Today in History - December 31
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192 Dec 31, Lucius A.A. Commodus (31), Emperor of Rome (180-192), was murdered. His mistress Marcia, Chamberlain Eclectus, and praetorian prefect Laetus hired the wrestler Narcissus to strangle Commodus after they found their names on an imperial execution list.
(PCh, 1992, p.42)(MC, 12/31/01)
406 Dec 31, Godagisel, king of the Vandals, died in battle as some 80,000 Vandals attacked over the Rhine at Mainz.
(MC, 12/31/01)
765 Dec 31, The coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui was interred in a stupa built in China.
(MC, 12/31/01)
870 Dec 31, Skirmish at Englefield. Ethelred of Wessex beat back a Danish invasion army.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1378 Dec 31, Callistus III, [Alfonso the Borgia], Pope (1455-58), was born.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1384 Dec 31, John Wycliffe, English religious reformer and bible translator, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1492 Dec 31, 100,000 Jews were expelled from Sicily.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1502 Dec 31, Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) occupied Urbino.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1514 Dec 31, Andreas Vesalius (d.1564), anatomist, author of “De Humani Corporis Fabrica," was born in Brussels, Belgium
(NH, 10/96, p.34)(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(MC, 12/31/01)
1564 Dec 31, Willem of Orange demanded freedom of conscience and religion.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands. A company of 218 merchants were granted a monopoly to trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. For its first 20 years the company operated out of the home of its governor, Sir Thomas Smythe.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.109)
1687 Dec 31, The 1st Huguenots departed France to the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1705 Dec 31, Catherine of Braganza (b.1638), queen consort of England, of Scotland and of Ireland from 1662 to 1685 as the wife of King Charles II, died in Portugal. She was the daughter of King John IV, who became the first king of Portugal from the House of Braganza in 1640 after overthrowing the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs over Portugal. Catherine served as regent of Portugal during the absence of her brother in 1701 and during 1704–1705, after her return to her homeland as a widow.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Braganza)
1711 Dec 31, Duke of Marlborough was fired as English army commander.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1720 Dec 31, Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of James II, known as the Young Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie, was born.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1738 Dec 31, Charles Lord Cornwallis (d.1805), soldier and statesman, was born. "Fire when ready Gridley."
(MC, 12/31/01)
1745 Dec 31, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army met with de Esk.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1762 Dec 31, The Mozart family moved from Vienna to Salzburg.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1775 Dec 31, George Washington ordered recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1775 Dec 31, The British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1783 Dec 31, Import of African slaves was banned by all of the Northern American states.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1805 Dec 31, The French Revolutionary calendar law was abolished. France returned to the Gregorian calendar.
(K.I.-365D, p.43)(MC, 12/31/01)
1815 Dec 31, George Gordon Meade (d.1872), Union general, was born. He defeated Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg.
(HN, 12/31/99)(MC, 12/31/01)
1841 Dec 31, Alabama became the 1st state to license dental surgeons.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1852 Dec 31, The richest year of the gold rush ended, with $81.3 million in gold produced.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1857 Dec 31, Britain's Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1858 Dec 31, Vincas Kudirka (d.1899), author of the Lithuanian national anthem, was born in Vilkaviskis County.
(LC, 1998, p.30)(LHC, 12/31/02)
1859 Dec 31, Luigi Ricci (54), composer, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1862 Dec 31, President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1862 Dec 31, In Tennessee Union General William Rosecrans' army repelled two Confederate attacks at the Second Battle of Murfreesboro (aka Battle of Stone's River). Fighting continued to Jan. 2, 1863.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stones_River)
1862 Dec 31, The USS Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, NC., while being towed by the Rhode Island. 16 officers and seamen died. In 1973 scientists from North Carolina’s Duke University discovered the deteriorating relic 16 miles from the coast, in 240 feet of water. In 1975 the site was designated the nation’s first marine sanctuary, and it was the first shipwreck to be named a National Historic Landmark in the United States. In 2002 the turret was raised.
(SFC, 8/6/02, p.A2)(HNQ, 11/29/02)(ON, 10/08, p.5)
1869 Dec 31, Henri Matisse (d.1954), French artist best known for his paintings "Woman with a Hat" and "The Red Studio," was born. His work included the “Dance II," now at the Hermitage in Moscow. In 1998 Hilary Spurling authored “The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol 1: 1869-1908."
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A5)(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.9)(HN, 12/31/98)
1877 Dec 31, Pres. and Mrs. Hayes celebrated their silver anniversary (technically, a day late) by re-enacting their wedding ceremony in the White House.
(AP, 12/31/02)
1879 Dec 31, Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1880 Dec 31, George Catlett Marshall, Chief of Staff who led the U.S. Army to victory in World War II and later became Secretary of State for President Harry Truman, was born. He won Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for the Marshall Plan.
(WUD, 1994 p.879)(HN, 12/31/98)(MC, 12/31/01)
1882 Dec 31, Leon Michel Gambetta (44), French attorney and premier (1881-82), died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1890 Dec 31, Ellis Island, NYC, opened as a US immigration depot.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1895 Dec 31, Ogden Bolton Jr. of Canton, Ohio, was awarded US patent 552,271 for an "electrical bicycle."
(https://tinyurl.com/cgn6qfp)(SFC, 3/5/21, p.B2)
1897 Dec 31, Brooklyn, N.Y., spent its last day as a separate entity before becoming part of New York City.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1899 Dec 31, Karl Millocker (b.1842), Austrian conductor and composer, died.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Mill%C3%B6cker)
1899 Dec 31, Silvestre Revueltas (d.1940), violinist, conductor and composer (Sensemaya), was born in Santiago, Papasquiaro, Mexico.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvestre_Revueltas)
1904 Dec 31, Nathan Milstein, concert violinist, was born in Odessa, Russia.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1905 Dec 31, Broadway composer Jule Styne was born in London.
