came in third with 25% and later endorsed Ouattara in a run-off, set for Nov 28.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Oct 31, Japan’s PM Naoto Kan said Vietnam has chosen Japan as a partner to mine rare earth metals and develop nuclear power.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Mexican police found the missing rental car of Canadian businessman Daniel Dion just north of the state capital of Chilpancingo. It was found completely burned with a corpse in the trunk. Dion was last seen about a week ago in Acapulco. Edgar Lopez (35) of El Paso, Texas, was killed along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Niger voters weighed in on a new constitution that would impose presidential term limits and pardon members of a military junta that seized power earlier this year. The country's new constitution passed with 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 31, Walid Husayin (26), a Palestinian blogger, was arrested in the West Bank. He had set off an uproar in the Arab world by sarcastically claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad. He was caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down. Husayin later posted the letter on his blog in hopes of winning release.
(AP, 11/12/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, Saudi Arabia's top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Somalia's parliament approved Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-American as the country's prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Sudan shut the Khartoum office of Radio Dabanga, whose reports on Darfur have angered it, and arrested 13 staff from the radio station and a rights group that shares its offices. 9 journalists and four HAND activists were detained during the weekend raids.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Tanzania's ruling party, which has been in power for close to half a century, faced an energized opposition in national elections, following corruption scandals that have undermined the government's popularity. On Nov 5 election officials said Tanzania's Pres. Jakaya Kikwete won a 2nd term in office with 61% of the vote. In Zanzibar Ali Mohammed Shein (62) won the election with 50.1% of the vote. He was sworn in as president on Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Turkey a suspected suicide bomber wounded 15 officers and 17 civilians in Istanbul's main square, as an extended unilateral ceasefire by the separatist PKK came to an end. The radical Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) later claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, Ukraine voted for local councils and mayors in an election which should provide the first real clues to Pres. Yanukovich's standing at home since his election last February. Exit polls said Yanukovych’s swept elections to regional councils throughout the country.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Venezuela's Pres. Chavez ordered the nationalization of local steel company Sidetur in the latest of several recent government takeovers.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)
2011 Oct 31, Arizona law enforcement officials said a massive drug smuggling ring has been broken up. Over the past month 76 people were arrested linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, which over the last 5 years had generated over $2 billion by smuggling cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the US.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A7)
2011 Oct 31, An Arizona jury found Mark Goudeau (47), identified as the Phoenix area Baseline Killer, guilty of murdering 9 people in the summer of 2006. On Dec 30 Goudeau was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A6)(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A10)
2011 Oct 31, MF Global, a New York brokerage firm run by former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, filed for bankruptcy. Corzine (64), a former co-CEO at Goldman Sachs, resigned on Nov 4 amid regulatory probes.
(http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/mf-global-bankruptcy-rattles-wall-st-firms/)(SFC, 11/5/11, p.D1)
2011 Oct 31, In Afghanistan insurgents driving a suicide truck bomb and attacking on foot killed five people, including three UN employees, near the offices of the UN's refugee agency in the Kandahar city. Afghan forces and the militants exchanged fire for nearly seven hours before the militants were killed.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Algiers inaugurated its long-awaited underground metro system amid much fanfare after three decades of work interrupted by an oil crisis and a civil war. Work for Africa's second metro after Cairo began in earnest in 1982.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, An Australian court ended the strikes and employee lockout that had abruptly grounded Qantas Airways and stranded tens of thousands of passengers worldwide. The government referred the dispute to Fair Work Australia, which ordered both sides into 21 days of talks.
(AP, 10/31/11)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.75)
2011 Oct 31, Bangladesh wildlife officials said Bangladesh will declare three river areas in its southwest as dolphin sanctuaries, in a bid to protect the country's population of endangered freshwater cetaceans.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, The head of British intelligence agency GCHQ warned of a "disturbing" rise in cyber attacks on the country's government and industry systems which he said risked damaging the economy.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, EDF Energy submitted its application to build the first new nuclear power plant in Britain, the country's Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) confirmed in a statement.
(Reuters, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand signed a regional security agreement pledging to share intelligence and to engage in joint patrols along a stretch of the Mekong between China and the Golden Triangle.
(Econ, 11/19/11, p.45)
2011 Oct 31, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos dissolved the scandal-plagued DAS domestic intelligence agency, saying its employees will be transferred to other state offices.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, More than 3,000 Egyptians marched through downtown Cairo, protesting the military's arrest of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent blogger-activist, in the latest sign of discontent with the ruling generals' managing of the country.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In India Samdup Taso (83), the last Lepcha priest in Sikkim, died. This left the Lepchas without a spiritual leader to offer prayers to Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, which is revered as Sikkim's guardian deity.
(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli aircraft struck the southern Gaza Strip targeting rocket-launching militants. Palestinian officials reported that two men were found dead in the area. The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked a squad that had just fired a rocket into Israel.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) submitted complaints to three UN Special Reporters, demanding they launch an investigation into the legality of Israel's policy in the eastern sector of Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967 and later annexed, a move never recognized by the rest of the world. The group's report "No Home, No Homeland" accuses Israel of making it almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, Japan and Vietnam agreed to move ahead with a plan to export Japanese nuclear technology to build reactors in Vietnam despite Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis. PM Yoshihiko Noda and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung also agreed to jointly mine rare earth minerals in Vietnam.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Kenya and Somalia called for other nations to help in their fight against Islamist insurgents.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Oct 31, Libya's interim leadership chose Abdel-Rahim al-Keeb, an electronics engineer from Tripoli, as the country's new prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, NATO’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Tripoli for talks with Libya's interim leaders before NATO operations end at midnight today. The NATO 7-month air campaign left at least 40 civilians dead.
(AP, 10/31/11)(SSFC, 12/18/11, p.A13)
2011 Oct 31, Mexican soldiers seized 2 catapults and 1.4 tons (1.3 metric tons of marijuana) during a raid in Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, Arizona.
(AP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Mexico a light airplane taking off from the border city of Tijuana crashed into an auto repair shop near a street market, killing three people and setting fire to several cars.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Ali Saibou (71), former president of Niger (1987-1993) died in the capital Niamey. He brought multi-party politics to the west African country.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, The Palestinians were admitted to UNESCO as full members in a vote at the UN cultural body's general assembly in Paris. The resolution was adopted by 107 countries, 14 countries voted against and 52 abstained, bringing member states to 195.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Somali pirates captured a Greek chemical tanker and were commandeering it to a hideout in the north of the war-torn country. The MT Liquid Velvet had 21 Filipinos and one Greek sailor on board.
(AFP, 11/2/11)
2011 Oct 31, Hundreds of SPLM-North rebels were killed in clashes with the Sudanese army in South Kordofan, Sudan's only oil producing state where the army is battling insurgents.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, A Tunisian court was reported to have issued an international arrest warrant against Suha Arafat (48), the widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over alleged corruption. The case appeared to be connected to a school she founded in 2006 with the wife of the ousted Pres. Ben Ali. She was stripped of her Tunisian citizenship in 2007 following a dispute with the former ruling family and currently lives in Malta.
(AFP, 11/1/11)(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 31, Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested as he set off from his home with around 20 supporters to walk the 14 km (seven miles) into Kampala's center. Earlier this year he launched a "walk-to-work" protest over high living costs.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, The UN marked the world population reaching 7 billion amid fears of how the planet will cope.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Zimbabwe state media said President Robert Mugabe has warned Switzerland he would "reciprocate" after his wife and top officials were denied visas to attend a UN meeting in that country.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Zimbabwe a $430 million fund was launched with the help of the EU and UNICEF to give children and pregnant women free medical care at public hospitals.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2012 Oct 31, In San Francisco an estimated one million-plus people turned out to celebrate the SF Giants World Series victory parade.
(SFC, 11/1/12, p.A1)
2012 Oct 31, Argentina’s lawmakers passed legislation that lowered the voting age from 18 to 16.
(SFC, 11/2/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 31, Brazil’s military said it has confiscated 4 tons of drugs, 5 dozen vehicles and 200 boats used by drug traffickers in a 3-week operation along borders with Bolivia and Peru.
(SFC, 11/1/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 31, Former British cabinet minister Lord Hazeltine (79) published a report demanding a new British industrial policy.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.57)
2012 Oct 31, In Colombia a suitcase bomb exploded near a town square where 5,000 children were celebrating Halloween, killing two suspected FARC bombers and injuring 37 people, including two boys who were hospitalized in critical condition.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, A tropical storm slammed into southern India, bringing heavy rain and a storm surge and displacing 150,000 people. Six deaths were reported in India and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, The kaleme.org reported that 9 Iranian women have started a hunger strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beating and verbal insults of the prisoners.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, Italian architect Gae Aulenti (84) died at her home in Milan. Her work included the 1986 makeover of a Parisian train station into the Musee D’Orsay as well as the 2003 makeover of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.
(SSFC, 11/4/12, p.C12)
2012 Oct 31, A top a top Kenyan official said more than 2,700 African Union troops from Uganda have died in Somalia. About three dozen Kenyan forces have died there over the last year.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Oct 31, Libya's Congress endorsed the new government formed by PM Ali Zidan. It included Foreign Minister Ali al-Alouji and the Minister of Religious Endowment who both served under Gadhafi.
(AP, 11/2/12)
2012 Oct 31, Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial said an arm of China's sovereign wealth fund has taken a 10 percent stake in the holding company controlling Britain's largest airport Heathrow.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Oct 31, Syrian warplanes pounded opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north, as President Bashar Assad's forces intensified airstrikes against rebels seeking to topple him. Activists said 116 were killed nationwide in airstrikes, artillery shelling and fighting. This included 41 people killed in Aleppo and 35 in the suburbs of Damascus.
(AP, 10/31/12)(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, In southern Thailand a school teacher and his 11-year-old son were shot dead.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 31, The nation’s largest landfill, a 630-acre site 20 miles east of LA, closed as a permit for the sited expired. Garbage from the county’s 88 cities will eventually be put on trains and taken to an abandoned gold mine over 200 miles away.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that most of Texas’ tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 31, In central Texas flash floods following heavy rains killed two men in the Austin area.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 31, In Britain television cameras were allowed into one of the highest courts for the first time, hailed as a landmark move towards open justice while still protecting the rights of vulnerable witnesses.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Brazil oil giant OGX, once the jewel in the EBX crown, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after debt-restructuring talks with its creditors failed. Eike Batista's debt-ridden EBX empire appeared to be on its last legs as the Brazilian magnate desperately tried to sell assets and lure investment to keep his sinking ship afloat.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 30, Barclays, Britain's second-largest bank, revealed that it was the subject of an investigation by regulators in Britain and other countries over "possible attempts to manipulate certain benchmark currency exchange rates." Six traders were soon suspended amid an investigation into whether international currency markets were rigged.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In London Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif told British Deputy PM Nick Clegg that his country had started talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Chinese state media said the last county in China to be accessible by modern land transport was finally linked up to the rest of the country with a new 117-km road that has taken decades to build. The 19,000 people of deeply isolated Medog in southeastern Tibet have until now had to depend on horses for land travel and trade.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Ghana immigration official said 46 more foreigners, suspected of illegal gold mining, have been arreested in the last week, including 43 Chinese, two Indians and an American.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Greece thousands of protesters clogged Athens to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country as its citizens seek a greater share of the spoils from stellar growth.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Iraq twin car bombs north of Baghdad killed 6 people, while attacks elsewhere in the country left 6 others dead.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the government is planning to move ahead with another 3,360 new settler homes in the West Bank, quoting an MP from the ruling rightwing Likud party.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Italian police said they have busted an international ring of former special forces agents hired to "recover" children involved in custody battles who were spirited across borders by one of their parents.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenya MPs voted to set up and appoint a new Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with the teeth to impose penalties of up to 20 million Kenyan shillings (173,000 euros, $234,000) on offenders and even bar journalists from working.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenyan warplanes destroyed a Shebab rebel camp in southern Somalia used to train gunmen who attacked Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in September.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a campaign against the country’s obesity epidemic, urging his countrymen to exercise more as Congress passed special taxes on junk food and sodas. Mexico's Congress passed a package of measures aimed at bolstering the country's weak tax revenues, but only after watering down a plan that is expected to have a moderate impact at best.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Niger authorities said rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, most of them women and children, strewn across the Sahara desert after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Nigeria dozens of Boko Haram gunmen riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks stormed Bama town in Borno state, killing 27 people and razing some 300 homes.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Pakistan a US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed 3 insurgents in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Palestinian security sources said Israel's army arrested four suspects from the Islamic Jihad movement overnight, in the second such arrest operation this week. A Palestinian rock thrower was killed as Israeli troops entered Qabatiya in northern West Bank.
(AFP, 10/31/13)(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 31, Peru's President Ollanta Humala swore in Cesar Villanueva, a widely praised regional politician, as his 4th prime minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, but retained his finance minister despite rumors he might quit.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Portugal Lisbon subway workers walked off the job for the fifth time this year to protest government austerity measures being enacted in return for Portugal's 2011 bailout.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Moscow court revoked the registration of web-based news agency Rosbalt for posting videos it said contained profane language, including a clip by punk band Pussy Riot.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Sudan the pan-Arab satellite channel Sky News Arabia reopened its bureau in Khartoum after a one-month suspension that authorities imposed during anti-regime protests.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria has destroyed critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and poison gas munitions. Fierce clashes raged in the north, close to one of the sites where toxic agents are believed to be stored.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Thai anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Bangkok as parliament debated a political amnesty which opponents fear will "whitewash" past abuses and allow ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Venezuela seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services after the company shut them down because the state oil monopoly was months behind on payments.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In northern Yemen the death toll from a Houthi Shi'ite attack on a mountain town held by their Salafi Sunni Muslim rivals rose to 24 as the two sides fought for a second day in Damaj. Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead two soldiers and a civilian in an attack on an army checkpoint in the southern province of Abyan.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)(AFP, 10/31/13)
2014 Oct 31, The US Treasury blacklisted Aung Thaun, a hard-line lawmaker of Myanmar's ruling party, accusing him of undermining political and economic reforms.
(AP, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, In California Susan Su (44) of Pleasanton was sentenced to 198 months behind bars, forfeit $5.6 million and pay $904,000 in restitution for operating the fake Tri-Valley Univ. She used it as a front for foreign students seeking to establish US immigration status.
(SFC, 11/5/14, p.E2)
2014 Oct 31, A Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo blew apart over southern California after being released from a carrier aircraft killing one pilot, Michael Alsbury (39) and seriously injuring the other, Peter Siebold (43). The suborbital vehicle was undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A7)
2014 Oct 31, In southern California 3 girls (13) were killed while trick-or-treating when they were struck by a hit-and-run driver in Santa Ana. On Nov 2 Jaquinn Bell (31) of Orange was arrested for the hit-and-run.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/2/14, p.A6)(SFC, 11/4/14, p.A4)
2014 Oct 31, John Shields Jr. (b.1932), a former CEO of Trader Joe’s, died in southern California. Under his tenure (1988-2001) the chain expanded from 27 to 174 stores. The chain had been founded as pronto markets by Joe Coulombe, a fraternity brother of Shields at Stanford.
(SSFC, 11/9/14, p.C8)
2014 Oct 31, A Maine court restricted movements of nurse Kaci Hickox who defied voluntary Ebola quarantine by taking a bike ride. The temporary order allowed her to engage in what the judge called "non-congregate public activities" like walking or jogging in the park but instructs her to maintain a 3-foot (1 meter) distance from other people.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Three US soldiers stationed at the Fort Hood Army post in central Texas pleaded guilty to smuggling immigrants into the US.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Australia the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) wound up a 10-day meeting in Hobart without the consensus needed for a deal to conserve and manage the marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean. China and Russia thwarted an international attempt to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore announced his resignation in a statement and called for a 90-day transition to "free and transparent" elections in the West African country. General Honore Traore said that he had taken charge. Compaore fled with his family in a heavily armed convoy to Ivory Coast amid violent protests seeking his ouster.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(AP, 11/2/14)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.52)
2014 Oct 31, In China a senior prosecutor said investigators have found more than 200 million yuan ($33 million) in cash at the home of an energy official accused of receiving bribes, in the country's largest cash seizure ever. The cash was seized at the home of Wei Pengyuan, deputy chief of the coal bureau under the National Energy Administration.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, A man in southeastern China slashed a first-grader to death and severely injured two others in Luojia village, Jiangxi province.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In China Han Lei (40), a man who killed a two-year-old girl after a row with her mother over a parking space in Beijing in July, 2012, was executed.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In northeast CongoDRC a crowd stoned to death a young man before burning and eating his corpse in Beni. The man aroused suspicion on a bus when passengers discovered he could not speak the local Swahili language and that he was carrying a machete.
(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, The Czech Republic's Parliament approved a government plan to keep up to 350 troops in Afghanistan for at least two more years. The troops will not be used for combat.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, The EU said it will take another step towards normal relations with Zimbabwe by ending restrictions on aid, paving the way for 234 million euros ($293 million) of new funding.
(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, Hungary's PM Viktor Orban said that the government would suspend a planned tax on Internet use and reconsider the matter next year.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on the government to rush to the aid of Sunni tribes battling Islamic State, after the militant group executed at least 220 tribesmen west of Baghdad this week.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Iraq a series of bomb attacks struck marketplaces near Baghdad, killing at least 19 people. Security forces recaptured parts of Beiji, a Sunni oil town north of Baghdad, from Islamic State militants.
(AP, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A5)
2014 Oct 31, Iraq’s Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 Al Bu Nimr tribesmen and women in Ras al-Maa village, Anbar province. 35 corpses were found on the outskirts of Ramadi.
(AP, 11/1/14)(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, In southern Israel rocket fired from Gaza hit the Eshkol area. Israel soon closed two border crossings with Gaza in response.
(AFP, 11/2/14)
2014 Oct 31, Italy confirmed the end of its search and rescue operation "Mare Nostrum", which has saved the lives of tens of thousands of boat migrants in the Mediterranean.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, The Bank of Japan unexpectedly announced a new stimulus package to boost the country's struggling economy. The announcement came after economic data showed that Japan's economy remained in the doldrums following a sales tax hike in April.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, A Mexican judge order the release of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi (26), an Afghanistan veteran who suffers from PTSD, after 214 days spent in jail. The Florida man said he got lost on a California freeway ramp that sent him across the border with no way to turn back. He was arrested for carrying loaded guns.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Nigeria a car bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop in the northeast city of Gombe. At least 10 people were killed and several wounded near the end of the morning rush hour. Vigilantes in the Borno town of Biu said they and troops had decapitated 41 Boko Haram fighters who were planning a raid in the village of Sabon Gari.
(AP, 10/31/14)(AFP, 11/6/14)
2014 Oct 31, In a new video Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists, said that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off. He also denied there is a cease-fire with the Nigerian government.
(AP, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, Russia’s Gazprom said it may restart gas supply to Ukraine as soon as next week if Kiev pays $2.2 billion worth of debt and pre-payments, under a deal that is also vital to ensure deliveries to Europe.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Russia's central bank raised its main interest rate 1.5% to 9.5% in its latest attempt to shore up the plummeting national currency.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Ebola has wiped out whole villages in Sierra Leone and may have caused many more deaths than the nearly 5,000 official global toll.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Sudanese soldiers attacked the village of Tabit in the Darfur region. In an apparent 2-day rampage over the disappearance of one of their own they reportedly raped some 200 women. An official UNAMID statement found no evidence of such crimes. An internal UNAMID report said people were warned not to talk. On Feb 11, 2015, a new Human Rights Watch report, based on more than 130 interviews, said girls as young as 10 were raped by Sudanese army forces, and that some women and girls were assaulted multiple times and in front of their families.