(AP, 12/31/05)
1907 Dec 31, For 1st time a ball was dropped at Times Square to signal new year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1907 Dec 31, Gustav Mahler conducted the Metropolitan Opera.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1908 Dec 31, Simon Wiesenthal, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust who dedicated his life to tracking down former Nazis, was born.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1910 Dec 31, US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes for the year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1911 Dec 31, Tennessee Coal’s convict lease contract with Louisiana expired.
(WSJ, 7/16/01, p.A10)
1911 Dec 31, Helene Dutrieu won the Femina aviation cup in Etampes. She set a distance record for women at 158 miles.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1915 Dec 31, The Germans torpedoed the British liner Persia without any warning; 335 are dead.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1918 Dec 31, Kid Gleason replaced Pants Rowland as White Sox manager.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1923 Dec 31, BBC began using the Big Ben chime ID.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1923 Dec 31, The Sahara was crossed by an automobile for the first time.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1929 Dec 31, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time. Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with writing the song, although a similar poem by Robert Ayton (1570-1638), not to mention even older folk songs, use the same phrase, and may well have inspired Burns. The literal translation means "old long since" which less literally meant "days gone by."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne)(WSJ, 12/29/06, p.W10)
1929 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 248.48.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1930 Dec 31, Odetta, [Holmes], folk singer (Sanctuary), was born in Birmingham, Ala.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, Pontifical encyclical Casti connubial was against mixed marriages.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in this year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, Brewery heir Adolphus Busch was kidnapped.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1937 Dec 31, Anthony Hopkins, actor (Elephant Man, QB VII, Magic, Bounty, Silence of the Lambs), was born in Wales.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1938 Dec 31, Dr. R.N. Harger's "drunkometer," the 1st breath test, was introduced in Indiana.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1939 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 150.24.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1941 Dec 31, General MacArthur reported that U.S. lines in Manila had been pushed back by the Japanese.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1942 Dec 31, After five months of battle, Emperor Hirohito allowed the Japanese commanders at Guadalcanal to retreat.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1943 Dec 31, John Denver, singer (Rocky Mt High), was born in NM.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, Ben Kingsley, actor (Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice), was born in Scarborough, England.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, NYC's Times Square greeted Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1945 Dec 31, The ratification of the UN Charter was completed.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1945 Dec 31, Czechoslovakia began forcing the German population of the Sudetenland back to Germany.
(WSJ, 11/25/96, p.A15)
1946 Dec 31, President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
(HN, 12/31/98)(AP, 12/31/97)
1950 Dec 31, Charles Koechlin (b.1867), French composer, teacher and writer on music, died in France. He visited the USA four times to lecture and teach in 1918-19, 1928, 1929 and 1937. On the second and third visits he taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koechlin)
1951 Dec 31, The 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1952 Dec 31, Hank Williams died at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac full of pills and booz on his way to a gig.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, Par p.8)
1958 Dec 31, Cuba’s dictator Juan Batista fled the country taking most of the Central Bank’s reserves of dollars and gold as rebels under Fidel Castro marched into Havana.
(Econ, 12/3/16, p.18)
1959 Dec 31, Bebe Neuwirth, actress (Lilith-Cheers, Damn Yankees), was born in Princeton, NJ.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1959 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 679.36.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1961 Dec 31, "lrma La Douce" closed at the Plymouth Theater in NYC after 527 performances.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 Dec 31, Beach Boys played their debut gig under that name. The Beach Boys band was formed with brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. Their hit “Surfin" came out the same year.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.50)(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 Dec 31, The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1964 Dec 31, Syrian-based al-Fatah guerrillas of Yasser Arafat launched their 1st raid on Israel with the aim of provoking a retaliation and sparking an Arab war against Israel. Fatah, a Palestinian movement for independence, made the first terror attack on Israel and initiated the armed struggle for a state.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 6/5/02, p.D7)
1965 Dec 31, California became the largest state in population.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1965 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Jean-Bedel Bokassa overthrew his cousin, David Dacko, in a bloodless coup that was said to be backed by the French. He abolished the 1959 constitution, dissolved the National Assembly and concentrated power in the presidency.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A24)
1967 Dec 31, Evel Knievel (1938-2007) failed in his attempt to jump Caesar's Palace Fountain.
(www.evelknievel.com/ek-timeline.html)
1968 Dec 31, The Soviet Union's TU-144, similar in appearance to the Concorde, made its 1st flight. The first Tu-144S production aircraft crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144)
1969 Dec 31, In San Francisco the Cockettes, an avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group recently founded by Hibiscus (George Edgerly Harris III), took the stage at the Palace Theater in North Beach. The group folded in 1972, but returned for a show in 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cockettes)(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A1)
1969 Dec 31, In Clarksville, Pa., Joseph Yablonski was murdered with his wife and daughter. Yablonski had lost an election for the presidency of the United Mine Workers 3 weeks earlier. [see Jan 5, 1970]
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1969 Dec 31, Salvatore Baccaloni (b.1900), Italian opera basso buffa and actor, died in NYC. His films included “Full of Life" (1957).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Baccaloni)
1970 Dec 31, Congress authorized the Eisenhower dollar coin.
(http://eisenhowerdollarguide.com/)
1970 Dec 31, Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney)
1970 Dec 31, President Allende nationalized the Chilean coal mines.
(www.historyorb.com/countries/chile)
1972 Dec 31, Roberto Clemente (b.1934), baseball player, died in a plane crash while enroute from Puerto Rico to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. In 2006 David Maraniss authored “Clemente."
(WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
1974 Dec 31, US Congress overrode Pres. Ford’s veto of the Freedom of Information Act-strengthening amendments in the Privacy Act of 1974. It was passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It allowed ordinary citizens to hold the US government accountable by requesting public documents and records.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974)
1974 Dec 31, Private US citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1977 Dec 31, "Bubbling Brown Sugar" closed at ANTA Theater NYC after 766 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbling_Brown_Sugar)
1977 Dec 31, Cambodia broke relations with Vietnam.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1978 Dec 31, John McFall (1918-2006), an 11-term California Democrat, resigned from the US House of Representatives. In October the House had reprimanded him and 2 other California Democratic colleagues, Edward Roybal and Charles Wilson, for the questionable handling of money donated by South Korean businessman Tongsun Park.