(Econ, 12/6/14, p.62)(AP, 2/11/15)
2014 Oct 31, In Syria US-led air strikes hit Islamic State positions around the border town of Kobani in an apparent bid to pave the way for heavily-armed Kurdish peshmerga forces to enter from neighboring Turkey.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk said Ukraine would guarantee deliveries of gas through its territory to Europe to make sure Moscow had no room for "blackmailing".
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Yemen Shiite rebels attacked the headquarters of Sunni Al-Islah party in the southwestern city of Ibb, triggering violence in which 3 people died. Shiite rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi told President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi that if he did not form a new government within 10 days a "national salvation council" would take its place.
(AFP, 11/1/14)
2015 Oct 31, The US pledged nearly $100 million in fresh aid to support the Syrian opposition as Western and Arab officials gathered in Bahrain for the Manama Dialogue security conference.
(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A4)
2015 Oct 31, The US-led coalition conducted nine air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and 16 in Iraq. Air strikes by Turkish and US aircraft in Syria killed more than 50 Islamic State militants and wounded around 30.
(Reuters, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Colorado police shot down a gunman in Colorado Springs after he shot and killed 23 people.
(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A8)
2015 Oct 31, Texas authorities said at least six people have died in storms that lashed parts of the state with heavy rains.
(AP, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Bangladesh Faysal Arefin Deepan, a publisher of slain online critic of religious militancy Avijit Roy, was hacked to death in Dhaka hours after similar attacks on two secular writers and another publisher in the majority-Muslim country.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.36)
2015 Oct 31, Egypt's prosecution referred to trial the editor-in-chief for Egypt's top literary magazine and writer Ahmed Naji for publishing sexually explicit material and allegedly violating public morals.
(AP, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, Israeli security forces shot and killed a Palestinian (18) who ran at them with a knife in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, It was reported that Nigeria's army has begun posting a photographic collage of 100 wanted Boko Haram militants that features the shadowy leader whom they claim to have killed on at least three occasions.
(AP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Pakistan 11 people were killed when rival political parties fired on each other in local elections in the Khairpur district of the southern province of Sindh, which held the polls along with the central Punjab province.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In the southern Philippines 15 people, including 6 children, died in a fire at a market in Zamboanga city.
(AP, 10/31/15)(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A5)
2015 Oct 31, In Romania an overnight fire in a Bucharest nightclub killed at least 27 people and injured 184 during a rock concert that featured fireworks used indoors. 146 people remained in hospital from the Colectiv Club fire. By Mar 14, 2016, the death toll rose to 64 as another victim died from their burns. A suicide victim more than 18 months later raised the death toll to 65. In 2021 the Romanian movie “Collective," nominated for two Oscars, follows a team of investigative journalists searching for the truth in the wake of the fire.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)(Reuters, 11/3/15)(AP, 3/14/16)(AP, 4/16/21)
2015 Oct 31, A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers and crew crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula after losing radar contact and plummeting from its cruising altitude, killing all aboard. The Airbus A321 was operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet. Egyptian security sources said early investigations suggested the plane crashed due to a technical fault. A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt claimed responsibility for the downing of the plane.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to discuss trade issues, a day before their three-way summit with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe that aims to repair relations strained by historical and territorial matters.
(AP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Taiwan tens of thousands marched in Taipei in Asia's biggest gay pride parade, with many hoping presidential elections next year bring to power a pro-gay government that will legalize same-sex marriage.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Yemen overnight clashes left 19 rebels and 14 Popular Resistance fighters dead in several southern provinces as Saudi-led coalition aircraft targeted the Iran-backed insurgents.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Zanzibar two small blasts rocked streets but caused no casualties, in the latest unrest following the annulment of polls on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian archipelago.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2016 Oct 31, President Barack Obama extended US sanctions on Sudan for another year as of November 3, saying Khartoum's policies remained an "extraordinary threat" to the national security of the United States.
(AFP, 11/1/16)(Econ, 12/3/16, p.40)
2016 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide attack devastated a gathering of local elders in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Afghan officials said four people were killed and seven wounded, while a statement from Islamic State said 15 "apostates" were killed and 25 wounded.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In southern Brazil a bus and a tanker truck filled with milk burst into flames when they collided, killing 20 people and injuring at least 10 near Cafezal do Sul in Parana state.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, China said it will invest 946.3 billion yuan ($140 billion) by 2020 to relocate its poorest citizens from remote, inland regions to more developed areas.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, China's Foreign Ministry confirmed a decision to allow Philippine fishermen access to a disputed shoal following a visit to Beijing by the Philippine president.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In western China a gas explosion ripped through the privately owned Jinshangou coal mine killing 33 miners in the Chongqing region. Two miners were rescued.
(AP, 10/31/16)(SFC, 11/2/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 31, In Egypt militants attacked the same Bir el-Abd army checkpoint in Sinai where 12 soldiers were killed earlier this month, this time leaving one soldier dead.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Egypt's Health Ministry said recent floods have killed 26 people and injured 72 others across the country.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that France would be ready to intervene in Central African Republic if necessary, despite ending its peacekeeping mission in its former colony.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Indonesia a cargo plane carrying four people was reported missing in a remote, mountainous area of easternmost Papua province.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Iraqi troops entered the Karama district of the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, their first advance into the city itself after two weeks of fighting in the surrounding area to dislodge the militants. The Islamic State executed 50 people for desertion at the Ghazlani military base in Mosul.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)(Reuters, 11/4/16)
2016 Oct 31, The Lebanese parliament elected former army commander Michel Aoun as president, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum as part of a political deal that is expected to make Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri prime minister.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Morocco about 220 African migrants forced their way through a barbed wire fence into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta, clashing with Spanish police who tried to prevent them from crossing the border.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Pakistani police launched a nation-wide crackdown overnight, arresting at least 1,500 supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ahead of an opposition rally planned later this week in Islamabad.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Pakistan's Supreme Court stayed the execution of a mentally ill prisoner whose hanging was to take place later this week. Imdad Ali (50), convicted of murdering a religious scholar in 2001, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, South African prosecutors dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and two former tax officials, reversing a decision that was criticized by many South Africans and deepened concern about the country's struggling economy and alleged government mismanagement.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In South Korea Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the center of a scandal roiling South Korea, met prosecutors examining whether she used her close ties to President Park Geun-hye to pull government strings from the shadows and amass an illicit fortune. Using a common expression of deep repentance she said: "I committed a sin that deserves death."
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Spain PM Mariano Rajoy took his oath as leader of the new conservative government — an administration that is in a minority in parliament and could have difficulty passing laws.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Syria's army said the Nusra Front and what the army called other terrorist groups had killed 84 people, mostly women and children, in Aleppo during the past three days, in a bombardment that included chemical weapons and rocket fire.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Turkish police detained the chief editor and at least 12 senior staff of Turkey's opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, in a widening crackdown on dissenting voices.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Venezuela’s government and opposition leaders agreed to continue a Vatican-backed dialogue following initial talks meant to ease an escalating political standoff taking place against the backdrop of a worsening economic crisis.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2017 Oct 31, The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control published an amendment which bans US entities from helping sanctioned Russian oil companies in exploration or production for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects anywhere in the world.
(Reuters, 11/2/17)
2017 Oct 31, The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it will bar certain scientists from serving on its independent advisory boards, a move critics say could open the way to more industry-friendly advisors on the panels.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, California officials said the northern Tubbs Fire has been contained. The blaze had destroyed 5,600 buildings homes and killed 24 people. A day earlier crews reached full containment on the Nuns Fire, which burned 56,556 acres and killed two people. The Pocket Fire was also contained. The state’s northern fires left 43 people dead. In 2019 invetigators said the Tubbs Fire was caused by faulty equipment at a home in Calistoga.
(SFC, 11/1/17, p.D4)(SFC, 1/25/19, p.A1)
2017 Oct 31, In NYC Uzbek driver Sayfullo Saipov (29) mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path in lower Manhattan, near the World Trade Center, killing eight people, including a young Belgian and five Argentines. Police shot Saipov in the abdomen after he crashed into a school bus and exited his rented pickup truck.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck near the US Embassy in Kabul, killing five people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Argentina a strike by workers of its two largest airlines caused the cancellation of dozens of flights and the grounding of tens of thousands of passengers. Unions representing state-run carrier Aerolineas Argentinas and sister company Austral Lineas Aereas demanded a 26 percent salary hike in line with the inflation rate.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Austrian police and customs officials found 400,000 ecstasy tablets worth millions of euros in a truck headed to Istanbul from Amsterdam. The driver was taken in custody. An accomplice in Germany was also arrested and a search continued for other suspects.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Oct 31, A Bahraini court sentenced 10 men to life imprisonment and revoked their citizenship on charges of forming a terrorist cell and plotting attacks.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Four Rohingya Muslims, a man, woman and two children, drowned when a small wooden fishing boat carrying dozens of refugees fleeing ethnic violence in Myanmar capsized off the Bangladesh coast.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Belgium Catalonia's ousted leader Carles Puigdemont agreed to the Dec. 21 snap election called by Spain's central government when it took control of the region to stop it breaking away, but he said the fight for independence would go on.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Bosnia extradited Mirsad Kandic to the US. The alleged Islamic State group supporter from Kosovo, suspected of supplying the IS with suicide vests as well as weapons, has been sought for years by the US.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Tangshan, China's top steelmaking city, announced plans to temporarily halve its iron production capacity from mid-November until mid-March as local authorities step up efforts to fight winter smog.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Egyptian military air strikes destroyed three vehicles loaded with weapons, ammunition and explosives, and killed a "large number" of militants in the western desert. Four civilians were reported killed when a mortar shell hit their tractor in el-Arish.
(AP, 10/31/17)(SFC, 11/1/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 31, In Eritrea at least 28 people were killed in two days of rare protests in Asmara. More than 100 people were injured in the protests that began a day earlier and escalated today.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Oct 31, German police arrested a Syrian (19) suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated bomb attack in Germany with the aim of killing as many people as possible. Yamen A. was arrested in the early hours in the northeastern town of Schwerin.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Indonesia a magnitude-6.3 quake was centered about 32 km (20 miles) west-southwest of Hila, a town on Ambon, the main island in Maluku.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in the country to 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said a tunnel at North Korea's nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang's sixth atomic test on September 3, possibly killing more than 200 people.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga harshly criticized an election rerun in which President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner, saying it should be scrapped in favor of yet another vote and that the opposition would continue to protest in the streets.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, A Kenyan court released a man whom police had called the prime suspect in the murder of his estranged Australian wife. Gabrielle Maina was shot dead by armed men riding a motorbike as she walked near her home in Nairobi, earlier this month.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Norway's Statoil said it aims to sign a power purchase agreement with a US utility to develop an offshore wind power project off New York toward the end of 2018.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Pakistan Aasia Bibi (21) appeared before a judge on murder charges after she allegedly poisoned her husband’s milk last week. 17 other people were inadvertently when her mother used the tainted milk to make a yogurt-based drink.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8nrc9h7)(SFC, 11/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 31, In Papua New Guinea hundreds of asylum-seekers refused to leave an Australian detention camp that authorities closed, citing fears for their safety, despite food, water and electricity being cut off on Manus Island.
(AFP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, The Russian submarine “Veliky Novgorod" launched three "Kalibr" missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria's Deir al-Zor province.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Syria at least four schoolchildren were among eight people killed in regime shelling in Eastern Ghouta.
(AFP, 10/31/17)
2018 Oct 31, Willie McCovey (80), the Hall of Fame first baseman who spent 10 of his 22 major-league seasons with the SF Giants, died at Stanford Hospital.
(SFC, 11/1/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 31, An Afghan army helicopter crashed in bad weather in the western Farah province, killing all 25 people on board.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Albanian police said they have arrested five people suspected of trafficking migrants from Greece to Montenegro following a months-long investigation.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, The Austrian government said that it won't sign a global compact to promote safe and orderly migration, citing concerns about national sovereignty as it joined neighboring Hungary in shunning the agreement. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 member nations except the United States, which backed out last year.
(AP, 10/31/18)(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Belgium unions and management found agreement to end a six-day strike by baggage handlers that has disrupted flights to and from the main airport for part of the autumn holiday season.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, About 2,000 migrants began walking north from El Salvador's capital, the latest of several groups trying to reach the United States, even as President Donald Trump increases pressure to halt the flow of people.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Greece John Macris (46), a Greek-Australian married to a model who appeared on a Greek reality TV show, was shot and killed as he left his home in Voula in his car this evening in a seaside suburb of Athens. Australian media have described Macris as having been involved in Sydney's organized crime scene.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, Iceland's Foreign Ministry said Icelandic citizens in Britain and British citizens in Iceland will keep their residence rights after Brexit, even in the case of no deal with the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, India's PM Narendra Modi unveiled a towering bronze statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a key independence leader being promoted as a national icon in the ruling party's campaign ahead of next year's general elections.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), said in a statement that they had killed two IS commanders in the border area who were responsible for an attack last week on US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces along the Iraq-Syria border.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, An operation in northern Iraq by American and Iraqi forces killed around 20 IS fighters in the Makhmour Mountains.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Oct 31, Italian news agency ANSA reported that prosecutors were focusing on whether the remains found in an annex of the Holy See's embassy in Rome could be linked either to Mirella Gregori, or to Emanuela Orlandi, two 15-year-old girls who went missing in 1983.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Mexico's Supreme Court issued two more rulings in individual cases establishing a precedent that a blanket prohibition on recreational marijuana use is unconstitutional.
(SFC, 11/1/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 31, Millions of people in Mexico City prepared to be without water for at least four days as authorities began maintenance work on one of the major supply systems. The system won't return to full capacity until November 8.
(AFP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In northeast Nigeria suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency killed at least 15 people late today in an attack on a group of villages.
(Reuters, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Norway Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen (68) married to a real estate and energy magnate, disappeared from her home in Lorenskog. Ten weeks later police said a ransom demand for $10.3 million in cryptocurrency has been received for the missing woman.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2018 Oct 31, Pakistan's top court acquitted a Christian woman who was sentenced to death under the country's controversial blasphemy law, a landmark ruling that sparked protests by hard-line Islamists and raised fears of violence. Asia Bibi had been on death row since 2010.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In the northern Philippines rescuers pulled out four bodies and four survivors, but at least 19 others remained missing after a massive Typhoon Yutu triggered landslide crashed down on two government buildings.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Russia opened an investigation into suspected terrorism after a 17-year-old youth blew himself up in the lobby of an office belonging to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in the northern city of Arkhangelsk. On Nov. 6 a Moscow court arrested a 14-year-old boy believed to be linked to the bomb attack.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)(AP, 11/6/18)
2018 Oct 31, In South Africa Patricia De Lille (67), the mayor of Cape Town, resigned amid a bitter dispute roiling the country's main opposition in the runup to 2019 elections. Her seven-year tenure has been marred by allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement that have threatened to tarnish Cape Town's reputation.
(AFP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In South Sudan opposition leader Riek Machar returned to Juba to take part in a nationwide peace celebration after fleeing South Sudan more than two years ago. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed advisor to Machar, and a spokesman to his rebel group.
(AP, 10/31/18)(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Sweden offered to host talks between Yemen's warring parties as Washington called for an urgent halt to hostilities and the UN special envoy ramped up efforts to revive discussions that failed nearly two months ago.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, A Syrian medical official said a new mass grave was discovered in the northern city of Raqqa that until last year was a stronghold and the de facto capital of IS. The new mass grave includes more than 1,500 bodies who were killed by airstrikes of the US-led coalition that gave cover to US-backed Syrian fighters who captured Raqqa from IS in October last year.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Tanzania Dar es Salaam's administrative chief Paul Makonda said that a special committee would seek to identify and punish homosexuals, prostitutes and online fraudsters in the city from this week.
(AP, 11/4/18)
2018 Oct 31, Venezuela named Army General Manuel Cristophe as the new chief of its state intelligence agency, following the death of a politician in custody that was officially ruled a suicide but critics called a murder. Cristopher replaced outgoing Sebin chief Gustavo Gonzalez.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2019 Oct 31, President Donald Trump tweeted that he was changing his primary residence from NYC to Florida.
(NY Times, 11/2/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US House of Representatives passed a resolution to establish formal procedures for the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s alleged political interference in foreign aid to Ukraine.
(Yahoo News, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The United States extended its sanctions on Iran by taking aim at its construction sector, which Washington linked to the country's Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, US federal prosecutors charged a 12th United Auto Workers official with alleged corruption. Union official Edward Robinson was accused of conspiring with colleagues to embezzle more than $1.5 million in union money to fuel "lavish lifestyles," and to defraud the US.
(The Week, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US State Department warned that it had seen indications of Russian "influence" on recent unrest in Chile, where two weeks of protests and riots have rocked the administration of President Sebastian Pinera.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US military says its first batch of mechanized armored vehicles have arrived in southeast Syria, where they are to take part in securing oil fields and fighting remnants of the Islamic State group. The speaker in the audio also confirmed the death of Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, a close aide of al-Baghdadi and a spokesman for the group since 2016.
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, California officials said the northern Kincade wildfire in Sonoma County, that forced the evacuation of more than 180,000, people is now 60% contained and has not increased in size in the last 24 hours. More wildfires ignited near Los Angeles, destroying homes and forcing evacuations, as the region faced a second day of gusting desert winds that have fanned flames and displaced thousands of people.
(AP, 10/31/19)(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In the SF Bay Area a shooting at a party in Orinda left four people dead. The party was held in a mansion rented through AirBnB. A fifth victim died the next day.
(CBS News, 11/2/19)
2019 Oct 31, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on the city's teacher's union to embrace a "spirit of compromise" as a strike that has kept 300,000 public students away from school extended into an 11th day, despite a tentative contract deal.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Memphis, Tennessee, store clerk Anwar Ghazali (30) was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fatally shooting Dorian Harris (17) who had shoplifted a beer on March 29, 2018.
(NY Times, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Altria Inc took a $4.5 billion hit from its investment in embattled electronic-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc, the latest setback for the startup as a regulatory crackdown on vaping threatens to upend the fast-growing industry.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot owner PSA said they plan to join forces in a 50-50 share merger to create the world's fourth-largest automaker, seeking scale to cope with costly new technologies and slowing global demand.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, the new spokesman for the Islamic State, identified the successor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — tracing his lineage, like al-Baghdadi, to the Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Ethiopia a spokeswoman for PM Abiy Ahmed said at least 78 people were killed during protests last week over the treatment of prominent activist Jawar Mohammed.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Pfizer Inc's rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz could increase the risk of blood clots in the lungs and in deep veins.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The French-based Sanofi company slashed the price of a key anti-tuberculosis drug boosting the battle against the world's deadliest infectious disease, as a new treatment was also set to begin extensive testing.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Hong Kong police fired tear gas to break up masked anti-government protesters mingling with Halloween revelers in fancy dress near the upmarket club district of Lan Kwai Fong after a standoff lasting hours.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, India formally implemented legislation approved by Parliament in August that removed Indian-controlled Kashmir's semi-autonomous status and begins direct federal rule of the disputed area.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel ruled that Indian export subsidies are prohibited and should be removed, upholding a complaint brought by the United States.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Indonesia Mukhlis bin Muhammad (46), a member of the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU), was caned 28 times in a public park by a religious officer for adultery in Aceh province. The woman he had the sexual relationship with was flogged, also in public, receiving 23 lashes.
(Reuters, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Iraq's President Barham Salih called for the drafting of a new election law and said he would approve early elections once it is enacted, bowing to anti-government protesters while insisting that the sweeping changes they are demanding be carried out in a constitutional way.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Israeli forces rearrested former Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar (57) from her home in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Jarrar, a senior official with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was released in February from 20 months of administrative detention.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Japan's justice minister Katsuyuki Kawai resigned over election payment allegations involving his wife, also a lawmaker, and about his own reported gift-giving.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, Lebanese security forces struggled to open some roads as protesters continued their civil disobedience campaign in support of nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, It was reported that the recent transfer of hundreds of elephants to Malawi's largest wildlife reserve has led to residents falling ill from sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease spread by testse flies, a companion of the elephants.
(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, North Korea fired two short-range projectiles, as nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington remained at a deadlock.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Pakistan a fire swept through a train in Punjab province killing at least 74 people. Passengers said it took nearly 20 minutes for the train to stop.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 31, In the Philippines another strong earthquake, the third this month, killed five people in Cotabato province.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, In Spain five men were acquitted of a 2016 rape on the grounds that their 14-year-old victim had been unconscious at the time. The Barcelona-based court ruled that the men were guilty of the lesser crime of sexual abuse and sentenced them to 10-12 years and fined them 12,000 euros ($13,300).
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Turkey's Anadolu news agency said an appeals court ruled for the release of Republican People's Party ex-legislator Eren Erdem. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison in March, accused of supporting US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Ukraine's parliament approved a bill that criminalizes state officials illegally enriching themselves. Ukraine had passed a law criminalizing illicit enrichment in 2015 but the constitutional court overturned the law in February.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Ukraine and NATO issued a joint statement committing to uphold minority rights in Ukraine, a step welcomed by the Hungarian authorities who had threatened to block Kiev's NATO membership over the issue.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Three United Nations agencies warned that record 45 million people across southern Africa face severe food shortages in the next six months, with around a quarter of them currently enduring drought-induced "crisis" food insecurity.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur for another year in hopes the new civilian-led transitional government can restore peace.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, said Yemen's civil war has killed more than 100,000 people since 2015.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2020 Oct 31, Pres. Donald Trump declared that 1 November will be marked nationwide as a “National Day of Remembrance for Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens".
(The Independent, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the White House coronavirus adviser, appeared on a Russian state-sponsored news show that has been instrumental in an effort by the Russian government to spread false health information during the pandemic. Atlas apologized the next day for appearing on the show, but not for the content of the interview, where he continued a pattern as Mr. Trump’s adviser of downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 11/2/20)
2020 Oct 31, California to date had 928,862 cases of coronavirus and 17,627 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 118,260 cases and 1,780 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 9,053,220 with the death toll at 229,768.
(sfist.com, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinian urged Russia to consider providing security assistance to end the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, the biggest escalation in the decades-long conflict between his country and Azerbaijan. The request came as Azerbaijani troops forged deeper into Nagorno-Karabakh and both sides accused each of breaking a mutual pledge not to target residential areas hours after it was made.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Austria announced a nighttime curfew and the closure of cafes, bars and restaurants to all but take-away service as a surge in coronavirus infections threatened to overwhelm its hospitals.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Sean Connery (90), cinema’s first James Bond, died overnight in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he had a home. Connery was the top box-office star in both Britain and the United States in 1965 after the success of “From Russia With Love" (1963), “Goldfinger" (1964) and “Thunderball" (1965). But he grew tired of playing Bond after the fifth film in the series, “You Only Live Twice" (1967), and was replaced by George Lazenby. In 1967 he directed "The Bowler and the Bunnet." Connery also starred in "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) and "The Untouchables" (1987), for which he won his only Oscar.
(NY Times, 10/31/20)(Econ., 11/7/20, p.80)
2020 Oct 31, Britain announced expansive new restrictions that effectively establish a national lockdown to try to keep their hospitals from being overwhelmed amid vast second-wave surges in coronavirus infections.
(NY Times, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Canada a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a Japanese sword killed two people and injuring five others on Halloween near the historic Château Frontenac hotel in Quebec City. Suspect Carl Girouard (24) was arrested on Nov. 1.
(AP, 11/1/20)(SFC, 11/2/20, p.A2)
2020 Oct 31, China suspended imports from FIREXPA S.A., an Ecuadorian seafood product manufacturer, after the novel coronavirus was found on the packaging of a batch of imported frozen fish, according to a notice by the General Administration of Customs.
(Reuters, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Eritrea's government declared that Ethiopia's Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was "on its deathbed".
(Econ., 11/7/20, p.41)
2020 Oct 31, In France a Greek Orthodox priest was shot outside his church in the city of Lyon, and police hunted for the assailant. The priest was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries after being hit in the abdomen.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany a first case of African swine fever (ASF) was reported found in a wild boar in the eastern region of Saxony. This brought the total number of confirmed cases to 117 since the first one on Sept. 10.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt opened, nine years late and far above its original budget. Ground was broken for BER in 2006.
(SSFC, 11/1/20, p.A6)(Econ., 10/17/20, p.45)
2020 Oct 31, In Iran total COVID-19 deaths rose by 386 over the past 24 hours to reach 34,864. Total cases rose by 7,820 to 612,772. Police said weddings, wakes and conferences will be banned in Tehran until further notice as the Middle East’s hardest-hit nation battles a third wave of COVID-19.
(Reuters, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Iraqi security forces cleared out sit-in tents from Baghdad's central square that has been the epicenter of the anti-government protest movement, a year after the eruption of demonstrations against corruption led to months of clashes with authorities across the country.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Thousands of Israelis protested in Jerusalem in the latest weekly demonstration against PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his handling of the coronavirus crisis and the corruption charges he faces.
(AP, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Ivory Coast began its controversial presidential election. At least two people were killed during the vote. Several polling stations were ransacked in opposition strongholds and election materials were burned. Riots had broken out in August after President Alassane Ouattara said he would run again following the sudden death of his preferred successor.
(AP, 10/31/20)(AP, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, The Dutch government put on hold its plan to bail out KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, after pilots rejected a wage-freeze until 2025.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Niger US special forces rescued American citizen Philipe Nathan Walton, who was abducted earlier this week.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Portugal's government announced new lockdown restrictions from Nov. 4 for most of the country, telling people to stay at home except for outings for work, school or shopping, and ordering companies to switch to remote working.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Slovakia launched a huge logistical operation to test most of its population over the weekend to reverse a rise in the pandemic.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Tanzania's two main opposition parties demanded fresh elections, after denouncing last week's presidential vote as fraudulent.
(BBC, 10/31/20)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
c100AD Oct 31, The pagan Celts of Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of the season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited their homes. Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., their fall harvest festival, Poloma Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain to form a major fall festival at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
802 Oct 31, Empress Irene was driven out of Byzantium.
(MC, 10/31/01)
834 Oct 31, This evening became All Hallow’s Eve with the establishment of Nov 1 as Feast of All Saints by Pope Gregory IV.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)
1345 Oct 31, Ferdinand I, the wise one, king of Portugal (built navy), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1448 Oct 31, Johannes VIII Palaeologus (b.1390), Emperor of Byzantium, died.
(www.freeglossary.com/John_VIII_Palaeologus)
1517 Oct 31, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Palace All Saints’ Church. He grew to believe in faith alone as man’s link to the justice of God, and therefore denied the need for the vast infrastructure of the Church. This event signaled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Protestantism in general, shattering the external structure of the medieval church and at the same time reviving the religious consciousness of Europe. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben, Germany. He was a monk in the Catholic Church until 1517, when he founded the Lutheran Church.
(V.D.-H.K.p.163)(CU, 6/87)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)(AP, 10/31/97)(AP, 10/31/97) (HN, 10/31/98)
1541 Oct 31, "The Last Judgement" by Michelangelo on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel at Rome was officially unveiled. It is one of the largest paintings in the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(OG)
1620 Oct 31, John Evelyn (d.1706), British diarist (Life of Mrs. Godolphin), was born. He was a meditative and sententious English diarist.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(MC, 10/31/01)
1632 Oct 31, [Johannes] Jan Vermeer (d.1675), tavern keeper and Dutch painter (Procuress, Astronomer), was born in Delft. Only 35 of his pictures are known to survive. These include: "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (1665-1666), "The Little Street" (1657), "Saint Praxedis" (1655), "Allegory of Faith" (1671) and "The Artist in His Studio." His wife was Catharina Bolnes.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1587)(MC, 10/31/01)
1723 Oct 31, Cosimo III de' Medici (81), ruler of Florence (1670-1723), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1765 Oct 31, Duke of Cumberland, English politician and general, died. He butchered Scots at Culloden. [see Oct 20]
(MC, 10/31/01)
1780 Oct 31, The HMS Ontario was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale on Lake Ontario. In 2008 explorers found the 22-gun British warship. Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake."
(AP, 6/14/08)
1793 Oct 31, Execution of 21 Girondins (moderates) in Paris, stepping up the Reign of Terror. Pierre V. Vergniaud (40), French politician and elegant, impassioned orator of Girondins, was guillotined.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1795 Oct 31, John Keats (d.1821), English poet, was born in London.
(WUD, 1994, p.781) (AP, 10/31/97)(HN, 10/31/98)
1802 Oct 31, Benoit Fourneyron, inventor of the water turbine, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1803 Oct 31, Congress ratified the purchase of the entire Louisiana area in North America, which added territory to the United States for 13 subsequent states.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of London patented miner's safety lamp.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1831 Oct 31, Daniel Butterfield (d.1901), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1831 Oct 31, Nat Turner, rebel slave, was caught by Mr. Benjamin Phipps and locked up in Jerusalem, Va. Thomas Gray, his court appointed attorney, spent 3 days talking to Turner and compiled his notes into "The Confessions of Nat Turner," which were published in 1969.
(ON, 10/99, p.10)
1835 Oct 31, Adelbert Ames (d.1933), Bvt Major General (Union Army), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1835 Oct 31, J.F.W. Adolf Ritter von Baeyer, German chemist (Nobel 1905), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1837 Oct 31, The collision of river boats Monmouth & Trement on Mississippi left 300 dead.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1838 Oct 31, A mob of about 200 attacked a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1846 Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)(www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm)
1858 Oct 31, Jeanie Johnston, a triple-masted barque, sank in the middle of the Atlantic with a load of timber. The crew was rescued by a Dutch ship. She was built in Quebec City for the Donovan family of Tralee. She was the best known of the "famine ships" that carried Irish refugees to the New World during the potato famine and returned with timber and food. A copy of the ship, built in Ireland, was scheduled for completion in 2000.
(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A8,10)
1860 Oct 31, Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1864 Oct 31, Nevada became the 36th state under a proclamation signed by Pres. Lincoln.
(AP, 10/31/97)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(HN, 10/31/98)
1867 Oct 31, William Parson (b.1800), 3rd Earl of Rosse and maker of large telescopes, died. Parsons, an Irish astronomer, built the largest reflecting telescope of the 19th century. He learned to polish metal mirrors (1827) and spent the next few years building a 36-inch telescope. He later completed a giant 72-inch telescope (1845) which he named "Leviathan," It remained the largest ever built until decades after his death. He was the first to resolve the spiral shape of objects, previously seen as only clouds, which were much later identified as galaxies independent of our own Milky Way galaxy and millions of light-years away. His first such sighting was made in 1845, and by 1850 he had discovered 13 more. In 1848, he found and named the Crab Nebula (he thought it resembled a crab), by which name it is still known.
(www.todayinsci.com)
1870 Oct 31, Upon the receipt of news that the Government of National Defense had decided to start negotiations with the Prussians, Paris workers and revolutionary sections of the National Guard rose up in revolt, led by Blanqui. They seized the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and set up their revolutionary government, the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Blanqui. Flourens prevented any members of the Government of National Defense from being shot, as had been demanded by one of the insurrectionists.
(www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/timeline.htm)
1876 Oct 31, In India’s Megna River Delta a tidal wave caused by a cyclone flooded the river delta and the city of Backergunge. Some areas became covered with 40 feet of water. 100,000 people drowned and another 100,000 were reported to have perished from subsequent diseases caused by polluted water.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1887 Oct 31, Chiang Kai-Shek, Chinese Nationalist, was born.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1887 Oct 31, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capricio Espagnol," premiered in St Petersburg.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1895 Oct 31, Basil H. Liddell Hart, English military historian and publicist, was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1896 Oct 31, Ethel Waters, actress and blues singer, was born. She first performed "Stormy Weather" and stared in "The Member of the Wedding" and "Pinkie," was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1902 Oct 31, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet, journalist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1906 Oct 31, Louise Talma, composer (Summer Sounds), was born in Arcachon, France.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1906 Oct 31, George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar & Cleopatra," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1914 Oct 31, Great Britain and France declared war on Turkey. [see Nov 5]
(MC, 10/31/01)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J. Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1917 Oct 31, William H. McNeil, historian, was born. His work include "The Rise of the West."
(HN, 10/31/00)
1917 Oct 31, Eugene O'Neill's "In the Zone," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 Oct 31, In the worst global epidemic of the century, influenza (an acute, contagious respiratory viral infection) had been spreading around the world since May. Before it ended in 1919 some 20 million people were killed worldwide, about twice as many as World War I, with about 500-600,000 of them in the US. October was the deadliest month and about 195,000 died with 21,000 dead the 1st week. It was estimated that 20-40 million people died worldwide. In 1998 the TV show "The American Experience" documented the tragedy: "Influenza 1918." Dr. Alfred Crosby wrote "America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918." [see 1918-1919]
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.11)(SFC, 2/9/98, p.E1)(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A16)(HN, 10/31/99)
1918 Oct 31, Egon Schiele (28), Viennese artist, died in the flu epidemic. He produced some 3,000 drawings and 300 paintings in about 12 years.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E3)(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 Oct 31, Stephen Tisza, Hungarian PM (-1917), was assassinated by soldiers.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1920 Oct 31, Dick Francis, jockey and detective writer (Whip Hand, High Stakes), was born in Wales.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1922 Oct 31, Norodom Sihanouk (d.2012), 2-time king (1941-1955 and 1993-2004), president and premier of Cambodia, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk)
1922 Oct 31, Karel & Josef Capek's "World We Live In," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1922 Oct 31, Mussolini was made prime minister of Italy. He centralized all power in himself as leader of the Fascist party and attempted to create an Italian empire, ultimately in alliance with Hitler's Germany.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1925 Oct 31, Charles Moore, influential post-modern architect, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1925 Oct 31, Contract bridge was introduced by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt on board the S.S. Finland in the Panama Canal.
(www.acbl.org/)
1926 Oct 31, Magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1927 Oct 31, In San Francisco the M-Ocean View streetcar line was extended through the Twin Peaks Tunnel to Market Street and the Ferries, at the foot of Market Street.
(METNA News, Aug 2015, p.1)
1930 Oct 31, Michael Collins, U.S. astronaut, was born.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1931 Oct 31, Dan Rather, news anchor (CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes), was born in Wharton Texas.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1936 Oct 31, The Literary Digest published a poll that predicted that Alfred Landon, the governor of Kansas, would win over Pres. Roosevelt with 57% of the popular vote. Landon lost all but two states to Roosevelt.
(WSJ, 10/2/06, p.B1)(www.historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/)
1937 Oct 31, Michael Landon, actor (Bonanza, Highway to Heaven), was born in Forest Hills, NY.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Oct 31, Tom Paxton, folk singer and songwriter (Forest Lawn), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Oct 31, Spanish government moved from Valencia to Barcelona.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1938 Oct 31, The day after his "War of the Worlds" broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the simulated Martian invasion was real.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1939 Oct 31, 27 U boats were sunk this month (135,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1939 Oct 31, Otto Rank, [Rosenfeld], Austria psychoanalyst (Trauma of Geburt), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, 63 U boats were sunk this month (325,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, In the Battle of Britain, the German and British duel for control of English Channel, ended.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, This was the deadline for Warsaw Jews to move into the Warsaw Ghetto.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1941 Oct 31, The Mt. Rushmore sculpture was completed after 14 years of work. [see 1927]
(HFA, '96, p.40)(HN, 10/31/01)
1941 Oct 31, The US Navy destroyer "Reuben James" was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland, killing 115, even though the United States had not yet entered World War II.
(www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/prelude_to_war/uss_reuben_james.html)
1941 Oct 31, 13 U boats were sunk this month (62,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, David Ogden Stiers, actor (Winchester-M*A*S*H, Doc), was born in Peoria, Ill.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, 94 U boats were sunk this month (619,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, The 9th day in battle at El Alamein (Egypt).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1943 Oct 31, Max Reinhardt, Austrian stage manager (Turandot), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1944 Oct 31, Kinky Friedman, country rocker (Ride 'em Jewboy), was born in Palestine, Tx.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1948 Oct 31, By this date some 20 people died and 6,000 were made ill by smog from steel and zinc plants in Donora, Pennsylvania. Between October 26 and October 31, 1948, an air inversion trapped fluoride effluent from the Zinc Works. In three days, 18 people died. After the inversion lifted, another 50 died. Hundreds more finished the rest of their lives with damaged lungs and hearts. Both plants closed in 1966. In 2002, “When Smoke Ran Like Water" was published by Devra Davis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donora,_Pennsylvania)(SSFC, 11/2/08, p.A6)
1950 Oct 31, John Candy, comedian (SCTV, Uncle Buck), was born in Ontario, Canada.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1952 Oct 31, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada was incorporated as a legal entity. It was organized by Tom Patterson. The 1st performance opened Jul 13, 1953.
(WSJ, 7/18/02, p.D10)
1952 Oct 31, A CIA report, declassified in 2005, said ex-Colonel Hattori Takushiro (1901-1960) had led plans since the beginning of July for a coup d'etat against Japan’s PM Yoshida Shigeru. Hattori’s colleague Masanobu Tsuji talked the group out of the coup.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A11)
1953 Oct 31, Alice Eastwood (94), curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences in SF, died.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.E2)
1954 Oct 31, The Algerian Revolution (1954-1962) against the French began. Algerian Muslims of the Front de Libération National (FLN), began open warfare against French rule in Algeria. [see Nov 1]
(DoW, 1999, p.10)
1955 Oct 31, William "Billy" Woodward, Jr. (b.1920), heir to the Hanover National Bank fortune (later Manufacturer's Hanover), the Belair Estate and stud farm and legacy, and a leading figure in racing circles, was shot to death by his wife, Ann. In 1985 Dominick Dunne (1925-2009) authored “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," based on the Woodward murder case. The book was turned into a television movie in 1987.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodward,_Jr.)
1955 Oct 31, Britain's Princess Margaret ended weeks of speculation by announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend because he had been divorced.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1956 Oct 31, President Dwight D. Eisenhower praised the promise by Moscow made the previous day of major concessions to Hungarians in revolt as "the dawning of a new day" in Eastern Europe. Anti-government demonstrations in Budapest a week earlier had forced a reshuffling of the Hungarian government and demands that the new government denounce the Warsaw Pact and seek liberation from Soviet domination. [see Nov 4]
(HNQ, 10/1/99)
1956 Oct 31, Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1956 Oct 31, Great Britain and France attempted to take over the Suez Canal. They bombed Egyptian airfields.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(TOH, 1982, p.1956)
1957 Oct 31, Jamaica, a musical, opened on Broadway at Imperial Theater. The book was by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Lena Horne (1917-2010) starred in the musical. It continued for 558 performances.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_%28musical%29)
1959 Oct 31, A former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald, announced in Moscow that he would never return to the United States.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1959 Oct 31, The USSR and Egypt signed contracts for building the Aswan Dam.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1961 Oct 31, A US Federal judge ruled that Birmingham, Alabama, laws against integrated playing fields were illegal.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1961 Oct 31, Augustus Edwin John (b.1878), Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher, died. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in England. In 1974 Michael Holroyd authored the biography: “Augustus John."