(SFC, 3/15/06, p.B7)
1978 Dec 31, Peter Seeburg, one of 3 Univ. of California scientists who had identified the DNA for human growth hormone earlier in the year, returned to UCSF in a "midnight raid" and remove genetic material. Seeburg had left the university in late 1978 to join Genentech giving up rights to his materials, for which UCSF had filed a patent. In 1990 UCSF filed a patent infringement suit against Genentech.
(SFC, 5/21/99, p.B2)(www.mindfully.org/GE/Biotech-Born-Thief-1978.htm)
1978 Dec 31, Taiwanese diplomats struck their colors for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, marking the end of diplomatic relations with the United States.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1978 Dec 31, Nicolau Lobato (b.1946), East Timor guerrilla commander, was killed. Jose Alexandre Gusmao was made the de facto Falintil leader.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falintil)
1980 Dec 31, A bomb blast wrecked the Jewish-owned Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 16 people and wounding more than 80.
(www.emergency-management.net/bombings.htm)
1980 Dec 31, Marshall McLuhan (b.1911), Canadian professor, cultural philosopher and writer, died at age 69. He was the author "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man." In 1996 a CD-ROM titled "Understanding McLuhan" was released.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, BR p.8)(V.D.-H.K.p.357)(AP, 12/31/05)
1981 Dec 31, CNN launched Headline News.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100262)
1981 Dec 31, The Blue and Gold Fleet discontinued its ferry service between Berkeley and SF due to low usage. The service had operated for 5 months averaging 169 passengers a day.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.F2)
1981 Dec 31, In Ghana Lt. Jerry Rawlings, a young fighter pilot, toppled Pres. Hilla Limann.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A22)
1982 Dec 31, In Poland Martial Law was suspended. It was terminated on July 22, 1983.
(www.videofact.com/english/martial_law.htm)
1983 Dec 31, In France bombings in the main railroad terminal in Marseilles and on the Paris-Marseilles express train killed 5 people and injured 50. The attack was attributed to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(http://lists.jammed.com/IWAR/1997/12/0117.html)
1983 Dec 31, In Nigeria the military again ousted the civilian government. Gen’l. Muhammadu Buhari (b.1942), a Muslim from the Hausa tribe (Fulani), took power in a coup. He soon launched a “war on indiscipline" and continue to rule for 18 months.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammadu_Buhari)(Econ, 3/12/11, p.58)
1984 Dec 31, NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrendered to police in NH.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199801/ai_n8770775)
1985 Dec 31, Singer Rick Nelson (45) and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1986 Dec 31, A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killed 97 and injured 140 people. Three hotel workers later pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the blaze.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1987 Dec 31, One second was added to the year to compensate for precession of earth's axis.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1987 Dec 31, Robert Mugabe was sworn in as Zimbabwe's first executive president. Joshua Nkomo rejoined the Zimbabwe government as vice president.
(AP, 12/31/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Nkomo)
1988 Dec 31, President Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev exchanged New Year's messages in which both leaders expressed optimism about future superpower relations.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1989 Dec 31, "Me & My Girl," a revival of the 1937 British musical, closed at Marquis Theater, NYC, after 1420 performances.
(http://tinyurl.com/k3y4d)
1989 Dec 31, The Japanese Nikkei Index peaked at 38,915. The DJIA was at 2753.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.C1)
1989 Dec 31, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir fired Science Minister Ezer Weizman, accusing him of meeting with officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1990 Dec 31, Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV began transmitting.
(www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi?askmonth=12&askday=31)
1990 Dec 31, George Allen, US football coach (LA Rams, Wash Redskins), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Allen_(football))
1991 Dec 31, President Bush arrived in Australia as part of a 12-day Pacific trip.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, Representatives of the government of El Salvador and rebels reached agreement at the United Nations on a peace accord aimed at ending 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, This was the last day of existence for the USSR.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec01/russia_coup.html)
1992 Dec 31, President Bush visited Somalia, where he saw firsthand the famine racking the east African nation. He praised U.S. troops that provided relief to the starving population.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1992 Dec 31, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was jeered by Bosnians during a visit to Sarajevo.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1992 Dec 31, The Nation of Czechoslovakia officially ended with division into two Nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1992. When the country split, all citizens were deemed to be either Czech or Slovak, based on their parentage. The vast majority of the Romany living in the Czech Republic are of Slovak descent, and they had to apply for Czech citizenship. In 2009 Mary Haimann authored “Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed."
(HFA, '96, p.44)(SFC, 5/13/96, p.A-8)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.84)
1993 Dec 31, Entertainer Barbra Streisand performed her first paid concert in 22 years, singing to a sellout crowd at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1993 Dec 31, Scott Douglas (38) beat his wife, Anne Scripps Douglas (b.1946), with a claw hammer in their Bronxville home. She went into a coma and died Jan 6, 1994. Anne Scripps Douglas was the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps. Douglas disappeared, though his car was found on the off the Tappan Zee Bridge. His body was found washed up in the Bronx on March 30, 1994. In 2009 Anne Morell Petrillo (38), the daughter of Anne Scripps Douglas from a previous marriage, committed suicide off the Tappan Zee Bridge.
(SFC, 9/29/09, p.A9)(http://acollectionofarticlesannscripps.blogspot.com/)
1993 Dec 31, Former IBM chairman Thomas J. Watson died in Greenwich, Conn., at age 79.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1993 Dec 31, Samuel Morris Steward (b.1909), also known by the pen name Phil Andros, died. He was a novelist and tattoo artist later based in Oakland, California. His “Stud File" ran to more than 4,600 encounters with over 800 men. In 2010 Justin Spring authored “Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Andros)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.F1)(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
1993 Dec 31, Former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia (b.1939) died on New Year’s Eve. He had returned to lead an uprising in western Georgia, but the fighting was quickly put down and Gamsakhurdia was surrounded. His body was then taken to Chechnya. In 2007 His body was returned for burial in Georgia.
(AP, 3/28/07)
1994 Dec 31, John C. Salvi III, accused of killing two receptionists at two Boston-area abortion clinics on Dec 30, was arrested in Norfolk, Va. Salvi, later convicted of murder, committed suicide in prison.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1994 Dec 31, Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1994 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1995 Dec 31, Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky engaged in their 3rd sexual encounter. By this time Lewinsky was a member of the staff of the Office of legislative Affairs.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A12)
1995 Dec 31, The first US tanks crossed a pontoon bridge over the Sava River from Croatia to Bosnia to start the deployment of 20,000 US troops under IFOR, the Implementation Force under NATO command.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1995 Dec 31, Cartoonist Bill Watterson ended his "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip.
(http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/10/24/reclusive.cartoonist.ap/)
1995 Dec 31, In Algeria Ahmed Ouyahia began serving as Prime Minister and held that position until December 1998. He resigned following the election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika as President.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ouyahia)
1995 Dec 31, Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a UN-brokered cease-fire agreement.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1995 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1996 Dec 31, In China former student leader Li Hai was sentenced to 9 years in prison on charges of prying into state secrets.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C2)
1996 Dec 31, Leftist rebels in Peru released two diplomats, leaving 81 hostages in the besieged Japanese embassy residence in Lima.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1996 Dec 31, In Syria a New Year’s Eve bomb on a bus killed 9 and injured 44.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, A federal judge in Texas ruled that parts of the 1996 Telecommunications Act are unconstitutional.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A1)
1997 Dec 31, Microsoft bought the Hotmail E-mail service.
(www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1997/12/29/daily12.html)
1997 Dec 31, Michael L. Kennedy, 39-year-old son of the late US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a ski accident at Aspen, Colo.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, Pianist Floyd Cramer died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 64.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, In Sorocaba, Brazil, riot troops stormed a prison where inmates held hundreds of hostages, quickly ending a three-day rebellion without any deaths.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, China banned leaded gasoline in the whole Beijing area.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, The US State Dept. reported that Iraq had ordered the summary execution of “hundreds if not thousands" of political detainees in recent weeks. The exiled Iraqi Communist party in London said 1,500 prisoners were killed on Nov 21. The exiled Iraqi National Congress said 800 prisoners were recently executed. A former Dutch foreign minister and UN Human Rights investigator said about 200 were reportedly executed. Iraq denied the charges.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A18)
1997 Dec 31, In Kenya projected counts indicated that Moi would win the elections with about 40% of the vote. Former vice-president Mwai Kibaki had about 30%.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, Masked gunmen opened fire at the Clifton Tavern in Belfast and left one man dead and 5 wounded. The Loyalist Volunteer Force admitted killing Eddie Trainor (31) and wounding 5 others.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A16)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A15)
1997 Dec 31, In Pakistan Rafiz Tarar won the presidential election with 374 votes in the National Assembly. He faced a Jan 12 court hearing on charges of defaming the judiciary last month.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, In Zambia former Pres. Kaunda (73) was released from prison and placed under house arrest.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1998 Dec 31, In New Orleans a truck loaded with fireworks exploded prior to a New Years Eve show. 2 technicians were killed.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A12)
1998 Dec 31, In Cambodia Hun Sen said he would not oppose a trial of the 2 recently emerged Khmer Rouge defectors. The National Assembly passed a $393.4 million budget that included $133 million for defense and security.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C12)
1998 Dec 31, In China the collected villages of Bujun in Sichuan province cast ballots for their own magistrate.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A13)
1998 Dec 31, Europe's leaders proclaimed a new era as 11 nations merged currencies to create the euro, a shared money they said would boost business, underpin unity and strengthen their role in world affairs.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1999 Dec 31, The $500,000 Anheuser-Busch prize to the first person of team to circle the globe in a balloon expires. An additional $500,000 goes to a charity of the winner’s choice.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A6)
1999 Dec 31, The US was by a 1977 treaty required to give up control of the Panama Canal and withdraw its forces by this date. The treaty also required the US to pay for environmental cleanup.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C5)
1999 Dec 31, An arson attack of the genetic research building at Michigan State University caused $3.7 million in damages. Frank Ambrose of Detroit later admitted to the arson and went undercover for investigations of eco-terrorism. In 2008 Ambrose was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
(WSJ, 10/11/08, p.A7)(www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=409)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A3)
1999 Dec 31, Elliot L. Richardson (79), former Attorney General, died in Boston.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1999 Dec 31, In Afghanistan the hijackers of an Indian airline Flight 814 (see Dec 24) released all 150 hostages after India released 3 jailed militants: Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the Harkat-ul-Ansar rebel group, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargat, an Indian Kashmiri. 4 hijackers came off the plane and left one dead hijacker behind. The Taliban gave them 10 hours to leave the country.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A19)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A25)
1999 Dec 31, Burundian soldiers killed at least 43 people including children in the Kabezi commune in Bujumbura Rural province.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 31, In Congo Jean-Pierre Bemba said his Congolese Liberation Movement forces had ambushed and killed 80 government troops at Libanda.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, Europe’s leaders proclaimed a new era as eleven nations merged currencies to create the euro, a shared money they said would boost business, underpin unity and strengthen their role in world affairs.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1999 Dec 31, In Indonesia thousands of residents fled clashes between the Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands. 350 people had died in 5 days of violence. 5 people were killed at Makariki on Seram Island and security forces imposed a curfew.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Iran Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel during demonstrations for "Al-Quds Day." Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Lebanon Muslim militants ambushed an army patrol and killed 4 soldiers with 3 wounded in Diniyah. A kidnapped soldier was found dead the next day and a kidnapped Lt. Col. Was missing.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A27)
1999 Dec 31, Pres. Yeltsin (68) announced his resignation and handed power over to PM Putin. Yeltsin approved a law just before resigning that required presidential candidates to collect 1 million registered signatures to win a place on the next ballet. Putin flew to Chechnya and vowed to pursue terrorists everywhere.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/1/08, p.54)
2000 Dec 31, The US signed a treaty for the creation of the 1st permanent int’l. court, joining most other countries of the world, despite objections by conservatives and the Pentagon.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/05)
2000 Dec 31, Former Sen. Alan Cranston died in Los Altos, Calif., at age 86.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/01)