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.P9)
1962 Oct 31, Bobby Pickett (1938-2007) made a one-time hit with “Monster Mash," as it reached No. 1 on Halloween.
(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B9)
1963 Oct 31, J. Edgar Hoover's last meeting with President John F Kennedy.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1963 Ocr 31, In San Francisco the Black Cat café, located in the Canessa Building at 708-710 Montgomery St., closed down for the last time as the state Supreme Court refused to hear its case and lower courts refused to reinstate its liquor license because it catered to homosexuals.
(SFC, 11/15/14, p.C2)
1963 Oct 31, On Halloween night leaking propane gas exploded and killed 64 at the "Holiday on Ice" show at the Indiana State Fair Grounds in Indianapolis.
(http://tinyurl.com/npsda6j)
1967 Oct 31, Nguyen Van Thieu took the oath of office as the first president of South Vietnam's second republic.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1968 Oct 31, President Johnson announced a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, effective the next morning, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Oct 31, Liu Shaoqi (1898-1968), president of China since 1959, was ousted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1971 Oct 31, Saigon began the release of 1,938 Hanoi POW’s.
(HN, 10/31/98)
1971 Oct 31, On the east coast of India a tidal wave and cyclone on Orissa killed more than 15,000 people.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)
1974 Oct 31, Suspected Bundy victim Laura Aime disappeared in Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1978 Oct 31, The US Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed making it illegal to fire women for being pregnant or having a child. It amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
(Econ, 11/19/11, SR p.9)
1979 Oct 31, The US Archeological Resources Protection Act, on behalf of endangered antiquities, became law.
(www.bsos.umd.edu/anth/arch/web/arpa.htm)
1979 Oct 31, A US DC-10, flown by Western Airlines, crashed at Mexico City when it struck a vehicle and 74 were killed.
(http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/Disasters.htm)
1980 Oct 31, In Iran Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the late shah, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1981 Oct 31, In Georgia (US) a Jane Doe murder victim remained nameless after her body was discovered in a cornfield in Dixie on Halloween. George Newsome was arrested shortly after the murder and police found the rope that had been used to strangle the girl in a motor home he owned. Newsome died in 1988, but never revealed the identity of his victim. In 2020 she was identified through DNA testing as Shirlene Cheryl Hammack.
(ABC News, 1/10/20)
1982 Oct 31, The Nehemiah housing plan in New York broke ground in Brownsville. It was fathered by I.D. Robbins (1910-1996) and consisted of low-cost, 3-bedroom brick townhouses that sold for $39,000. The plan was helped by the Industrial Areas Foundation established by the Chicago housing advocate Saul Alinsky.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tow9q)
1982 Oct 31, Pope John Paul II became the 1st pontiff to visit Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pastoral_visits_of_Pope_John_Paul_II_outside_Italy)
1984 Oct 31, The oil tanker Puerto Rican exploded in the Gulf of the Farallones off the coast of San Francisco spilling 2 million gallons of oil as the ship caught fire. A bomb was believed to have caused the blast 10 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. The inferno left one man dead. On Nov 18 a 360-foot remnant of the 600-foot tanker was towed to San Francisco Bay. There was no leakage of some 2.7 million gallons of lube oil in the hold.
(http://216.7.174.234/sandcrabs/oil.asp)(SSFC, 11/15/09, DB p.46)
1984 Oct 31, In Decatur, Illinois, 2 young girls were assaulted and killed. In 2009 DNA evidence revealed that Melvin Johnson (d.2003) was the murderer.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A4)
1984 Oct 31, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard. This sparked Hindu-Sikh clashes across the country. Four days of anti-Sikh rioting followed in India. The government said more than 2,700 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed, while newspapers and human-rights groups put the death toll between 10,000 and 17,000. In 2002 Katherine Frank authored the biography "Indira."
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 10/31/97)(http://tinyurl.com/ypb6kl)(WSJ, 2/13/02, p.A18)
1987 Oct 31, Noburo Takeshita, leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, was elected party president in his first official step toward replacing Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1987 Oct 31, Joseph Campbell (b.1904), American writer and professor of mythology, died in Hawaii at age 83.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell)
1988 Oct 31, John Houseman (86), actor (Paper Chase), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0002144/)
1988 Oct 31, In Lebanon the kidnappers of American hostage Terry Anderson released a videotape in which The Associated Press correspondent accused the Reagan administration of blocking his release.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1989 Oct 31, President Bush announced he and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would hold an early December summit aboard ships in the Mediterranean near Malta.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1990 Oct 31, During a campaign swing in suburban Washington, President Bush said "I have had it" with the way Iraq was treating American diplomats and hostages, but added he had no timetable for deciding on a possible military strike.
(AP, 10/31/00)
1991 Oct 31, Theatrical producer Joseph Papp died in New York at age 70.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct 31, On the second day of the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arab delegates clashed bitterly over land issues.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct 31, In Zambia Pres. Kaunda was voted out of office. Pres. Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy won in the first multi-party elections.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.B5A)(BBC, 6/17/21)
1992 Oct 31, Roman Catholic church rehabilitated Galileo Galilei after 359 years. Galileo was tortured and imprisoned by the Holy Office during the Inquisition, and was forced to recant his heretical views that the earth and planets revolve around the Sun. Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the church had erred in condemning Galileo. [see 1984]
(/www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html)
1992 Oct 31, It was announced that five American nuns in Liberia had been shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1993 Oct 31, In Oregon 7 men robbed the Oki Semiconductor facility in Portland of microchips valued at several million dollars. There were convicted in 2001 and 4 of the men were sentenced to prison terms in 2002.
(SFC, 6/29/02, p.A16)
1993 Oct 31, Germany unemployment hit a country record of 3.5 million.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1993 Oct 31, Federico Fellini, Italian film director, died in Rome at age 73. He made some 24 films including "La Strada," "La Dolce Vita," "8 1/2," and "Amarcord" through the 50’s and 60’s.
(WSJ, 4/19/95, p.A-14) (AP, 10/31/98)
1993 Oct 31, Actor River Phoenix died in Los Angeles at age 23.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1994 Oct 31, An American Eagle French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed in Roselawn, Ind., and killed 68 people. In 1997 American Airlines and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110 million.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A4)(AP, 10/31/97)
1995 Oct 31, Stung by defeat in the secession referendum, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau said he would resign as head of the bitterly divided province at year’s end.
(AP, 10/31/00)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich., Dr. Jack Kevorkian was charged with assisting three suicides since June 1996. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich., Jenny Jones testified at the trial of one of her talk show guests, Jonathan Schmitz, who was accused of killing another guest, Scott Amedure in March, 1995.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, A grand jury indicted a number of corrupt officials in Kansas City, Missouri. As members of the Port Authority charged with assigning licenses to riverboat gambling establishments, they accepted a $250,000 bribe in 1993 from Hilton Hotels Corp. Named in the indictments were Michelle Lathan, Elbert Anderson (chmn. of the Port Authority), James Ramsey, and a family friend of Anderson's, Charles Maurice Herron.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A10)(www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/1996/08/26/story2.html)
1996 Oct 31, In Brazil a Dutch-made Fokker-100, TAM Regional Airlines Flight 402, crashed after take-off from Sao Paulo into the streets of Vila Santa Catarina. All 96 people on board and three on the ground were killed.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, An outbreak of the Ebola virus killed at least 17 people. It was the 4th outbreak in Africa since 1995.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A21)(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T5)
1997 Oct 31, The US announced a plan to increase spending over the next decade to $1 billion per year to clear the world of land mines that threaten civilian populations by 2010.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 31, Chinese President Jiang Zemin rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange to open the day's trading.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, British au pair Louise Woodward received a mandatory life sentence, a day after a jury in Cambridge, Mass., convicted her of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The verdict was later reduced to manslaughter, and Woodward was set free.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, The FBI began an investigation into the use of pepper spray by law authorities in Humboldt County, California, after a video tape showed the spray applied directly to the eyes of protestors.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 31, Indonesia was awarded a $23 billion economic rescue package by the Int’l. Monetary Fund. Japan and Singapore promised an additional 5 million each and the US promised an additional $3 billion in loans to be used in case the $23 billion was insufficient to stabilize the situation.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.D1)(SFEC, 11/2/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 31, Letsie III (34) was crowned king of Lesotho, a figurehead position.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A7)
1997 Oct 31, Jerzy Buzek (57), a chemical engineering professor, became PM of Poland and served until Oct 19, 2001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Buzek)
1997 Oct 31, Russia’s lower house ratified a global ban on chemical weapons. After the Duma it goes to the Federation Council for approval. The upper house approved the ban Nov 5.
(SFC, 11/1/97, p.A8)(SFC, 11/6/97, p.C3)
1998 Oct 31, A genetic study was released suggesting President Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1998 Oct 31, The US and Israel signed a strategic cooperation agreement to protect the Jewish state from ballistic missiles.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A23)
1998 Oct 31, Abe Hirschfeld, New York real estate magnate, handed Paula Jones a $1 million check to cash for settlement of the sexual harassment case against Pres. Clinton.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A4)
1998 Oct 31, Stephanie Condon (14) vanished while babysitting a cousin's twins in Riddle, Oregon. Her remains were found in 2009 in Glide, Ore., about 30 miles from Riddle. Dale Wayne Hill, was arrested in Dayton, Nev., on March 25, 2009, on a charge of failure to register as a felon. He was the last person known to have seen her alive.
(AP, 3/25/09)
1998 Oct 31, In Congo it was reported that a lightning bolt killed all 11 members of a soccer team in eastern Kasai province.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 31, Iraq said that it was suspending all cooperation with int’l. arms inspectors and would close down their long-term monitoring operations in response to a Security Council rejection of demands that a review of its relations with the UN should automatically result in a lifting of sanctions. The move condemned by the Security Council.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A21)(AP, 10/31/99)
1998 Oct 31, In Northern Ireland Brian Service (35) was killed in Belfast. Later the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility. A red-colored hand is the traditional symbol of the province of Ulster.
(SFC, 11/2/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 31, In Pakistan the government planned to use direct rule in Karachi, where near daily violence this year has left 750 people dead.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Oct 31, In Russia the government approved an economic plan that centered on tax cuts, bank rescues, state intervention and printing more rubles.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A21)
1999 Oct 31, Jesse Martin of Australia became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe, sailing solo, non-stop and unsupported. He sailed from Melbourne, Australia, on December 8, 1998 aged 18 years 104 days and returned on October 31 1999, taking 327 days 12 hours 52 minutes.
(AP, 8/27/09)
1999 Oct 31, The pagan Celts of Britain and Ireland celebrated Samhain on October 31 as the end of the season of the sun and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was believed that on this day the souls of the dead revisited their homes. Bonfires were lit to chase away evil spirits. When the Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., their fall harvest festival, Poloma Day, mixed with the traditions of Samhain to form a major fall festival at the end of October.
(HNPD, 10/31/99)
1999 Oct 31, An EgyptAir jetliner, Flight 990, enroute from New York to Cairo crashed off Nantucket Island and all 217 people aboard were killed. Captains Ahmed al-Habashy and Raouf Noureldin were at the controls. Relief pilot Gamil al-Batouti (59), the father of five, was suspected to have caused the crash. In 2002 the National Transportation Safety Board reported that el-Batouty was solely responsible for the crash.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A3)(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C5)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A3)
1999 Oct 31, In East Timor the last 900 Indonesian soldiers departed. Indonesian forces had burned about 80% of East Timor’s government buildings and infrastructure following the vote for independence.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/10/04, p.A1)
1999 Oct 31, In Augsburg, Germany, leaders of the Roman Catholic and modern Lutheran Churches signed the Augsburg Accord, a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," in a step toward reconciliation. The accord gave weight to the Lutheran position on salvation through faith and embraced the Catholic ethic of earthly service.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11,12)
1999 Oct 31, In Macedonia elections Tito Petkovski, representing the former communist Social Democratic Party, led with 38% of the vote vs. Boris Trajkovski (VMRO) with 24.6%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 cOct 31, In Sudan 25 Sudanese fighters were massacred by rival militiamen when they arrived for talks with Paulino Matep at Benitu
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Oct 31, In Ukraine elections were held and Pres. Kuchma was favored. Kuchma came in 1st with 36.5% of the vote vs. Communist leader Petro Symonenko with 22.2%. A runoff was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 31, In Uruguay Tabare Vazquez, the former mayor of Montevideo, led the presidential vote with 38% against 31% for Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party. A runoff Nov 28 runoff was planned.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
2000 Oct 31, American astronaut Bill Shepherd and Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev of Russia rocketed into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket for the Int’l. Space Station for a 4-month stay. They would become the first residents of the international space station.
(www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/shepherd.html)(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)(AP, 10/31/01)
2000 Oct 31, Ring Lardner Jr., a Hollywood screenwriter, died at age 85. He was one of the Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted in the 1947 McCarthy hearings.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.a23)
2000 Oct 31, Samuel R. Pierce Jr. (78), former US Housing Secretary, died.
(AP, 10/31/01)
2000 Oct 31, In Angola a Russian Antonov 26 charter plane burst into flames after takeoff and all 48 people aboard were killed. Unita rebels later claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A13)(WSJ, 11/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 31, In Germany the Expo 2000 closed in Hanover.
(WSJ, 6/29/00, p.A24)
2000 Oct 31, In Jerusalem Yasser Arafat called for renewed resistance. At least 4 Palestinians were killed along the eastern Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A16)
2000 Oct 31, An Italian cargo ship sank in the English Channel with 6,000 tons of chemicals that included the toxic styrene, a known carcinogen, along with isopropyl alcohol and methyl ethyl ketone.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A17)
2000 Oct 31, A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 jet crashed on takeoff from Taiwan as Typhoon Xangsane approached. Flight SQ006 was bound for Los Angeles. The plane apparently hit construction equipment on a closed runway. The airlines announced a $400,000 payment to victim’s families after admitting to pilot error. 83 people were killed when the pilots took off on the wrong runway. The pilots were not prosecuted.
(WSJ, 11/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A16)(SFEC, 11/5/00, p.A1)(AP, 6/14/02)
2001 October 31, The New York Yankees played the Arizona Diamondbacks in game four of the World Series; the game ended just a few minutes after midnight as Derek Jeter hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Yankees over the Diamondbacks 4-3 and tie the Series at two games each.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, US bombing in Afghanistan was reported to be the heaviest in the 4-week campaign.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 31, The US Commerce Dept. reported a 3rd quarter 0.4% annualized fall in the GDP. The decline marked an end to 33 straight quarters of economic growth.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 31, The Bush administration said it would adopt stricter arsenic standard for drinking water as proposed in the final days of the Clinton administration.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A13)
2001 Oct 31, The Bush administration said the Saudi government has issued an order to freeze assets of people and groups suspected of links to terrorism.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A5)
2001 Oct 31, Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft announced plans to block hostile foreigners from entering the US.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A10)
2001 Oct 31, The US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, received a letter that was later confirmed to contain anthrax.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A10)
2001 October 31, Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty to 2 felony accounts in Los Angeles to the attempted murder of police officers from activities with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1975. She was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 October 31, Microsoft and the Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the historic antitrust case against the software giant.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, In Connecticut Joseph Ganim (42), the mayor of Bridgeport, was charged in a federal racketeering indictment with soliciting over $425,000 in bribes.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C2)
2001 Oct 31, The SEC inquiry into Enron Corp. became a formal investigation.
(SFC, 1/16/02, p.A12)
2001 Oct 31, Halloween this year came with a blue moon, the 2nd full moon of the month.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)
2001 Oct 31, Kathy Nguyen (61), a NYC hospital worker, died of anthrax. She was the 4th person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism. The source of infection remained a mystery.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 October 31, Cold War arms negotiator Paul C. Warnke died at age 81.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2001 Oct 31, An Israeli helicopter missile in Hebron killed Jamil Jadallah, a senior Hamas member. 5 other Palestinians were also killed in West Bank attacks.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A13)
2001 Oct 31, In Pakistan Pres. Musharraf ordered the arrest of anyone using a mosque loudspeaker for anything other than the traditional call to prayer. He also banned the use of mosques to "spread sectarian hatred."
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 31, In Peru Congress unanimously approved embezzlement charges against former Pres. Fujimori.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2002 Oct 31, The US enacted the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) as a replacement for the similar Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA). It granted duty-free access to a wide range of exports from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean_Trade_Promotion_and_Drug_Eradication_Act)
2002 Oct 31/Nov 1, Inmates at San Quentin performed the verse drama "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet under the direction of Joseph De Francesca.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.D1)(EW)
2002 Oct 31, Authorities charged the two Washington sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo with murder in a Louisiana attack that came just two days after a similar slaying in Alabama.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2002 Oct 31, The Securities and Exchange Commission ordered an investigation into allegations that Chairman Harvey Pitt had concealed information on the corporate ties of William Webster. Pitt and Webster both ended up resigning.
(AP, 10/31/03)(AP, 10/31/07)
2002 Oct 31, The Central African Republic claimed to have put down a coup attempt by rebels backing an ousted army chief of staff.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, Chechen rebels killed six Russian servicemen, a Chechen policeman and a local administrator, as Russian forces intensified searches for rebels in the wake of the Moscow theater siege.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, In Greece Michalis Stasinopoulos (99), a legal scholar who challenged Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship and served as president after it collapsed, died.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, A strong earthquake rocked central and southern Italy, trapping about 50 children in a school in San Giuliano di Puglia after the building's roof collapsed. The death reached at least 28.
(AP, 10/31/02)(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Oct 31, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas, was sentenced in absentia to 200 years' jail, as government and rebel officials began talks in Thailand to try to end 19 years of war.
(Reuters, 10/31/02)
2003 Oct 31, A new e-mail virus, "Mimail.C.," started spreading to corporate computers and is headed for home computers, but computer security experts said they expect the outbreak to wind down over the weekend.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, In California lawyer Gerald Curry was shot 5 times by William Strier outside a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. The shooting was caught on videotape by crews covering actor Robert Blake's murder case in Van Nuys. In 2006 Strier (66) was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.
(SFC, 1/21/06, p.B2)(AP, 10/31/08)
2003 Oct 31, In SF Victor Bach (71) was killed at his Mission District office, Western Plumbing and Heating on Halloween. His wife was later charged with defrauding the business and a trust account that he was overseeing. In 2008 Kathy Bach (57) was convicted of 13-theft related charges for defrauding her husband’s business and a private trust that he oversaw.
(SFC, 3/16/05, p.B4)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.B2)
2003 Oct 31, Bethany Hamilton, teen surfing star, lost her left arm in a shark attack off Kauai, Hawaii.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2003 Oct 31, The EPA rejected new restrictions on weed-killer atrazine. It was suspected of causing mutations in frogs.
(WSJ, 11/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 31, Richard E. Neustadt (84), the noted presidential adviser, scholar and historian who was a founder of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, died in England. His 1960 book "Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership," offered insight into government decision-making.