2000 Dec 31, Flamenco dancer Jose Greco died in Lancaster, Pa., at age 82.
(AP, 12/31/01)
2000 Dec 31, In London the Millennium dome opened for its last day.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A8)
2000 Dec 31, In the West Bank Binyamin Kahane, son of Jewish extremist Meir Kahane, and his wife Talia were killed in an ambush by Palestinian gunmen. Israeli military soon after killed Thabet Thabet, a Fatah leader.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A13)
2000 Dec 31, In Malaysia 15 parachutists planned to leap from the Petronas Towers just before midnight and land in the new year.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 31, In Mexico Pres. Fox ordered a 2nd military base closed in Chiapas. Separately the outgoing Tabasco state Congress named Enrique Priego as acting governor.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 31, In Pakistan staggered elections for municipal and district councils began. A third of the seats were reserved for women, another third for the poor.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
2000 Dec 31, Six Persian Gulf nations (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) signed a regional defense pact.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A10)
2000 Dec 31, In St. Lucia machete wielding men stormed the Castries Cathedral, hacked at worshipers and set them ablaze. One nun was killed and 12 people injured. Two suspects identified themselves as Rastafarian foes of corruption in the Catholic Church.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 31, Notre Dame tapped Tyrone Willingham to be its football coach, replacing George O'Leary, who'd resigned because of misstatements about his academic and athletic achievements on his resume; Willingham became the first black head coach in any sport for the Irish.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2001 Dec 31, The US designated 6 more entities as suspected terrorist organizations. 5 groups were active in the UK, the 6th was active in Spain. Lashkar-e-Taiba was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2001 Dec 31, It was reported that federal pay raises ranged from 4.5 to 5.4% with the largest increase going to workers in San Francisco.
(SFC, 12/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 31, The US planned to deploy elements of the 101st Airborne Division to replace Marines near Kandahar. US troops moved by helicopter to Helmand province, the region where Mohammed Omar was suspected to be.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 31, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent his final day in office praising police, firefighters, and other city employees, and said he had no regrets about returning to private life. In 2005 Fred and Harry Siegel authored “Prince of the City," an account of the Giuliani’s years as mayor of NYC.
(AP, 12/31/02)(WSJ, 6/23/05, p.D8)
2001 Dec 31, Actress Eileen Heckart died in Norwalk, Conn., at age 82.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2001 Dec 31, In Caracas, Venezuela, street vendors began selling pre-recorded CDs of banging pots to help drown out the long-winded speeches of Pres. Chavez. Earlier protests included the banging of pots and pans and became known as “cacerolazes." Approval ratings for Chavez had dropped from 80% to just over 50% in recent months.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A2)
2001 Dec 31, Pakistani high command planned to pull some 50,000 troops off the Afghan border and redeploy them along the India border.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A10)
2001 Dec 31, It was reported that Zimbabwe planned to publish the names of nearly 100,000 black citizens to be given portions of some 20 million acres of now farmland owned by whites.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 31, President Bush told reporters an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally "would cripple our economy."
(AP, 12/31/03)
2002 Dec 31, US executions for the year rose from 66 to71 with 33 in Texas.
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 31, Australia's asylum seeker detention centers were in turmoil following an attempted mass breakout and riot in a Sydney centre, an armed stand off at another and fires burning in two.
(Reuters, 12/31/02)
2002 Dec 31, In China a German-designed magnetic-levitation train hit 260 mph on its maiden run between Shanghai and Pudong airport.
(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A10)
2002 Dec 31, Two U.N. nuclear inspectors expelled by North Korea arrived in China, leaving the communist nation's nuclear program isolated from international scrutiny.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2002 Dec 31, In Colombia at least 12 people, including eight civilians, were killed in attacks by suspected rebels around the country.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Dec 31, Mexico City's only English-language newspaper, The News, shut down along with its sister Spanish-language publication, Novedades, after more than 50 years in operation.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2002 Dec 31, In Mexico illegal fireworks stands ignited in the port city of Veracruz as revelers thronged a marketplace to buy New Year's supplies. The blaze quickly engulfed an entire city block and killed at least 28 people.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Dec 31, In Puerto Rico police recaptured one of five convicts who escaped from prison when a helicopter swooped into their maximum security compound and spirited them away.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2003 Dec 31, Neal Batson ended his tenure as bankruptcy examiner of Enron. The 18-month probe had a final tab of $90 million. It included lawyer rates of as much as $600 an hour.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.C1)
2003 Dec 31, Chicago regained the title of America's murder capital. It finished 2003 with 599 homicides. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Gary, Ind., appeared to finish 2003 with the nation's highest per capita homicide rate for the ninth straight year.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, The JenniCam website, begun by Jennifer Ringley in 1996, shut down. 7 years earlier she installed a Web camera in her Pennsylvania college dorm room and kept it on for 24 hours a day recording every detail of her life.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.B4)
2003 Dec 31, China offered to allow Taiwan to fly unlimited numbers of direct charter flights to the mainland in 2004, if the island's government agrees to allow Chinese airlines to do the same the following year.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In Indonesia a bomb tore through a crowded New Year's concert in Aceh province, killing 10 people, including three children. 45 were wounded.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, In Iraq gunfire erupted in Kirkuk as hundreds of Arabs and Turkmen marched in protest over fears of Kurdish domination in the oil-rich northern city.
(AP, 12/31/03)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, A New Year's Eve car bombing at the upscale Nabil restaurant in Baghdad killed 8 people and injured 35.
(AP, 1/1/04)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, Security forces boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri (b.1963). For the next five months, el-Masri was a ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan. He was the wrong guy. El-Masri was dumped in Albania in a remote hillside on May 28, 2004, without explanation or apology. Five months later Germany withdrew warrants for the arrest of 13 CIA agents. In 2012 el-Masri took his case to Europe’s human rights court.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri)(AP, 2/9/11)(SSFC, 3/6/11, p.F6)(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A4)
2003 Dec 31, An avalanche swept down Mount Tasman, one of New Zealand's tallest peaks, killing four climbers and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In the Philippines a fire sparked by firecrackers swept through an old market in Lucena City, killing at least 14 people who were trapped inside their stalls.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, Vietnam sentenced Nguyen Vu Binh (35) to 7 years in jai and 3 years house arrest for writing an article in 2002 that circulated on the Internet criticizing a border agreement between Vietnam and China.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A3)
2004 Dec 31, The US pledged $350 million in grant aid for tsunami disaster relief. The World Bank committed $250 million. Great Britain offered $95 million.
(AP, 1/1/05)(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A1)
2004 Dec 31, Bulgarian authorities picked up Suleyman Demirel, one-time owner of Egebank and nephew of former pres. Demirel, and returned him to Turkey for trial. Egebank’s collapse had caused financial losses of $1.2 billion.
(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey p.10)
2004 Dec 31, Ricardo Palmera (54) became the first leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to be sent to face prosecution in a U.S. federal court.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Dec 31, In Colombia suspected Marxist rebels massacred 16 peasants, including women and children, in a remote area in lawless Arauca province.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Dec 31, Gerard Debreu (b.1921), winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1983), died in Paris.
(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Debreu)
2004 Dec 31, Spain's socialist government approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriages.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2004 Dec 31, Sudanese government and southern rebel officials signed landmark deals on how to implement a series of agreements on ending a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2004 Dec 31, Thai authorities said more than 2,230 foreigners from 36 nations were confirmed dead from Thailand's southern resorts alone.
(AP, 12/31/04)(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A1)
2004 Dec 30, Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovych resigned, acknowledging that he had little hope of reversing the election victory of his Western-leaning rival, Viktor Yushchenko.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Dick Clark, in his first television appearance since his stroke in 2004, helped to ring in the new year in Times Square.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2005 Dec 31, Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobil, retired. It was later revealed that he received $144,573 for each day he spent as chief from 1993 thru 2005.
(SFC, 4/15/06, p.C1)(www.exxposeexxon.com/newsroom/)
2005 Dec 31, A powerful storm plowed through Northern California, causing mudslides and widespread flooding and snarling holiday traffic from Sonoma to Monterey.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Guillermo Martinez (18) died in a Tijuana hospital one day after he was shot by a US Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego. On Jan 2 Mexico opened an investigation into the killing saying he was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to draw attention to a contentious US anti-immigration measure. In 2008 the US Dept. of Justice cleared the Border Patrol agent of any wrongdoing.
(AP, 1/3/06)(SFC, 2/16/08, p.A4)
2005 Dec 31, British subway workers in London walked out in a 24-hour strike timed to cripple the subway system on a night when tens of thousands of revelers were planning to celebrate New Year in the city.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A first group of UN peacekeepers from Mozambique left Burundi as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Cambodia police arrested two leading human rights activists on defamation charges as the UN human rights body expressed "extreme concern" over the move.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak swore in a new Cabinet that retained major personalities of the previous government, while adding two more pro-American business figures and installing Egypt's first minister to wear a headscarf. The government of PM Ahmed Nazif included Aisha Abdul Hadi, appointed as labor and immigration minister.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2005 Dec 31, In Egypt several Sudanese migrants injured when police violently cleared a ramshackle camp died later from their wounds, raising the death toll from the clash to 25. Sudanese refugees began trickling across the border to Israel following the clashes.
(AP, 12/31/05)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2005 Dec 31, In Palu, Indonesia, a bomb packed with ball bearings and nails ripped through a meat market crowded with holiday shoppers, killing at least eight people and wounding 45.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A bomb in Khalis killed 5 members of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Gunmen raided a house south of Baghdad, killing five Sunni family members, and a roadside bomb in the capital killed two policemen. The wave of violence claimed at least 20 lives.
(AP, 12/31/05)(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.A3)
2005 Dec 31, Al-Qaida in Iraq released 6 kidnapped employees of Sudan's embassy following the Sudanese government's pledge to close its embassy in Baghdad.
(Reuters, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Guillermo Martinez (18) died in a Tijuana hospital one day after he was shot by a US Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego. On Jan 2 Mexico opened an investigation into the killing saying he was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to draw attention to a contentious US anti-immigration measure.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2005 Dec 31, Dozens of Palestinian gunmen stormed several government offices in Gaza City and briefly took the Interior Ministry to demand jobs.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A British aid worker and her parents were whisked out of Gaza after being released by Palestinian gunmen who had abducted them two days earlier.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, El Salvador's 22 penitentiaries, designed to house 7,370 inmates, were packed with more than 12,500 prisoners.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2005 Dec 31, In Iraq inflation for the year ran at 15%. The official unemployment was 10%, but some believed that it could be more than 20%. The population was around 70 million.
(WSJ, 6/22/06, p.A12)
2005 Dec 31, Two Palestinians were killed in Israel's first deadly airstrike in a Gaza border area it recently put off-limits, just as a truce that has drastically reduced violence between the two sides formally ended.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo announced Indonesia's Lippo Group with local partners is investing some three billion pesos (56.5 million dollars) in a Philippine bank.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly to supply Ukraine with natural gas at the current price for three months, if the government in Kiev immediately agreed to a big price hike to take effect later.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Moscow jailed Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's former nuclear minister, on fraud charges after a Swiss court decided to extradite him to Russia instead of the US.