(AP, 11/2/03)(Econ, 11/15/03, p.81)
2003 Oct 31, Fighting between Afghan soldiers and police in a tense province in southern Afghanistan killed two military commanders and up to eight policemen.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, Thousands of Argentines banged pots and pans on street corners and apartment balconies across the capital to protest rising crime.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Ilham Aliev was inaugurated as Azerbaijan's new president, succeeding his ailing father as leader of the oil-rich former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, A wildlife expert said a rabies outbreak is threatening the few hundred remaining Ethiopian wolves, one of the world's rarest animals.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Kamato Hongo (116), a Japanese woman believed to have been the world's oldest person, died.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Malaysia's first new prime minister in a generation, succeeding Mahathir Mohamad.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Taiwan's Pres. Chen Shui-bian took his campaign for a new constitution to New York, as Taiwanese media widely reported protests by Beijing supporters against his visit. He described his campaign for a new constitution as an effort to increase government efficiency.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, The UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption and requested that the Secretary-General designate the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as secretariat for the Convention’s Conference of States Parties (resolution 58/4).
(Econ, 12/15/12, p.61)(www.un.org/en/events/anticorruptionday/)
2004 Oct 31, In the closing hours of their bitter campaign, President Bush and challenger Sen. John Kerry charged through the critical battlegrounds of Florida and Ohio, with promises to keep America safe.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2004 Oct 31, In Brazil Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suffered major defeats in an electoral test of his ruling party's influence. Silva’s PT Party won in 11 of the 23 cities where it fielded candidates. Jose Serra won the mayoral election in Sao Paulo over Marta Suplicy.
(AP, 11/1/04)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.35)
2004 Oct 31, In Chechnya a car bomb exploded outside Grozny’s main hospital, injuring 17 people.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Chile voters gave strong support to the center-left government of President Ricardo Lagos in nationwide municipal elections.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Iran's parliament unanimously approved the outline of a bill that would require the government to resume uranium enrichment.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Iraq a rocket attack in Tikrit killed 15 Iraqis and wounded 8.
(SFC, 11/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 31, In Italy unusually high tides sent sea water sweeping through Venice, covering 80 percent of the city by afternoon.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Japan condemned the beheading of a Japanese hostage in Iraq as a despicable act of terrorism and vowed to keep its troops in the country on their reconstruction mission.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, African and Asian leaders opened a two-day conference in Tokyo to spur trade and investment between the two regions. The gathering is a follow-up meeting of the Third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III) held last year and is co-hosted by Japan, the World Bank. TICAD, a Japanese initiative, was started in 1993 to raise international support for African development and has been held every five years.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 31, In Nigeria unions declared the top oil multinational here, Royal Dutch/Shell, "an enemy of the Nigerian people" and called a Nov. 16 nationwide strike.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2004 Oct 31, Ukrainians cast ballots in a presidential vote. The opposition complained of violations just hours into the polling. Key contenders included pro-Russian PM Viktor Yanukovych and former PM Viktor Yushchenko, a reformist candidate. Yushchenko won by .5%, but failed to get a majority setting up a runoff vote for Nov 21. Observers from NATO and Europe said the balloting did not meet democratic standards.
(AP, 10/31/04)(AP, 11/1/04)(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A12)
2004 Oct 31, In Uruguay elections socialist Tabare Vazquez (65), a cancer specialist and former mayor of Montevideo, won Uruguay's presidential election, becoming the nation's first leftist leader. Voters also called for all water resources to be put under state administration. Some 20% of the country’s work force was employed by the state.
(AP, 10/31/04)(SFC, 11/1/04, p.A2)(WSJ, 11/5/04, p.A13)
2004 Oct 31, In Venezuela candidates backed by President Hugo Chavez swept all but two of 23 governorships in regional elections.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2005 Oct 31, President Bush nominated veteran judge Samuel Alito in a bid to reshape the Supreme Court and mollify his conservative allies. Ready-to-rumble Democrats warned that Alito may be an extremist who would curb abortion rights.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by, Thomas Huckaby, a Tennessee man who was charged by NY state for taxes on all of his income derived from his employer in NY.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported that US Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a stake in Gilead Sciences valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld. Tamiflu is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005. Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense.
(http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/)
2005 Oct 31, A transit strike in Philadelphia brought the city’s buses, subways and trolleys to a halt.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, In SF some 30,000 people gathered in the Castro district for the annual Halloween party.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.B2)
2005 Oct 31, BSkyB and Vodafone announced that a quarter of a million subscribers to Vodafone's third-generation (3G) telecommunications service were now able to watch on their mobiles live news and sports provided by satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Chiron Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca., merged with the Swiss firm Novartis. Novartis paid $5.1 billion for Chiron.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported that Pluto has three moons, not one, according to new images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest. The two new moons were named Nix and Hydra. Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was spotted in 1978. Two more moons were discovered in 2011 and 2012.
(AP, 11/1/05)(Econ, 7/11/15, p.70)
2005 Oct 31, In Brazil a man accused of torturing and killing five people was killed in a Sao Paulo shantytown gunfight with police who were trying to arrest him. Celso Alencar dos Santos (33) and an accomplice allegedly killed five members of the Yonekura family in September, when the family returned to Brazil with thousands of dollars they had saved while living for six years in Japan.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, China's Pres. Hu Jintao arrived in Vietnam on a mission to expand booming trade ties between the communist nations.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Hundreds of government troops backed by U.N. peacekeepers began flushing heavily armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Congo, destroying insurgent camps and sending smoke rising above the restive region.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Farmers brought California vegetables, North Carolina turkeys and Arkansas rice to Cuba's annual trade fair, showing that Americans are still hungry for the communist country's market despite U.S. rules that make trade difficult.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN-sanctioned panel investigating human rights violations during Indonesia's bloody 24-year occupation of East Timor presented its findings to the country's president.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, French rower Emmanuel Coindre ended a landmark 129-day solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean between Japan and the United States, setting a new record, according to his team.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US military said 6 American soldiers were killed in two bombings, making October one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. A car bomb exploded in a commercial district of Basra, killing at least 20 with 40 injured.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 11/1/05)(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi named a new Cabinet, putting outspoken conservatives, and potential successors, in top positions and retaining his economic team.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Okinawa's governor told Japan's central government that a plan to build a U.S. heliport on the southern island as part of a realignment of the American military presence there was unacceptable.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A Myanmar court sentenced a lawyer to seven years in prison for advising a group of farmers to file grievances with the International Labor Organization.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Oct 31, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has officially named a minority conservative government headed by Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, President Vladimir Putin said he won't seek a third term in 2008, but vowed not to allow "destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the door open for drastic action in the event of a crisis.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A new survey reported that more than half of Russians think everyone in power is dishonest, from the president and parliament, to government and the courts. Transparency International recently ranked Russia joint 126th on its list of cleanest countries, on a par with Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica announced an agreed $31.5 billion takeover of mobile-phone operator O2, to be paid in cash.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.65)
2005 Oct 31, UN envoy Jan Pronk condemned the killing of 2 deminers contracted to the United Nations in southern Sudan in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN resolution sponsored by the US, France and Britain demanded that Syria assist fully with a probe into the February killing of former Lebanese leader Hariri. The P-5 ambassadors (the five permanent council nations) from the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, conducted intense negotiations to try to reach agreement on the resolution.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.A1)(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Oct 31, Live news broadcasts began on a new Latin American TV station backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an alternative to large corporate media outlets.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2006 Oct 31, President George W. Bush ordered that assets be frozen of dissident general Laurent Nkunda and six others considered by the White House to be destabilizing forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, NASA agreed to dispatch a shuttle on a repair mission to keep the Hubble Space Telescope in operation until at least 2013.
(WSJ, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, In Long Beach, Ca., 9 African-American youths accosted and severely beat 3 white women in a racially charged attack on Halloween night. In 2007 a judge ruled the attack a hate crime and the 9 youths were convicted in juvenile court in Long Beach, Calif.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A3)(AP, 1/26/08)
2006 Oct 31, In SF gunfire broke out between two groups at a massive Halloween street party in the city's Castro district, wounding at least 10 people, including innocent bystanders.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Bechtel Corp.’s last government contract in Iraq expired. During its 3 years of work there 52 employees were killed.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, Enrico’s Sidewalk Café in SF’s North Beach district closed after negotiations for a new lease collapsed. Enrico Banducci had opened it in 1958.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.B5)
2006 Oct 31, In Roanoke, Virginia, Sheriff Frank Cassell and 12 of his uniformed employees were indicted in a racketeering case that claims drugs seized from criminals were being resold, sometimes out of a sergeant's home.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Reno, Nev., a fire at the Mizpah Hotel killed 12 people. Valerie Moore (47), a casino cook, was arrested the next day for starting the fire.
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.A4)(AP, 11/5/06)(SFC, 11/6/06, p.A3)(AP, 10/31/07)
2006 Oct 31, A leading researcher said large species of coral that form underwater reefs and create rich habitat for marine life are disappearing from around the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Researchers reported that elephants recognize themselves in mirrors.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.A4)
2006 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 3 NATO soldiers. A suicide bombing in southern Ghazni province's Taliban-dominated Ander district killed one policeman. Polio cases were reported to be on the rise along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
(AFP, 10/31/06)(WSJ, 11/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, Australia pointed an accusing finger at China and India as major polluters as it refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change despite a major new report warning of impending catastrophe.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, President Evo Morales backed off his plan to nationalize Bolivia's mining industry, saying that his government can't afford it for now but he still wants to eventually recover control of the nation's mineral wealth.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Britain unveiled plans to regulate Internet gambling and said it opposed the US government's banning of the industry.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, A joint British and Lebanese initiative in London launched the world's first qualification covering all aspects of Islamic finance. The Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) was developed by British industry body the Securities and Investment Institute (SII) and Lebanese business school Ecole Superieure des Affaires.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, Cambodian police said an American police officer, killed himself while in custody in the capital. Donald Rene Ramirez of SF was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Ramirez had been going on vacation to Asia for at least 2 decades.
(AP, 10/31/06)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Oct 31, In Canada Finance Minister Jim Flaherty shocked markets when he announced plans to tax income trusts. Flaherty signaled concern that the flow of conversions to income trusts could become an uncontrollable torrent that would damage the economy and erode government revenues. Income trusts were first set up in the mid-1980s by property and energy companies who chose to pass profits to investors and thus avoid corporate income tax.
(AP, 10/31/06)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
2006 Oct 31, A small clash between ethnic Arab and ethnic African villagers along Chad's border with Darfur escalated into a large-scale attack in which Arabs killed 128 Africans. The fight broke out in Amtiman in southeastern Chad between two small groups after a member of one group insulted the other.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Oct 31, China's legislature barred all but the nation's highest court from approving death sentences, a move that state media called the country's biggest change to capital punishment in more than 20 years. In northwest Gansu province gas exploded in a coal mine, killing about 20 miners.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, Scientists reported that the Fujian-strain of H5N1 avian influenza has become dominant in southern China.
(SFC, 10/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Oct 31, A parliament speaker said Egypt it will amend its constitution to make it easier for candidates to run for president, part of long-delayed political reforms that President Hosni Mubarak plans to carry out next year. Talaat Sadat (52), the nephew of Egypt's late President Anwar Sadat, was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, after saying in an interview that Egyptian generals had masterminded his uncle's assassination.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Ethiopia 4 days of devastating floods along the eastern border killed dozens of people and prowling crocodiles hampered rescue efforts as rain continued to fall.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, France's Defense Minister ordered that 105 secret intelligence reports be handed over to a judge investigating allegations that Paris helped Rwanda's former Hutu government massacre ethnic Tutsis in a 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, India's central bank warned of overheating and juggled interest rates in a mid-term policy review aimed at keeping prices in check. In southern India a passenger train crashed into an auto-rickshaw at an unmanned rail crossing, killing all 18 people in the rickshaw.
(AFP, 10/31/06)(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Al-Sadr ordered Sadr City closed to the Iraqi government until US troops lifted what he called their "siege" of the neighborhood. US troops abandoned checkpoints around Sadr City on orders from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Iraqi state television presenter, Sherin Hamid, and her driver were found dead in central Baghdad, a day after they were abducted by gunmen. 3 people were killed and five injured by a car bomb in Sadr City. At least three Iraqi policemen were also reported killed in Baghdad and Fallujah. The bodies of five unidentified people, including a woman, were found dumped in eastern Baghdad. 5 more bodies in similar condition were floating in the Tigris River near Suwayrah. The morgue in the town of Kut reported receiving 10 bodies, including those of five people allegedly killed by US forces in a raid on a house in the Shejeriyah area. In Baqouba unidentified gunmen killed 3 people in a downtown market and attacked a police patrol, killing one officer and injuring two others. 5 bodies were found in the Abu Seida district, 25 kilometers northeast of the city. More than 40 Shiites were abducted along a dangerous highway just north of Baghdad near the town of Tarmiyah. At least 8 other people were either found dead or slain in new attacks. A suicide bombing at a wedding party in Baghdad killed 23, including 9 children. Haidar Muhsin, an Iraqi translator with US forces, was shot dead in front of his home in Diwaniyah. US troops killed five suspected insurgents and detained one during a raid in Baghdad. The US military announced the deaths of two soldiers in fighting in the Baghdad area, one from small arms fire, the other from a roadside bomb.
(AP, 10/31/06)(AP, 11/1/06)(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Oct 31, Italy said it would beef up security in Naples by adding 1,000 patrol officers and surveillance cameras amid an upsurge of slayings around a city already known for street violence and organized crime.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, PM Shinzo Abe said Japan will continue assisting Equatorial Guinea in its efforts to promote democracy. Abe made the pledge during a 45-minute meeting with Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Tokyo.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Kuwait an Iraqi government spokesman said Iraq needs around $100 billion in the next four to five years to recover and rebuild its infrastructure at the opening of an international aid meeting.
(AP, 110/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Mexico youths roamed the streets of Oaxaca tossing gasoline bombs, hijacking vehicles and vowing to keep fighting for the state governor's ouster. Congress urged the governor to resign and leftist leaders urged national support for the movement.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, North Korea agreed to rejoin six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in a surprise diplomatic breakthrough.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Pakistan an appeals court overturned the convictions of four terror suspects in a 2002 car bombing outside the US Consulate in Karachi that killed 14 Pakistanis. Some 15,000 bearded men wearing turbans burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and shouted "Death to Musharraf" in the troubled Bajaur tribal region, which borders Afghanistan.
(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In South Africa P.W. Botha (b.1916), the apartheid-era leader (1978-1989) who resisted pressure to release Nelson Mandela from prison in the 1980s, died.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Attacks in West Darfur, Sudan, killed at least 63 people, half of them children. Some 300 to 500 Arab militiamen on horseback raided at least eight villages as well as the Hajlija IDP camp.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Oct 31, Flooding from torrential rains killed 22 people across Turkey, including 14 who died when a minibus carrying wedding guests was swept away.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct 31, Typhoon Cimaron headed toward eastern Vietnam after leaving at least 15 dead in landslides and flooding in the northern Philippines.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2007 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed into law a measure barring states from levying taxes on Internet access through 2014.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, The US acknowledged that it had undertaken military moves against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, including spy planes and providing Turkey with more intelligence.
(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 31, The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point to 4.5%. The DJIA rose 137.54 to 13,930.01. Nasdaq rose 42.41 to 2,859. Oil futures rose to a new record high closing at $94.53 per barrel on the NY mercantile Exchange. Gold traded above $800 an ounce for the first time since 1980.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.C1)(AP, 10/31/08)
2007 Oct 31, In California Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona faced arraignment on seven counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering, according to a sweeping indictment unsealed a day earlier. Carona and others allegedly accepted $350,000 in gifts and cash in exchange for political favors in a scheme that began as early as 1998, the year he was first elected.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In Alameda, Ca., Ichinkhorloo Bayarsaikhan (15) was shot in the back and killed in a robbery attempt by a group of teenage boys. She had been out with some 10 friends on Halloween when they were accosted at Washington Park. Quochuy Tran (16), the suspected shooter, was arrested Nov 7 and 5 others were picked up the next day. 3 boys arrested earlier in the week were released. On Dec 14 three teenage boys were convicted in juvenile court of first degree murder. Charges were still pending against 3 others. On Jan 25 Tran was sentenced to 7 years. His younger brother (15) and another boy (13) were sentenced to a wilderness camp for 2 years. In 2010 Quochuy Tran was tried as an adult and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for first degree murder.
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/14/07, p.B5)(SFC, 12/15/07, p.B1)(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B3)(SFC, 8/21/10, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, San Francisco energy officials approved a new $230 million power plant near Potrero Hill, which would let it close an older, dirtier plant nearby.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, Physicists at UC Berkeley said they had produced the world’s smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than human hair. They had it play “Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and said it could also function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, In Hawaii state lawmakers voted to allow the new inter-island ferry to resume service. The Superferry law overrode court decisions requiring an environmental study.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A4)
2007 Oct 31, Officials said Afghan, US and Canadian troops have surrounded a pocket of some 250 Taliban fighters who have commandeered people's homes in villages just outside Kandahar. In western Farah province six police officers were killed and two others wounded, and 14 Afghan army troops were missing after clashes with Taliban militants. A nighttime raid in eastern Afghanistan by Afghan troops with US support sparked a gunbattle that killed three people, including two children.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Oct 31, In London King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met PM Gordon Brown to discuss Middle East issues and counter-terrorism, amid a swirl of protests.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, China's worst fuel crisis in two years spread to the capital and other inland areas, and one man was killed in a brawl at a petrol station queue, upping pressure on the government to intervene.
(Reuters, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In Dubai more than 4,000 south Asian workers who had been jailed since a weekend labor strike were released, in an incident that has highlighted labor tensions in this booming city.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Authorities said French police had arrested 20 suspects as part of a Europe-wide crackdown on child pornography over the Internet.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Alcatel-Lucent, the struggling French-US telecommunications equipment maker, announced it would cut an additional 4,000 jobs by 2009 as it unveiled a sharp third quarter net loss.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, The Iraqi government rejected the findings of a US oversight panel that a dam near the northern city of Mosul is on the verge of a collapse that could cause flooding along the Tigris River "all the way to Baghdad." US helicopters opened fire after a ground patrol came under attack southeast of Baghdad, and Iraqi police said three officers were killed and one wounded in the strike. Two American soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle in Iraq's northern Ninevah province.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 31, More than 100 Buddhist monks marched in northern Myanmar for nearly an hour, the first public demonstration since the government's deadly crackdown last month on pro-democracy protesters.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In southern Nigeria one navy officer was killed and four other naval personnel injured in an overnight attack on a vessel protecting a Shell oilfield.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Pakistan military helicopter gunships strafed Islamic militant positions in the northwestern Swat Valley as a shaky truce collapsed.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, A bomb ripped through a passenger bus in the central Russian city of Togliatti, killing eight people and injuring 48. Togliatti is a city on the Volga River known as the headquarters of Russia's largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, which returned to state control in 2005. The city has a reputation for gang violence as varying groups have competed for control over the lucrative factory.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Spanish lawmakers passed historic legislation condemning Gen. Francisco Franco's coup and nearly 40-year fascist dictatorship, brushing aside complaints from the conservative opposition that the bill would reopen old divides. 3 lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that killed 191 people were convicted of murder by the Spanish court. Four other top suspects were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges. In all 21 of the 28 defendants were convicted. The law of "historical memory" aimed to remove fascist symbols from public buildings and recognize the mistreatment of of Franco's victims.
(AP, 10/31/07)(Econ., 9/19/20, p.50)
2007 Oct 31, The Turkish army said it killed 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border, as ministers discussed possible economic sanctions against Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government.
(AFP, 10/31/07)
2008 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed an executive order restoring the Libyan government’s immunity from terror-related lawsuits and dismissing pending compensation cases in response to Libya’s payment of $1.5 billion into a fund to compensate the families of victims the 1986 bombing of a German disco and the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 31, A jury of US military officers at Guantanamo's second war-crimes trial reached a verdict that could put Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, Osama bin Laden's alleged "media secretary" and video maker, in prison for life. Announcement of the decision was postponed to Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. launched a plan to modify the terms of $70 billion in mortgages for borrowers who were either behind on their payments or soon could be. As many as 400,000 borrowers could be moved into lower rate mortgages.
(WSJ, 11/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 31, Airship Ventures began operating zeppelin flights from Moffett field in Mountain View, Ca. Passenger tickets were set at $495 per person for one hour and $950 for 2 hours.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 31, VeraSun Energy, one of America’s biggest ethanol producers, filed for bankruptcy after being caught in the gyrations of the prices of corn and gasoline.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.79)
2008 Oct 31, The Leakey Foundation awarded its Leakey Prize to American primatologist Jane Goodall and Japanese scientist Toshidada Nishida for their work with chimpanzees.
(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 31, Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonymous cryptography buff, unveiled a project he dubbed bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
(Econ, 5/9/15, SR p.16)
2008 Oct 31, Studs Terkel (b.1912), Chicago radio personality and writer, died. His books included “The Good War," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a series of operations by US forces targeted an al-Qaida leader and a bomb-making cell, killing 19 militants in Nangarhar and Khost provinces. Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the militant group has released two aid workers from Bangladesh whom they had kidnapped in Ghazni province late last month.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Oct 31, Brazil's state-run oil company signed an agreement to explore for oil in deep Caribbean waters north of Cuba that officials in Havana say could contain 20 billion barrels of crude.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Petrofac evacuated 56 non-essential workers from the North Sea Heather Alpha oil rig after a reports of 10-20 ton oil spill.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Top British filmmaker Danny Boyle's new Mumbai-based film "Slumdog Millionaire" won rave reviews after its screening at the close of the London Film Festival.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Middle East investors will own up to one third of Barclays Plc after Abu Dhabi and Qatar provided most of 7.3 billion pounds ($12.1 billion) raised by the bank to repair damage from the global financial crisis and avoid taking UK government rescue funds.
(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Heavily-armed pirates swarmed aboard an oil industry support vessel working off the coast of Cameroon and kidnapped 10 of 15 crew members, including six Frenchmen. A man claiming to represent a rebel group opposed to Cameroon's takeover of the Bakassi Peninsula warned the hostages would be killed unless Cameroonian officials agreed to reopen the issue.
(AFP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Canada an explosion damaged a natural gas wellhead in the same area of northeast British Columbia where two pipelines have been bombed this month.
(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In southern China a truck driver killed 4 people and injured 20 by driving into a crowd of high school students coming out of class. The male driver was shot dead by police after the incident in the city of Zhuhai in Guangdong province.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Oct 31, Thousands of war-weary refugees set out on foot for their homes in eastern Congo, taking advantage of a cease-fire as American and UN envoys joined efforts there to find a political solution to the region's long-running rebellion.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In southern Egypt tourist bus overturned, killing six Belgian tourists and injuring 26 other Belgian passengers.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Israeli settlers clashed with Israeli police and Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron following the overnight demolition of an unauthorized settler outpost. Israelis from across the political spectrum slammed a decision to air the first-ever television interview with Yigal Amir (43), the extremist Jew who assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
(AP, 10/31/08)(AFP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Japan an essay by Gen. Toshio Tamogami, head of Japan’s air force, was published. He had won a competition for best essay denying Japan’s wartime role as an aggressor and sponsor of atrocities. The contest was sponsored by Toshio Motoya, the head of a hotel chain. Within hours of publication Gen. Toshio Tamogami was out of a job.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.57)
2008 Oct 31, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, starting his first visit to post-Soviet Russia, planned to discuss opening a Russian naval base in Libya to counterbalance US interests in the region.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Mexico police arrested Antonio Galarza, the reputed leader of the violent Gulf drug cartel for the border city of Reynosa, in the northern city of Monterrey on suspicion of weapons violations and organized crime.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Oct 31, A suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles into a house in Mir Ali town in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border. Al-Qaida member Abu Kasha Iraqi was among those killed. Abu Jihad al-Masri, described by the US as al-Qaida’s propaganda chief, was among 3 people killed when a missile hit their truck. A second house was hit, killing 12 including suspected foreign militants in Kari Kot in South Waziristan. 29 people were reported killed in the 2 attacks. A suicide bomber attacked the convoy of a regional police chief, killing 3 police officers and 5 civilians in Mardan in the North West Frontier Province.
(AP, 10/31/08)(AFP, 11/1/08)(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 31, Gunmen in Peshawar, Pakistan, kidnapped Zia ul-Haq Ahadi, the brother of Afghanistan's finance minister, while he was walking to his mother's home after praying at a mosque. Ahadi, a businessman who lives in Afghanistan, was in Peshawar to visit his mother.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Oct 31, Spain approved a measure to let descendants of people who fled into exile after its 1936-39 Civil War apply for Spanish citizenship. The government said it believes up to 500,000 children and grandchildren of such emigres are eligible. The government says 300,000 of those people live in Argentina.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2009 Oct 31, Pres. Obama hosted a Halloween party at the White House for children of military personnel and White House administrators. In 2012 New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party in “The Obamas."
(http://tinyurl.com/7f667ha)
2009 Oct 31, In Mendota, Ca., searchers found the body of Alex Mercado (4) stuffed into a clothes dryer. Raul Renato Castro (14) later told investigators that he drowned his neighbor in a bathtub and then hid the body in a dryer because the child was going to reveal that the teen had molested him.
(SFC, 11/5/09, p.C3)
2009 Oct 31, In Seattle, Wa., gunfire on a police patrol car killed police officer Timothy Brenton (39). He became the first city police officer killed in the line of duty since 2006. On Nov 6 suspect Christopher Monfort was shot by police as he drew a gun on officers investigating the death of Brenton. Monfort was in serious condition following surgery.
(SFC, 11/2/09, p.A5)(SSFC, 11/8/09, p.A14)
2009 Oct 31, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and aides in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi before flying to Israel, where she is expected to meet senior Israeli officials in a push to restart peace negotiations. A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians are unlikely to resume negotiations if Israel does not halt Jewish settlement building. After the talks Clinton called for an unconditional resumption of peace talks and welcomed Israel's offer for a slowdown in settlement activity.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, said authorities have arrested eight people, including one in Saudi Arabia, in connection with this week's deadly attack on a guest house used by UN employees. He said those arrested claimed the assailants came from Pakistan's Swat Valley. In southern Helmand province a British soldier was killed in an explosion. An American died of wounds suffered from a bomb attack.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AFP, 11/1/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, A British government official said the Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, and Lloyds Banking Group are to sell off as many as 700 branches in the next few years in exchange for the public aid they received during the economic meltdown.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Canada 2 men sought by the FBI and linked to a Detroit Muslim leader killed by US authorities were arrested in Windsor, Ontario. Mohammad Al-Sahli (33) and Yassir Ali Kahn (30) were wanted by the FBI for conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
(Reuters, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, China's legislature removed Zhou Ji (63), the country's unpopular education minister, amid a corruption scandal in a city he used to oversee and widespread public dissatisfaction with the education system.
(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Qian Xuesen (b.1911), a rocket scientist known as the father of China's space technology program, died in Beijing. Qian left for the US after winning a scholarship to graduate school in 1936. He studied at MIT and later at the California Institute of Technology, where he helped start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Qian, also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics before returning to China in 1955, driven out of the US at the height of anticommunist fervor.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Guatemala gunmen killed one prison guard and wounded four others outside a prison in Guatemala City.
(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected a UN-backed plan to ship much of the country's uranium abroad for further enrichment, raising further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will finally approve the deal.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, Italian police arrested one of the country's most wanted mafia fugitives after tearing down a wall in a dawn raid at a chicken farm near Naples where he had built a hideout. Salvatore Russo (51), the head of a Camorra clan carrying his name, had been sentenced to life in prison for homicide and links to organized crime and was on the run since 1995.
(AFP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Mexico Mayor Mauricio Fernandez told cheering supporters in San Pedro Garza Garcia, near Monterrey, that "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was asking for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City." Hours later Mexican officials found four bound bodies in a sport utility vehicle with hand-lettered messages identifying the dead men as kidnappers. Hector “Black" Soldana was not identified for another 2 days. Fernandez later said US authorities had tipped him off that somebody intercepted cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him, and he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was dead hours before the bodies were found.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)
2009 Oct 31, Pakistani soldiers closed in on two major Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan, as government jets pounded insurgent hide-outs and the prime minister said the country had no choice but to defeat the militants. Pakistani jets bombed three hide-outs of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the Orkazai tribal region, killing at least 8 militants and wounding several others. Another airstrike, about 40 miles (70km) from the first and near the Afghan border, killed 7 militants in the Kurram tribal region. The army said government soldiers had killed a total of 33 militants over the past 24 hours, discovered a factory for making roadside bombs and seized a handful of weapons. 7 paramilitary soldiers driving through the Khyber tribal area were killed in a roadside bomb planted by suspected Taliban militants. In Karachi police arrested 3 suspected militants and seized 30 kilograms (65 pounds) of explosives and other weaponry.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, In Playa Blanca, Panama, 2 teenage boys wounded an American and a Russian tourist in a botched robbery attempt. Police announced the arrest of the 2 teenagers on Nov 3.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Oct 31, In the Philippines Typhoon Mirinae, the 4th since late September, battered Manila and surrounding provinces, sending residents of one town clambering onto rooftops to escape rising waters. 20 people wee left dead with east 5 missing.
(AP, 10/31/09)(AP, 11/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, A Russian news agency reported that Moscow plans to buy a French amphibious assault ship, the first such purchase from a NATO country, as the Kremlin seeks to reaffirm Russia's global reach.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, Ahmed Gadaf, a self-described spokesman for Somali pirates, said that boats from other countries are plundering Somalia's fish-rich waters.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct 31, The Ukrainian government ordered schools nationwide to close for 3 weeks due to swine flu, which has left 33 people dead. Public gatherings were also banned and restrictions on travel were imposed to stop the spread of the virus.
(SSFC, 11/1/09, p.A6)
2009 Oct 31, The Vatican said it will admit married Anglican priests to the Catholic priesthood case by case. In no case could a married man become a bishop, and the new rules would exclude any married Anglican bishop from retaining that post.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2010 Oct 31, A US military judge, under a plea bargain, sentencing Omar Khadr (24) to eight more years in custody for war crimes. The young Canadian had admitted to five war crimes charges, including killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. The sentence called for him to stay at the Guantanamo prison another year before he can ask Canada's government to allow him to return to his homeland to serve out his sentence or seek early release on parole.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Texas the SF Giants won game 4 of the World Series 4-0 against the Texas Rangers putting them up 3 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 31, Theodore Sorenson (b.1928), special counsel to Pres. John F. Kennedy, died in NY. His memoir “Counselor" was published in 2008.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.C8)
2010 Oct 31, Afghan militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for the police, Education Ministry, and the UN's World Food Program in western Nimroz province. Six militants were killed and one policeman was wounded in the gunbattle. A two-day battle over a bomb-making factory in Reg-i-Khan Nishin district ended with NATO and Afghan troops killing 15 insurgents.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Brazil held elections. Dilma Rousseff (62), the hand-picked candidate of Pres. Lula da Silva was the heavy favorite to replace him in the runoff election. Dilma Rousseff was elected over centrist rival Jose Serra 56 percent to 44 percent and will be the first woman to direct Latin America's biggest nation.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, China wrapped up its record-breaking World Expo with a lavish display of national pride, as organizers of the mammoth event pledged to continue pursuing more sustainable, balanced growth. Over 72 million visitors surpassed the record 1970 fair in Osaka, Japan, which drew 64 million.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.D2)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Iraq an al Qaeda attack left 68 people dead including 46 hostages, 7 police and 5 attackers, at the Sayidat al-Nejat Syriac Christian cathedral (Our Lady of Salvation) in Baghdad. The attack ended with police storming the church to free more than 100 hostages. Officials said most of the casualties were killed or wounded when the security forces raided the place and that the attack was aimed at driving the Christian minority out of the country. Al-Qaida cited the cases of 2 Egyptian women, wives of Coptic priests, who had converted to Islam in order to get away from their abusive husbands. On August 2, 2011, a Baghdad court convicted 3 Iraqis and sentenced them to death for their role in the church siege. A fourth man was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/2/11)
2010 Oct 31, Ivory Coast held a long-awaited presidential election, the first since civil war erupted in 2002 and split the world's leading cocoa producer in half. Pres. Laurent Gbagbo won 38% followed by 32% for Alassane Ouattara, the main opposition leader. Former Pres. Henri Konan Bedie came in third with 25% and later endorsed Ouattara in a run-off, set for Nov 28.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Oct 31, Japan’s PM Naoto Kan said Vietnam has chosen Japan as a partner to mine rare earth metals and develop nuclear power.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Mexican police found the missing rental car of Canadian businessman Daniel Dion just north of the state capital of Chilpancingo. It was found completely burned with a corpse in the trunk. Dion was last seen about a week ago in Acapulco. Edgar Lopez (35) of El Paso, Texas, was killed along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Niger voters weighed in on a new constitution that would impose presidential term limits and pardon members of a military junta that seized power earlier this year. The country's new constitution passed with 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 31, Walid Husayin (26), a Palestinian blogger, was arrested in the West Bank. He had set off an uproar in the Arab world by sarcastically claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad. He was caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down. Husayin later posted the letter on his blog in hopes of winning release.
(AP, 11/12/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, Saudi Arabia's top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Somalia's parliament approved Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-American as the country's prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Sudan shut the Khartoum office of Radio Dabanga, whose reports on Darfur have angered it, and arrested 13 staff from the radio station and a rights group that shares its offices. 9 journalists and four HAND activists were detained during the weekend raids.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Tanzania's ruling party, which has been in power for close to half a century, faced an energized opposition in national elections, following corruption scandals that have undermined the government's popularity. On Nov 5 election officials said Tanzania's Pres. Jakaya Kikwete won a 2nd term in office with 61% of the vote. In Zanzibar Ali Mohammed Shein (62) won the election with 50.1% of the vote. He was sworn in as president on Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Turkey a suspected suicide bomber wounded 15 officers and 17 civilians in Istanbul's main square, as an extended unilateral ceasefire by the separatist PKK came to an end. The radical Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) later claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, Ukraine voted for local councils and mayors in an election which should provide the first real clues to Pres. Yanukovich's standing at home since his election last February. Exit polls said Yanukovych’s swept elections to regional councils throughout the country.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Venezuela's Pres. Chavez ordered the nationalization of local steel company Sidetur in the latest of several recent government takeovers.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)
2011 Oct 31, Arizona law enforcement officials said a massive drug smuggling ring has been broken up. Over the past month 76 people were arrested linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, which over the last 5 years had generated over $2 billion by smuggling cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the US.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A7)
2011 Oct 31, An Arizona jury found Mark Goudeau (47), identified as the Phoenix area Baseline Killer, guilty of murdering 9 people in the summer of 2006. On Dec 30 Goudeau was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A6)(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A10)
2011 Oct 31, MF Global, a New York brokerage firm run by former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, filed for bankruptcy. Corzine (64), a former co-CEO at Goldman Sachs, resigned on Nov 4 amid regulatory probes.
(http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/mf-global-bankruptcy-rattles-wall-st-firms/)(SFC, 11/5/11, p.D1)
2011 Oct 31, In Afghanistan insurgents driving a suicide truck bomb and attacking on foot killed five people, including three UN employees, near the offices of the UN's refugee agency in the Kandahar city. Afghan forces and the militants exchanged fire for nearly seven hours before the militants were killed.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Algiers inaugurated its long-awaited underground metro system amid much fanfare after three decades of work interrupted by an oil crisis and a civil war. Work for Africa's second metro after Cairo began in earnest in 1982.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, An Australian court ended the strikes and employee lockout that had abruptly grounded Qantas Airways and stranded tens of thousands of passengers worldwide. The government referred the dispute to Fair Work Australia, which ordered both sides into 21 days of talks.
(AP, 10/31/11)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.75)
2011 Oct 31, Bangladesh wildlife officials said Bangladesh will declare three river areas in its southwest as dolphin sanctuaries, in a bid to protect the country's population of endangered freshwater cetaceans.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, The head of British intelligence agency GCHQ warned of a "disturbing" rise in cyber attacks on the country's government and industry systems which he said risked damaging the economy.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, EDF Energy submitted its application to build the first new nuclear power plant in Britain, the country's Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) confirmed in a statement.
(Reuters, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand signed a regional security agreement pledging to share intelligence and to engage in joint patrols along a stretch of the Mekong between China and the Golden Triangle.
(Econ, 11/19/11, p.45)
2011 Oct 31, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos dissolved the scandal-plagued DAS domestic intelligence agency, saying its employees will be transferred to other state offices.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, More than 3,000 Egyptians marched through downtown Cairo, protesting the military's arrest of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent blogger-activist, in the latest sign of discontent with the ruling generals' managing of the country.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In India Samdup Taso (83), the last Lepcha priest in Sikkim, died. This left the Lepchas without a spiritual leader to offer prayers to Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, which is revered as Sikkim's guardian deity.
(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli aircraft struck the southern Gaza Strip targeting rocket-launching militants. Palestinian officials reported that two men were found dead in the area. The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked a squad that had just fired a rocket into Israel.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) submitted complaints to three UN Special Reporters, demanding they launch an investigation into the legality of Israel's policy in the eastern sector of Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967 and later annexed, a move never recognized by the rest of the world. The group's report "No Home, No Homeland" accuses Israel of making it almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, Japan and Vietnam agreed to move ahead with a plan to export Japanese nuclear technology to build reactors in Vietnam despite Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis. PM Yoshihiko Noda and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung also agreed to jointly mine rare earth minerals in Vietnam.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Kenya and Somalia called for other nations to help in their fight against Islamist insurgents.
(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Oct 31, Libya's interim leadership chose Abdel-Rahim al-Keeb, an electronics engineer from Tripoli, as the country's new prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, NATO’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Tripoli for talks with Libya's interim leaders before NATO operations end at midnight today. The NATO 7-month air campaign left at least 40 civilians dead.
(AP, 10/31/11)(SSFC, 12/18/11, p.A13)
2011 Oct 31, Mexican soldiers seized 2 catapults and 1.4 tons (1.3 metric tons of marijuana) during a raid in Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, Arizona.
(AP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Mexico a light airplane taking off from the border city of Tijuana crashed into an auto repair shop near a street market, killing three people and setting fire to several cars.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Ali Saibou (71), former president of Niger (1987-1993) died in the capital Niamey. He brought multi-party politics to the west African country.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Oct 31, The Palestinians were admitted to UNESCO as full members in a vote at the UN cultural body's general assembly in Paris. The resolution was adopted by 107 countries, 14 countries voted against and 52 abstained, bringing member states to 195.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Somali pirates captured a Greek chemical tanker and were commandeering it to a hideout in the north of the war-torn country. The MT Liquid Velvet had 21 Filipinos and one Greek sailor on board.
(AFP, 11/2/11)
2011 Oct 31, Hundreds of SPLM-North rebels were killed in clashes with the Sudanese army in South Kordofan, Sudan's only oil producing state where the army is battling insurgents.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, A Tunisian court was reported to have issued an international arrest warrant against Suha Arafat (48), the widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over alleged corruption. The case appeared to be connected to a school she founded in 2006 with the wife of the ousted Pres. Ben Ali. She was stripped of her Tunisian citizenship in 2007 following a dispute with the former ruling family and currently lives in Malta.