(WSJ, 1/3/06, p.A1)
2005 Dec 31, In Slovakia 7 tourists from the Czech Republic died in avalanches in the Tatra mountains. A day earlier a German was killed by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Sri Lanka police and soldiers cordoned off five districts in Colombo and detained more than 900 people during door-to-door searches to track down Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Syria's ruling Baath Party stripped former Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam of membership and joined parliament in demanding his trial on a charge of high treason. The French Foreign Ministry confirmed Khaddam has been in France for several months but declined to give any details on his whereabouts.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Yemeni kidnappers released a former German diplomat and his four family members.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2006 Dec 31, The US Medicare prescription drug plan went into effect.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared statewide emergencies after a winter storm dumped as much as 3-feet of snow across much of the Plains. Snowdrifts reached 10 feet and 12 people died in 4 states.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2006 Dec 31, American teenager Farris Hassan, who'd traveled alone to Iraq to experience the lives of its people, returned home to Florida after three weeks in the Middle East.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, In San Francisco members of the Baker’s Dozen, a choral group from Yale, were assaulted on 15th Ave. near Lake Street. Police went under criticism for not making any arrests.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A8)
2006 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists announced that the year 2006 was the deadliest for journalists and media workers worldwide, with at least 155 murders and unexplained deaths.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Scientists reported that they have used genetic engineering techniques to produce the first cattle that may be biologically incapable of getting Mad Cow disease.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A2)
2006 Dec 31, Seymour Martin Lipset (1922), renowned social scientist, died in Virginia. His books included “Political Man" (1960). Lipset had served as a political sociologist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and as the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Martin_Lipset)
2006 Dec 31, Belarus agreed to a more than doubling of the price it pays for Russian gas, signing what it called an "unfortunate" deal two minutes before a midnight New Year's Eve deadline expired.
(AFP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, The British Nuclear Group closed two nuclear power stations after 40 years of service. Dungeness A and Sizewell A were the oldest commercial nuclear plants in the world.
(AP, 12/31/06)(WSJ, 1/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 31, In Bulgaria 2 Chernobyl-era nuclear energy units were shut down at Kozloduy as an accession to Bulgaria’s joining the EU. This led to a cut in energy exports and to soaring energy prices in the Balkans.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.51)(http://tinyurl.com/2oyyok)
2006 Dec 31, In Ecuador the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, a package of trade benefits with the US offered in exchange for cooperation in counter-drug activities expired, but was extended for six months.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2006 Dec 31, Indonesian rescue boats picked up some 177 exhausted survivors from the Senopati Nusantara, an Indonesian ferry that sank in the Java Sea, but they also recovered dozens of bodies and around 400 people remained missing.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Japanese media reported that Japanese courts had sentenced 44 people to death in 2006, the largest number in at least 26 years, amid a toughening of sentences for violent crimes.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Saddam Hussein was buried in the Ouja, the village of his birth, 24 hours after his execution. The death toll for Americans killed in the Iraq war reached 3,000 as President Bush struggled to salvage a military campaign that has scant public support.
(AP, 12/31/06)(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Fighting erupted on the outskirts of the last remaining stronghold of Somalia's militant Islamic movement, as thousands of residents streamed from the area ahead of the feared battle with Ethiopian-backed government troops.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, In Thailand 6 bomb blasts rocked Bangkok on New Years Eve and 3 more just after midnight. 3 people were killed 38 wounded. The city cancelled its major New Year's Eve celebrations just as revelers had begun to gather ahead of the countdown.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Over a thousand Turks spent the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in emergency wards after stabbing themselves or suffering other injuries while sacrificing startled animals.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa rejected IMF directives to introduce more taxes in his impoverished southern African nation.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Dec 31, President George W. Bush signed into a law a measure aimed at allowing states, local governments, mutual funds and pension funds to divest from Sudan businesses, particularly its oil sectors.
(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, In Ohio a drunken driver went about four miles down a highway in the wrong direction before his pickup truck slammed into a minivan, killing a woman and four children and injuring three others. All 8 had been visiting family in Michigan and were returning to Maryland.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In San Francisco Albert Collins (30) shielded his daughter (9) from gunfire in the Sunnydale public housing project and was killed becoming the city’s 98th homicide victim.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.B1)
2007 Dec 31, Oakland, Ca., police officers shot and killed Andrew Moppin-Buckskin (20) at 47th and Int’l. Blvd. after he ran from his car following a traffic stop. In 2010 a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by the family of Moppin-Buckskin.
(SSFC, 1/17/10, p.C2)
2007 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists said at least 134 media workers were killed on assignment this year, most of them in Iraq, which has become the most dangerous place for journalists since the start of the US-led war there.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In California murders for 2007 in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood of Los Angeles held at 19 as of Dec 24. Murders there had dropped from 43 in 2005 to 19 in 2006. In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of Florencia 13, or F13, one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a NATO soldier and wounded four others. In Helmand province, a roadside bomb exploded against a police vehicle driving through Musa Qala, killing two officers. Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police this year, and large swaths of the country remained outside government control. More than 6,500 people, mostly militants, died in 2007, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials. Also in 2007, 110 US soldiers were killed in the country, the highest American toll since the 2001 invasion. US military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper said a one percentage-point cut to the country's consumption tax will be effective January 1, 2008.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages, including a 3-year old boy, from leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart as the guerrillas accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, In southern Egypt a bus plunged into a canal alongside the Nile River, killing 17 passengers and the driver.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A suicide bomber drove a truck rigged with explosives into a checkpoint manned by members of a US-backed security volunteer group in a town north of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Another three people were missing following the explosion in the town of Mishada, 20 miles north of the capital. A female suicide bomber detonated herself near a police patrol, wounding five policemen and four civilians in the town of Baqouba. In the town of Khalis gunmen traded fire with police and Awakening Council members, leaving one council member and one policeman dead. A roadside bomb targeting a patrol near the Iranian border killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured another four. According to Iraqi health, defense and interior ministries, 16,232 civilians, 432 soldiers and about 1,300 policeman died this year compared to 12,371 civilians, 603 soldiers and 1,224 policeman killed in 2006. 2007 was the deadliest year for the US military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed.