(AFP, 11/1/11)(SFC, 11/1/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 31, Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested as he set off from his home with around 20 supporters to walk the 14 km (seven miles) into Kampala's center. Earlier this year he launched a "walk-to-work" protest over high living costs.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, The UN marked the world population reaching 7 billion amid fears of how the planet will cope.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Zimbabwe state media said President Robert Mugabe has warned Switzerland he would "reciprocate" after his wife and top officials were denied visas to attend a UN meeting in that country.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Zimbabwe a $430 million fund was launched with the help of the EU and UNICEF to give children and pregnant women free medical care at public hospitals.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2012 Oct 31, In San Francisco an estimated one million-plus people turned out to celebrate the SF Giants World Series victory parade.
(SFC, 11/1/12, p.A1)
2012 Oct 31, Argentina’s lawmakers passed legislation that lowered the voting age from 18 to 16.
(SFC, 11/2/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 31, Brazil’s military said it has confiscated 4 tons of drugs, 5 dozen vehicles and 200 boats used by drug traffickers in a 3-week operation along borders with Bolivia and Peru.
(SFC, 11/1/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 31, Former British cabinet minister Lord Hazeltine (79) published a report demanding a new British industrial policy.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.57)
2012 Oct 31, In Colombia a suitcase bomb exploded near a town square where 5,000 children were celebrating Halloween, killing two suspected FARC bombers and injuring 37 people, including two boys who were hospitalized in critical condition.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, A tropical storm slammed into southern India, bringing heavy rain and a storm surge and displacing 150,000 people. Six deaths were reported in India and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, The kaleme.org reported that 9 Iranian women have started a hunger strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beating and verbal insults of the prisoners.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, Italian architect Gae Aulenti (84) died at her home in Milan. Her work included the 1986 makeover of a Parisian train station into the Musee D’Orsay as well as the 2003 makeover of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.
(SSFC, 11/4/12, p.C12)
2012 Oct 31, A top a top Kenyan official said more than 2,700 African Union troops from Uganda have died in Somalia. About three dozen Kenyan forces have died there over the last year.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Oct 31, Libya's Congress endorsed the new government formed by PM Ali Zidan. It included Foreign Minister Ali al-Alouji and the Minister of Religious Endowment who both served under Gadhafi.
(AP, 11/2/12)
2012 Oct 31, Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial said an arm of China's sovereign wealth fund has taken a 10 percent stake in the holding company controlling Britain's largest airport Heathrow.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Oct 31, Syrian warplanes pounded opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north, as President Bashar Assad's forces intensified airstrikes against rebels seeking to topple him. Activists said 116 were killed nationwide in airstrikes, artillery shelling and fighting. This included 41 people killed in Aleppo and 35 in the suburbs of Damascus.
(AP, 10/31/12)(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, In southern Thailand a school teacher and his 11-year-old son were shot dead.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 31, The nation’s largest landfill, a 630-acre site 20 miles east of LA, closed as a permit for the sited expired. Garbage from the county’s 88 cities will eventually be put on trains and taken to an abandoned gold mine over 200 miles away.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that most of Texas’ tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 31, In central Texas flash floods following heavy rains killed two men in the Austin area.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 31, In Britain television cameras were allowed into one of the highest courts for the first time, hailed as a landmark move towards open justice while still protecting the rights of vulnerable witnesses.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Brazil oil giant OGX, once the jewel in the EBX crown, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after debt-restructuring talks with its creditors failed. Eike Batista's debt-ridden EBX empire appeared to be on its last legs as the Brazilian magnate desperately tried to sell assets and lure investment to keep his sinking ship afloat.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 30, Barclays, Britain's second-largest bank, revealed that it was the subject of an investigation by regulators in Britain and other countries over "possible attempts to manipulate certain benchmark currency exchange rates." Six traders were soon suspended amid an investigation into whether international currency markets were rigged.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In London Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif told British Deputy PM Nick Clegg that his country had started talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Chinese state media said the last county in China to be accessible by modern land transport was finally linked up to the rest of the country with a new 117-km road that has taken decades to build. The 19,000 people of deeply isolated Medog in southeastern Tibet have until now had to depend on horses for land travel and trade.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Ghana immigration official said 46 more foreigners, suspected of illegal gold mining, have been arreested in the last week, including 43 Chinese, two Indians and an American.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Greece thousands of protesters clogged Athens to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country as its citizens seek a greater share of the spoils from stellar growth.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Iraq twin car bombs north of Baghdad killed 6 people, while attacks elsewhere in the country left 6 others dead.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the government is planning to move ahead with another 3,360 new settler homes in the West Bank, quoting an MP from the ruling rightwing Likud party.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Italian police said they have busted an international ring of former special forces agents hired to "recover" children involved in custody battles who were spirited across borders by one of their parents.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenya MPs voted to set up and appoint a new Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with the teeth to impose penalties of up to 20 million Kenyan shillings (173,000 euros, $234,000) on offenders and even bar journalists from working.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenyan warplanes destroyed a Shebab rebel camp in southern Somalia used to train gunmen who attacked Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in September.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a campaign against the country’s obesity epidemic, urging his countrymen to exercise more as Congress passed special taxes on junk food and sodas. Mexico's Congress passed a package of measures aimed at bolstering the country's weak tax revenues, but only after watering down a plan that is expected to have a moderate impact at best.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Niger authorities said rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, most of them women and children, strewn across the Sahara desert after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Nigeria dozens of Boko Haram gunmen riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks stormed Bama town in Borno state, killing 27 people and razing some 300 homes.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Pakistan a US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed 3 insurgents in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Palestinian security sources said Israel's army arrested four suspects from the Islamic Jihad movement overnight, in the second such arrest operation this week. A Palestinian rock thrower was killed as Israeli troops entered Qabatiya in northern West Bank.
(AFP, 10/31/13)(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 31, Peru's President Ollanta Humala swore in Cesar Villanueva, a widely praised regional politician, as his 4th prime minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, but retained his finance minister despite rumors he might quit.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Portugal Lisbon subway workers walked off the job for the fifth time this year to protest government austerity measures being enacted in return for Portugal's 2011 bailout.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Moscow court revoked the registration of web-based news agency Rosbalt for posting videos it said contained profane language, including a clip by punk band Pussy Riot.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Sudan the pan-Arab satellite channel Sky News Arabia reopened its bureau in Khartoum after a one-month suspension that authorities imposed during anti-regime protests.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria has destroyed critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and poison gas munitions. Fierce clashes raged in the north, close to one of the sites where toxic agents are believed to be stored.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Thai anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Bangkok as parliament debated a political amnesty which opponents fear will "whitewash" past abuses and allow ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Venezuela seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services after the company shut them down because the state oil monopoly was months behind on payments.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In northern Yemen the death toll from a Houthi Shi'ite attack on a mountain town held by their Salafi Sunni Muslim rivals rose to 24 as the two sides fought for a second day in Damaj. Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead two soldiers and a civilian in an attack on an army checkpoint in the southern province of Abyan.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)(AFP, 10/31/13)
2014 Oct 31, The US Treasury blacklisted Aung Thaun, a hard-line lawmaker of Myanmar's ruling party, accusing him of undermining political and economic reforms.
(AP, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, In California Susan Su (44) of Pleasanton was sentenced to 198 months behind bars, forfeit $5.6 million and pay $904,000 in restitution for operating the fake Tri-Valley Univ. She used it as a front for foreign students seeking to establish US immigration status.
(SFC, 11/5/14, p.E2)
2014 Oct 31, A Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo blew apart over southern California after being released from a carrier aircraft killing one pilot, Michael Alsbury (39) and seriously injuring the other, Peter Siebold (43). The suborbital vehicle was undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A7)
2014 Oct 31, In southern California 3 girls (13) were killed while trick-or-treating when they were struck by a hit-and-run driver in Santa Ana. On Nov 2 Jaquinn Bell (31) of Orange was arrested for the hit-and-run.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/2/14, p.A6)(SFC, 11/4/14, p.A4)
2014 Oct 31, John Shields Jr. (b.1932), a former CEO of Trader Joe’s, died in southern California. Under his tenure (1988-2001) the chain expanded from 27 to 174 stores. The chain had been founded as pronto markets by Joe Coulombe, a fraternity brother of Shields at Stanford.
(SSFC, 11/9/14, p.C8)
2014 Oct 31, A Maine court restricted movements of nurse Kaci Hickox who defied voluntary Ebola quarantine by taking a bike ride. The temporary order allowed her to engage in what the judge called "non-congregate public activities" like walking or jogging in the park but instructs her to maintain a 3-foot (1 meter) distance from other people.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Three US soldiers stationed at the Fort Hood Army post in central Texas pleaded guilty to smuggling immigrants into the US.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Australia the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) wound up a 10-day meeting in Hobart without the consensus needed for a deal to conserve and manage the marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean. China and Russia thwarted an international attempt to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore announced his resignation in a statement and called for a 90-day transition to "free and transparent" elections in the West African country. General Honore Traore said that he had taken charge. Compaore fled with his family in a heavily armed convoy to Ivory Coast amid violent protests seeking his ouster.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)(AP, 11/2/14)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.52)
2014 Oct 31, In China a senior prosecutor said investigators have found more than 200 million yuan ($33 million) in cash at the home of an energy official accused of receiving bribes, in the country's largest cash seizure ever. The cash was seized at the home of Wei Pengyuan, deputy chief of the coal bureau under the National Energy Administration.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, A man in southeastern China slashed a first-grader to death and severely injured two others in Luojia village, Jiangxi province.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In China Han Lei (40), a man who killed a two-year-old girl after a row with her mother over a parking space in Beijing in July, 2012, was executed.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In northeast CongoDRC a crowd stoned to death a young man before burning and eating his corpse in Beni. The man aroused suspicion on a bus when passengers discovered he could not speak the local Swahili language and that he was carrying a machete.
(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, The Czech Republic's Parliament approved a government plan to keep up to 350 troops in Afghanistan for at least two more years. The troops will not be used for combat.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, The EU said it will take another step towards normal relations with Zimbabwe by ending restrictions on aid, paving the way for 234 million euros ($293 million) of new funding.
(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, Hungary's PM Viktor Orban said that the government would suspend a planned tax on Internet use and reconsider the matter next year.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on the government to rush to the aid of Sunni tribes battling Islamic State, after the militant group executed at least 220 tribesmen west of Baghdad this week.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Iraq a series of bomb attacks struck marketplaces near Baghdad, killing at least 19 people. Security forces recaptured parts of Beiji, a Sunni oil town north of Baghdad, from Islamic State militants.
(AP, 10/31/14)(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A5)
2014 Oct 31, Iraq’s Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 Al Bu Nimr tribesmen and women in Ras al-Maa village, Anbar province. 35 corpses were found on the outskirts of Ramadi.
(AP, 11/1/14)(Reuters, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, In southern Israel rocket fired from Gaza hit the Eshkol area. Israel soon closed two border crossings with Gaza in response.
(AFP, 11/2/14)
2014 Oct 31, Italy confirmed the end of its search and rescue operation "Mare Nostrum", which has saved the lives of tens of thousands of boat migrants in the Mediterranean.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, The Bank of Japan unexpectedly announced a new stimulus package to boost the country's struggling economy. The announcement came after economic data showed that Japan's economy remained in the doldrums following a sales tax hike in April.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, A Mexican judge order the release of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi (26), an Afghanistan veteran who suffers from PTSD, after 214 days spent in jail. The Florida man said he got lost on a California freeway ramp that sent him across the border with no way to turn back. He was arrested for carrying loaded guns.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Nigeria a car bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop in the northeast city of Gombe. At least 10 people were killed and several wounded near the end of the morning rush hour. Vigilantes in the Borno town of Biu said they and troops had decapitated 41 Boko Haram fighters who were planning a raid in the village of Sabon Gari.
(AP, 10/31/14)(AFP, 11/6/14)
2014 Oct 31, In a new video Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists, said that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off. He also denied there is a cease-fire with the Nigerian government.
(AP, 11/1/14)
2014 Oct 31, Russia’s Gazprom said it may restart gas supply to Ukraine as soon as next week if Kiev pays $2.2 billion worth of debt and pre-payments, under a deal that is also vital to ensure deliveries to Europe.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Russia's central bank raised its main interest rate 1.5% to 9.5% in its latest attempt to shore up the plummeting national currency.
(AP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Ebola has wiped out whole villages in Sierra Leone and may have caused many more deaths than the nearly 5,000 official global toll.
(AFP, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Sudanese soldiers attacked the village of Tabit in the Darfur region. In an apparent 2-day rampage over the disappearance of one of their own they reportedly raped some 200 women. An official UNAMID statement found no evidence of such crimes. An internal UNAMID report said people were warned not to talk. On Feb 11, 2015, a new Human Rights Watch report, based on more than 130 interviews, said girls as young as 10 were raped by Sudanese army forces, and that some women and girls were assaulted multiple times and in front of their families.
(Econ, 12/6/14, p.62)(AP, 2/11/15)
2014 Oct 31, In Syria US-led air strikes hit Islamic State positions around the border town of Kobani in an apparent bid to pave the way for heavily-armed Kurdish peshmerga forces to enter from neighboring Turkey.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk said Ukraine would guarantee deliveries of gas through its territory to Europe to make sure Moscow had no room for "blackmailing".
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Oct 31, In Yemen Shiite rebels attacked the headquarters of Sunni Al-Islah party in the southwestern city of Ibb, triggering violence in which 3 people died. Shiite rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi told President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi that if he did not form a new government within 10 days a "national salvation council" would take its place.
(AFP, 11/1/14)
2015 Oct 31, The US pledged nearly $100 million in fresh aid to support the Syrian opposition as Western and Arab officials gathered in Bahrain for the Manama Dialogue security conference.
(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A4)
2015 Oct 31, The US-led coalition conducted nine air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and 16 in Iraq. Air strikes by Turkish and US aircraft in Syria killed more than 50 Islamic State militants and wounded around 30.
(Reuters, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Colorado police shot down a gunman in Colorado Springs after he shot and killed 23 people.
(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A8)
2015 Oct 31, Texas authorities said at least six people have died in storms that lashed parts of the state with heavy rains.
(AP, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Bangladesh Faysal Arefin Deepan, a publisher of slain online critic of religious militancy Avijit Roy, was hacked to death in Dhaka hours after similar attacks on two secular writers and another publisher in the majority-Muslim country.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.36)
2015 Oct 31, Egypt's prosecution referred to trial the editor-in-chief for Egypt's top literary magazine and writer Ahmed Naji for publishing sexually explicit material and allegedly violating public morals.
(AP, 11/1/15)
2015 Oct 31, Israeli security forces shot and killed a Palestinian (18) who ran at them with a knife in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, It was reported that Nigeria's army has begun posting a photographic collage of 100 wanted Boko Haram militants that features the shadowy leader whom they claim to have killed on at least three occasions.
(AP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Pakistan 11 people were killed when rival political parties fired on each other in local elections in the Khairpur district of the southern province of Sindh, which held the polls along with the central Punjab province.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In the southern Philippines 15 people, including 6 children, died in a fire at a market in Zamboanga city.
(AP, 10/31/15)(SSFC, 11/1/15, p.A5)
2015 Oct 31, In Romania an overnight fire in a Bucharest nightclub killed at least 27 people and injured 184 during a rock concert that featured fireworks used indoors. 146 people remained in hospital from the Colectiv Club fire. By Mar 14, 2016, the death toll rose to 64 as another victim died from their burns. A suicide victim more than 18 months later raised the death toll to 65. In 2021 the Romanian movie “Collective," nominated for two Oscars, follows a team of investigative journalists searching for the truth in the wake of the fire.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)(Reuters, 11/3/15)(AP, 3/14/16)(AP, 4/16/21)
2015 Oct 31, A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers and crew crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula after losing radar contact and plummeting from its cruising altitude, killing all aboard. The Airbus A321 was operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet. Egyptian security sources said early investigations suggested the plane crashed due to a technical fault. A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt claimed responsibility for the downing of the plane.
(Reuters, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to discuss trade issues, a day before their three-way summit with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe that aims to repair relations strained by historical and territorial matters.
(AP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Taiwan tens of thousands marched in Taipei in Asia's biggest gay pride parade, with many hoping presidential elections next year bring to power a pro-gay government that will legalize same-sex marriage.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Yemen overnight clashes left 19 rebels and 14 Popular Resistance fighters dead in several southern provinces as Saudi-led coalition aircraft targeted the Iran-backed insurgents.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2015 Oct 31, In Zanzibar two small blasts rocked streets but caused no casualties, in the latest unrest following the annulment of polls on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian archipelago.
(AFP, 10/31/15)
2016 Oct 31, President Barack Obama extended US sanctions on Sudan for another year as of November 3, saying Khartoum's policies remained an "extraordinary threat" to the national security of the United States.
(AFP, 11/1/16)(Econ, 12/3/16, p.40)
2016 Oct 31, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide attack devastated a gathering of local elders in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Afghan officials said four people were killed and seven wounded, while a statement from Islamic State said 15 "apostates" were killed and 25 wounded.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In southern Brazil a bus and a tanker truck filled with milk burst into flames when they collided, killing 20 people and injuring at least 10 near Cafezal do Sul in Parana state.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, China said it will invest 946.3 billion yuan ($140 billion) by 2020 to relocate its poorest citizens from remote, inland regions to more developed areas.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, China's Foreign Ministry confirmed a decision to allow Philippine fishermen access to a disputed shoal following a visit to Beijing by the Philippine president.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In western China a gas explosion ripped through the privately owned Jinshangou coal mine killing 33 miners in the Chongqing region. Two miners were rescued.
(AP, 10/31/16)(SFC, 11/2/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 31, In Egypt militants attacked the same Bir el-Abd army checkpoint in Sinai where 12 soldiers were killed earlier this month, this time leaving one soldier dead.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Egypt's Health Ministry said recent floods have killed 26 people and injured 72 others across the country.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that France would be ready to intervene in Central African Republic if necessary, despite ending its peacekeeping mission in its former colony.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Indonesia a cargo plane carrying four people was reported missing in a remote, mountainous area of easternmost Papua province.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Iraqi troops entered the Karama district of the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, their first advance into the city itself after two weeks of fighting in the surrounding area to dislodge the militants. The Islamic State executed 50 people for desertion at the Ghazlani military base in Mosul.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)(Reuters, 11/4/16)
2016 Oct 31, The Lebanese parliament elected former army commander Michel Aoun as president, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum as part of a political deal that is expected to make Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri prime minister.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Morocco about 220 African migrants forced their way through a barbed wire fence into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta, clashing with Spanish police who tried to prevent them from crossing the border.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Pakistani police launched a nation-wide crackdown overnight, arresting at least 1,500 supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ahead of an opposition rally planned later this week in Islamabad.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Pakistan's Supreme Court stayed the execution of a mentally ill prisoner whose hanging was to take place later this week. Imdad Ali (50), convicted of murdering a religious scholar in 2001, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, South African prosecutors dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and two former tax officials, reversing a decision that was criticized by many South Africans and deepened concern about the country's struggling economy and alleged government mismanagement.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In South Korea Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the center of a scandal roiling South Korea, met prosecutors examining whether she used her close ties to President Park Geun-hye to pull government strings from the shadows and amass an illicit fortune. Using a common expression of deep repentance she said: "I committed a sin that deserves death."
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, In Spain PM Mariano Rajoy took his oath as leader of the new conservative government — an administration that is in a minority in parliament and could have difficulty passing laws.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Syria's army said the Nusra Front and what the army called other terrorist groups had killed 84 people, mostly women and children, in Aleppo during the past three days, in a bombardment that included chemical weapons and rocket fire.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Turkish police detained the chief editor and at least 12 senior staff of Turkey's opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, in a widening crackdown on dissenting voices.
(AP, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct 31, Venezuela’s government and opposition leaders agreed to continue a Vatican-backed dialogue following initial talks meant to ease an escalating political standoff taking place against the backdrop of a worsening economic crisis.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2017 Oct 31, The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control published an amendment which bans US entities from helping sanctioned Russian oil companies in exploration or production for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects anywhere in the world.
(Reuters, 11/2/17)
2017 Oct 31, The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it will bar certain scientists from serving on its independent advisory boards, a move critics say could open the way to more industry-friendly advisors on the panels.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, California officials said the northern Tubbs Fire has been contained. The blaze had destroyed 5,600 buildings homes and killed 24 people. A day earlier crews reached full containment on the Nuns Fire, which burned 56,556 acres and killed two people. The Pocket Fire was also contained. The state’s northern fires left 43 people dead. In 2019 invetigators said the Tubbs Fire was caused by faulty equipment at a home in Calistoga.
(SFC, 11/1/17, p.D4)(SFC, 1/25/19, p.A1)
2017 Oct 31, In NYC Uzbek driver Sayfullo Saipov (29) mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path in lower Manhattan, near the World Trade Center, killing eight people, including a young Belgian and five Argentines. Police shot Saipov in the abdomen after he crashed into a school bus and exited his rented pickup truck.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck near the US Embassy in Kabul, killing five people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Argentina a strike by workers of its two largest airlines caused the cancellation of dozens of flights and the grounding of tens of thousands of passengers. Unions representing state-run carrier Aerolineas Argentinas and sister company Austral Lineas Aereas demanded a 26 percent salary hike in line with the inflation rate.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Austrian police and customs officials found 400,000 ecstasy tablets worth millions of euros in a truck headed to Istanbul from Amsterdam. The driver was taken in custody. An accomplice in Germany was also arrested and a search continued for other suspects.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Oct 31, A Bahraini court sentenced 10 men to life imprisonment and revoked their citizenship on charges of forming a terrorist cell and plotting attacks.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Four Rohingya Muslims, a man, woman and two children, drowned when a small wooden fishing boat carrying dozens of refugees fleeing ethnic violence in Myanmar capsized off the Bangladesh coast.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Belgium Catalonia's ousted leader Carles Puigdemont agreed to the Dec. 21 snap election called by Spain's central government when it took control of the region to stop it breaking away, but he said the fight for independence would go on.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Bosnia extradited Mirsad Kandic to the US. The alleged Islamic State group supporter from Kosovo, suspected of supplying the IS with suicide vests as well as weapons, has been sought for years by the US.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Tangshan, China's top steelmaking city, announced plans to temporarily halve its iron production capacity from mid-November until mid-March as local authorities step up efforts to fight winter smog.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Egyptian military air strikes destroyed three vehicles loaded with weapons, ammunition and explosives, and killed a "large number" of militants in the western desert. Four civilians were reported killed when a mortar shell hit their tractor in el-Arish.
(AP, 10/31/17)(SFC, 11/1/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 31, In Eritrea at least 28 people were killed in two days of rare protests in Asmara. More than 100 people were injured in the protests that began a day earlier and escalated today.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Oct 31, German police arrested a Syrian (19) suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated bomb attack in Germany with the aim of killing as many people as possible. Yamen A. was arrested in the early hours in the northeastern town of Schwerin.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Indonesia a magnitude-6.3 quake was centered about 32 km (20 miles) west-southwest of Hila, a town on Ambon, the main island in Maluku.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in the country to 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said a tunnel at North Korea's nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang's sixth atomic test on September 3, possibly killing more than 200 people.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga harshly criticized an election rerun in which President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner, saying it should be scrapped in favor of yet another vote and that the opposition would continue to protest in the streets.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, A Kenyan court released a man whom police had called the prime suspect in the murder of his estranged Australian wife. Gabrielle Maina was shot dead by armed men riding a motorbike as she walked near her home in Nairobi, earlier this month.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, Norway's Statoil said it aims to sign a power purchase agreement with a US utility to develop an offshore wind power project off New York toward the end of 2018.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Pakistan Aasia Bibi (21) appeared before a judge on murder charges after she allegedly poisoned her husband’s milk last week. 17 other people were inadvertently when her mother used the tainted milk to make a yogurt-based drink.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8nrc9h7)(SFC, 11/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 31, In Papua New Guinea hundreds of asylum-seekers refused to leave an Australian detention camp that authorities closed, citing fears for their safety, despite food, water and electricity being cut off on Manus Island.
(AFP, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, The Russian submarine “Veliky Novgorod" launched three "Kalibr" missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria's Deir al-Zor province.
(Reuters, 10/31/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Syria at least four schoolchildren were among eight people killed in regime shelling in Eastern Ghouta.
(AFP, 10/31/17)
2018 Oct 31, Willie McCovey (80), the Hall of Fame first baseman who spent 10 of his 22 major-league seasons with the SF Giants, died at Stanford Hospital.
(SFC, 11/1/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 31, An Afghan army helicopter crashed in bad weather in the western Farah province, killing all 25 people on board.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Albanian police said they have arrested five people suspected of trafficking migrants from Greece to Montenegro following a months-long investigation.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, The Austrian government said that it won't sign a global compact to promote safe and orderly migration, citing concerns about national sovereignty as it joined neighboring Hungary in shunning the agreement. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 member nations except the United States, which backed out last year.
(AP, 10/31/18)(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Belgium unions and management found agreement to end a six-day strike by baggage handlers that has disrupted flights to and from the main airport for part of the autumn holiday season.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, About 2,000 migrants began walking north from El Salvador's capital, the latest of several groups trying to reach the United States, even as President Donald Trump increases pressure to halt the flow of people.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Greece John Macris (46), a Greek-Australian married to a model who appeared on a Greek reality TV show, was shot and killed as he left his home in Voula in his car this evening in a seaside suburb of Athens. Australian media have described Macris as having been involved in Sydney's organized crime scene.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, Iceland's Foreign Ministry said Icelandic citizens in Britain and British citizens in Iceland will keep their residence rights after Brexit, even in the case of no deal with the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, India's PM Narendra Modi unveiled a towering bronze statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a key independence leader being promoted as a national icon in the ruling party's campaign ahead of next year's general elections.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), said in a statement that they had killed two IS commanders in the border area who were responsible for an attack last week on US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces along the Iraq-Syria border.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, An operation in northern Iraq by American and Iraqi forces killed around 20 IS fighters in the Makhmour Mountains.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Oct 31, Italian news agency ANSA reported that prosecutors were focusing on whether the remains found in an annex of the Holy See's embassy in Rome could be linked either to Mirella Gregori, or to Emanuela Orlandi, two 15-year-old girls who went missing in 1983.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Mexico's Supreme Court issued two more rulings in individual cases establishing a precedent that a blanket prohibition on recreational marijuana use is unconstitutional.
(SFC, 11/1/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 31, Millions of people in Mexico City prepared to be without water for at least four days as authorities began maintenance work on one of the major supply systems. The system won't return to full capacity until November 8.
(AFP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In northeast Nigeria suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency killed at least 15 people late today in an attack on a group of villages.
(Reuters, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Norway Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen (68) married to a real estate and energy magnate, disappeared from her home in Lorenskog. Ten weeks later police said a ransom demand for $10.3 million in cryptocurrency has been received for the missing woman.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2018 Oct 31, Pakistan's top court acquitted a Christian woman who was sentenced to death under the country's controversial blasphemy law, a landmark ruling that sparked protests by hard-line Islamists and raised fears of violence. Asia Bibi had been on death row since 2010.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In the northern Philippines rescuers pulled out four bodies and four survivors, but at least 19 others remained missing after a massive Typhoon Yutu triggered landslide crashed down on two government buildings.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Russia opened an investigation into suspected terrorism after a 17-year-old youth blew himself up in the lobby of an office belonging to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in the northern city of Arkhangelsk. On Nov. 6 a Moscow court arrested a 14-year-old boy believed to be linked to the bomb attack.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)(AP, 11/6/18)
2018 Oct 31, In South Africa Patricia De Lille (67), the mayor of Cape Town, resigned amid a bitter dispute roiling the country's main opposition in the runup to 2019 elections. Her seven-year tenure has been marred by allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement that have threatened to tarnish Cape Town's reputation.
(AFP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, In South Sudan opposition leader Riek Machar returned to Juba to take part in a nationwide peace celebration after fleeing South Sudan more than two years ago. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed advisor to Machar, and a spokesman to his rebel group.
(AP, 10/31/18)(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, Sweden offered to host talks between Yemen's warring parties as Washington called for an urgent halt to hostilities and the UN special envoy ramped up efforts to revive discussions that failed nearly two months ago.
(AP, 10/31/18)
2018 Oct 31, A Syrian medical official said a new mass grave was discovered in the northern city of Raqqa that until last year was a stronghold and the de facto capital of IS. The new mass grave includes more than 1,500 bodies who were killed by airstrikes of the US-led coalition that gave cover to US-backed Syrian fighters who captured Raqqa from IS in October last year.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Oct 31, In Tanzania Dar es Salaam's administrative chief Paul Makonda said that a special committee would seek to identify and punish homosexuals, prostitutes and online fraudsters in the city from this week.
(AP, 11/4/18)
2018 Oct 31, Venezuela named Army General Manuel Cristophe as the new chief of its state intelligence agency, following the death of a politician in custody that was officially ruled a suicide but critics called a murder. Cristopher replaced outgoing Sebin chief Gustavo Gonzalez.
(Reuters, 10/31/18)
2019 Oct 31, President Donald Trump tweeted that he was changing his primary residence from NYC to Florida.
(NY Times, 11/2/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US House of Representatives passed a resolution to establish formal procedures for the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s alleged political interference in foreign aid to Ukraine.
(Yahoo News, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The United States extended its sanctions on Iran by taking aim at its construction sector, which Washington linked to the country's Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, US federal prosecutors charged a 12th United Auto Workers official with alleged corruption. Union official Edward Robinson was accused of conspiring with colleagues to embezzle more than $1.5 million in union money to fuel "lavish lifestyles," and to defraud the US.
(The Week, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US State Department warned that it had seen indications of Russian "influence" on recent unrest in Chile, where two weeks of protests and riots have rocked the administration of President Sebastian Pinera.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The US military says its first batch of mechanized armored vehicles have arrived in southeast Syria, where they are to take part in securing oil fields and fighting remnants of the Islamic State group. The speaker in the audio also confirmed the death of Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, a close aide of al-Baghdadi and a spokesman for the group since 2016.
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, California officials said the northern Kincade wildfire in Sonoma County, that forced the evacuation of more than 180,000, people is now 60% contained and has not increased in size in the last 24 hours. More wildfires ignited near Los Angeles, destroying homes and forcing evacuations, as the region faced a second day of gusting desert winds that have fanned flames and displaced thousands of people.
(AP, 10/31/19)(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In the SF Bay Area a shooting at a party in Orinda left four people dead. The party was held in a mansion rented through AirBnB. A fifth victim died the next day.
(CBS News, 11/2/19)
2019 Oct 31, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on the city's teacher's union to embrace a "spirit of compromise" as a strike that has kept 300,000 public students away from school extended into an 11th day, despite a tentative contract deal.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Memphis, Tennessee, store clerk Anwar Ghazali (30) was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fatally shooting Dorian Harris (17) who had shoplifted a beer on March 29, 2018.
(NY Times, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Altria Inc took a $4.5 billion hit from its investment in embattled electronic-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc, the latest setback for the startup as a regulatory crackdown on vaping threatens to upend the fast-growing industry.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot owner PSA said they plan to join forces in a 50-50 share merger to create the world's fourth-largest automaker, seeking scale to cope with costly new technologies and slowing global demand.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, the new spokesman for the Islamic State, identified the successor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — tracing his lineage, like al-Baghdadi, to the Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Ethiopia a spokeswoman for PM Abiy Ahmed said at least 78 people were killed during protests last week over the treatment of prominent activist Jawar Mohammed.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Pfizer Inc's rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz could increase the risk of blood clots in the lungs and in deep veins.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The French-based Sanofi company slashed the price of a key anti-tuberculosis drug boosting the battle against the world's deadliest infectious disease, as a new treatment was also set to begin extensive testing.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Hong Kong police fired tear gas to break up masked anti-government protesters mingling with Halloween revelers in fancy dress near the upmarket club district of Lan Kwai Fong after a standoff lasting hours.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, India formally implemented legislation approved by Parliament in August that removed Indian-controlled Kashmir's semi-autonomous status and begins direct federal rule of the disputed area.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel ruled that Indian export subsidies are prohibited and should be removed, upholding a complaint brought by the United States.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Indonesia Mukhlis bin Muhammad (46), a member of the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU), was caned 28 times in a public park by a religious officer for adultery in Aceh province. The woman he had the sexual relationship with was flogged, also in public, receiving 23 lashes.
(Reuters, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Iraq's President Barham Salih called for the drafting of a new election law and said he would approve early elections once it is enacted, bowing to anti-government protesters while insisting that the sweeping changes they are demanding be carried out in a constitutional way.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Israeli forces rearrested former Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar (57) from her home in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Jarrar, a senior official with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was released in February from 20 months of administrative detention.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Japan's justice minister Katsuyuki Kawai resigned over election payment allegations involving his wife, also a lawmaker, and about his own reported gift-giving.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, Lebanese security forces struggled to open some roads as protesters continued their civil disobedience campaign in support of nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, It was reported that the recent transfer of hundreds of elephants to Malawi's largest wildlife reserve has led to residents falling ill from sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease spread by testse flies, a companion of the elephants.
(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, North Korea fired two short-range projectiles, as nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington remained at a deadlock.
(AFP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, In Pakistan a fire swept through a train in Punjab province killing at least 74 people. Passengers said it took nearly 20 minutes for the train to stop.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 31, In the Philippines another strong earthquake, the third this month, killed five people in Cotabato province.
(SFC, 11/1/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 31, In Spain five men were acquitted of a 2016 rape on the grounds that their 14-year-old victim had been unconscious at the time. The Barcelona-based court ruled that the men were guilty of the lesser crime of sexual abuse and sentenced them to 10-12 years and fined them 12,000 euros ($13,300).
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Oct 31, Turkey's Anadolu news agency said an appeals court ruled for the release of Republican People's Party ex-legislator Eren Erdem. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison in March, accused of supporting US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Ukraine's parliament approved a bill that criminalizes state officials illegally enriching themselves. Ukraine had passed a law criminalizing illicit enrichment in 2015 but the constitutional court overturned the law in February.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Ukraine and NATO issued a joint statement committing to uphold minority rights in Ukraine, a step welcomed by the Hungarian authorities who had threatened to block Kiev's NATO membership over the issue.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, Three United Nations agencies warned that record 45 million people across southern Africa face severe food shortages in the next six months, with around a quarter of them currently enduring drought-induced "crisis" food insecurity.
(Reuters, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur for another year in hopes the new civilian-led transitional government can restore peace.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, said Yemen's civil war has killed more than 100,000 people since 2015.
(AP, 10/31/19)
2020 Oct 31, Pres. Donald Trump declared that 1 November will be marked nationwide as a “National Day of Remembrance for Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens".
(The Independent, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the White House coronavirus adviser, appeared on a Russian state-sponsored news show that has been instrumental in an effort by the Russian government to spread false health information during the pandemic. Atlas apologized the next day for appearing on the show, but not for the content of the interview, where he continued a pattern as Mr. Trump’s adviser of downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 11/2/20)
2020 Oct 31, California to date had 928,862 cases of coronavirus and 17,627 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 118,260 cases and 1,780 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 9,053,220 with the death toll at 229,768.
(sfist.com, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinian urged Russia to consider providing security assistance to end the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, the biggest escalation in the decades-long conflict between his country and Azerbaijan. The request came as Azerbaijani troops forged deeper into Nagorno-Karabakh and both sides accused each of breaking a mutual pledge not to target residential areas hours after it was made.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Austria announced a nighttime curfew and the closure of cafes, bars and restaurants to all but take-away service as a surge in coronavirus infections threatened to overwhelm its hospitals.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Sean Connery (90), cinema’s first James Bond, died overnight in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he had a home. Connery was the top box-office star in both Britain and the United States in 1965 after the success of “From Russia With Love" (1963), “Goldfinger" (1964) and “Thunderball" (1965). But he grew tired of playing Bond after the fifth film in the series, “You Only Live Twice" (1967), and was replaced by George Lazenby. In 1967 he directed "The Bowler and the Bunnet." Connery also starred in "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) and "The Untouchables" (1987), for which he won his only Oscar.
(NY Times, 10/31/20)(Econ., 11/7/20, p.80)
2020 Oct 31, Britain announced expansive new restrictions that effectively establish a national lockdown to try to keep their hospitals from being overwhelmed amid vast second-wave surges in coronavirus infections.
(NY Times, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Canada a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a Japanese sword killed two people and injuring five others on Halloween near the historic Château Frontenac hotel in Quebec City. Suspect Carl Girouard (24) was arrested on Nov. 1.
(AP, 11/1/20)(SFC, 11/2/20, p.A2)
2020 Oct 31, China suspended imports from FIREXPA S.A., an Ecuadorian seafood product manufacturer, after the novel coronavirus was found on the packaging of a batch of imported frozen fish, according to a notice by the General Administration of Customs.
(Reuters, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Eritrea's government declared that Ethiopia's Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was "on its deathbed".
(Econ., 11/7/20, p.41)
2020 Oct 31, In France a Greek Orthodox priest was shot outside his church in the city of Lyon, and police hunted for the assailant. The priest was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries after being hit in the abdomen.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany a first case of African swine fever (ASF) was reported found in a wild boar in the eastern region of Saxony. This brought the total number of confirmed cases to 117 since the first one on Sept. 10.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt opened, nine years late and far above its original budget. Ground was broken for BER in 2006.
(SSFC, 11/1/20, p.A6)(Econ., 10/17/20, p.45)
2020 Oct 31, In Iran total COVID-19 deaths rose by 386 over the past 24 hours to reach 34,864. Total cases rose by 7,820 to 612,772. Police said weddings, wakes and conferences will be banned in Tehran until further notice as the Middle East’s hardest-hit nation battles a third wave of COVID-19.
(Reuters, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Iraqi security forces cleared out sit-in tents from Baghdad's central square that has been the epicenter of the anti-government protest movement, a year after the eruption of demonstrations against corruption led to months of clashes with authorities across the country.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Thousands of Israelis protested in Jerusalem in the latest weekly demonstration against PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his handling of the coronavirus crisis and the corruption charges he faces.
(AP, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Ivory Coast began its controversial presidential election. At least two people were killed during the vote. Several polling stations were ransacked in opposition strongholds and election materials were burned. Riots had broken out in August after President Alassane Ouattara said he would run again following the sudden death of his preferred successor.
(AP, 10/31/20)(AP, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, The Dutch government put on hold its plan to bail out KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, after pilots rejected a wage-freeze until 2025.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Niger US special forces rescued American citizen Philipe Nathan Walton, who was abducted earlier this week.
(AP, 10/31/20)
2020 Oct 31, Portugal's government announced new lockdown restrictions from Nov. 4 for most of the country, telling people to stay at home except for outings for work, school or shopping, and ordering companies to switch to remote working.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Slovakia launched a huge logistical operation to test most of its population over the weekend to reverse a rise in the pandemic.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Oct 31, Tanzania's two main opposition parties demanded fresh elections, after denouncing last week's presidential vote as fraudulent.
(BBC, 10/31/20)
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