(AP, 12/31/07)(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, The number of people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence dropped dramatically this year. A report from an Israeli human rights group said Israeli forces killed 373 Palestinians during 2007, a 45 percent drop from the previous year. Palestinians killed 13 Israelis in the same period.
(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 31, Kenyan police battled thousands of opposition supporters enraged over President Mwai Kibaki's allegedly fraudulent re-election, firing tear gas and live ammunition as the death toll from the violence rose to 103.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Nepal 4 former communist rebels were sworn in as Cabinet ministers, ending a political crisis that began when the ex-guerrillas walked out of a coalition government three-months ago.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, North Korea failed to meet a year-end deadline to declare all its nuclear programs under an aid-for-disarmament deal, prompting disappointed reactions from South Korea, the United States and Japan.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A newly released video of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and an inconclusive medical report raised new doubts about the official explanation of her death and were likely to intensify calls for an independent, international investigation.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Palestinian pilgrims broke windows and burned mattresses and blankets in temporary camps to protest Egypt's refusal to let them return to Gaza through a crossing controlled by Hamas. A Palestinian woman (67) died of a heart attack when she was caught amid scuffles. The standoff over the pilgrims began Dec 29, when some 3,060 Palestinians returning from the hajj in Saudi Arabia arrived by ferry at the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba in southern Sinai, heading back to Gaza.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Sudan the African Union transferred authority to a new joint peacekeeping force with the UN in Darfur. An AU official said Ethiopia and Egypt will each send 850 troops early in the new year to serve with a joint UN-AU force in the Darfur region.
(AP, 12/31/07)(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Syria’s state-run media called on the US to begin a direct dialogue, a day after an influential US senator said Washington could "bridge the gap" between Israel and Syria.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Thailand a bomb attack wounded 27 people in Sungai Kolok, a tourist town where people had gathered to celebrate the New Year.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, President Hugo Chavez granted amnesty to many opponents accused of supporting a failed 2002 coup that briefly drove him from power. Chavez said he signed an amnesty decree that would also pardon others accused of attempting to overthrow his government in recent years.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2008 Dec 31, US mortgage lender Freddie Mac said interest rates on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to an average of 5.10% for the week ending this day, down from the previous week's 5.14%.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Aspen, Colorado, James Chester Blanning (72), walked into two downtown banks afternoon and left gift-wrapped bombs made of gasoline and cell phone components. He had skied competitively as a teen but had grown bitter about his hometown. His bombs caused the evacuation of a 16-block area, which lasted until 4 a.m. Police found Blanning dead in his Jeep Cherokee a few hours later in a rural area east of Aspen.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2008 Dec 31, Donald Westlake (1933), American mystery author, died while vacationing in Mexico. He authored over 90 books and a number of screenplays.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.B6)
2008 Dec 31, In Afghanistan Taliban militants attacked a district governor's compound in southern Helmand province, killing 20 police guards and fatally shooting the mother of one as she pleaded unsuccessfully for her son's life. Two foreign soldiers helping to fight the extremists were killed in separate incidents. US-led forces killed eight armed Taliban militants in Zabul province.
(AFP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, In Brazil Christian Wolffer (70), owner of the Wolffer Estate winery, bled to death after suffering two deep cuts on his back while swimming on New Year's Eve near the colonial town of Paraty, about 150 kilometers (100 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro. A man suspected of piloting a motorboat that struck and killed Wolffer was detained on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2008 Dec 31, It was reported that China has delayed plans to start the central section of its massive South-to-North water diversion project by 4 years due to environmental concerns.
(WSJ, 12/31/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 31, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that a pair of Chinese forestry executives cheated thousands of investors out of 160 million dollars by selling off "timber lands" in a barren desert region. Chairman Chen Xianggui of Inner Mongolia's Wanli Afforestation Co. was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a court in the region while general manager Liu Yanying received nine years for the pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, Tian Wenhua, former chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, one of China’s biggest dairy producers, pleaded guilty to selling fake and substandard milk powder.
(SFC, 1/1/09, p.A3)
2008 Dec 31, In Denmark a gunman shot and wounded two Israelis working at the Rosengaard mall in Odense. Police son arrested a 27-year-old Dane born in Lebanon of Palestinian parents.
(AP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Dec 31, India's president signed an anti-terror bill into law to boost police powers in the wake of a bloody attack on the country's financial capital.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Iraq Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani kicked off the country's second postwar bidding round, naming 11 oil and gas fields or groups of fields as eligible for development proposals. 8 people were killed in four bombings in the north. At least 314 US soldiers died in 2008, down from 904 in 2007.
(AP, 12/31/08)(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, Israel rejected international pressure for a two-day cease-fire with Hamas and sent warplanes to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic rulers. Gaza officials said the five days of airstrikes have killed 390, including 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, Mexico sent 10 alleged drug smugglers to the United States, capping an already record year for extraditions between the two countries. 2 Canadian tourists were hospitalized with gunshot wounds after assailants opened fire at a nightclub in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, In Pakistan tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships continued their attacks in the Khyber Pass. Over the last two days, security forces destroyed 19 suspected militant compounds and arrested 28 Pakistanis. Government troops reportedly killed three militants in the operation to secure the major supply route to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, A senior Pakistani government official said Zarar Shah, a militant arrested in Pakistan, has confessed involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and is giving investigators details of the plot. Shah and another suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, were said to be cooperating with investigators.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Bangkok, Thailand, a New Year's Eve fire erupted at the Santika nightclub. Before the revelry was over, 62 people were killed and more than 200 injured after they tried to flee what swiftly became a charred, gutted ruin in a glitzy Bangkok entertainment area.
(AP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/4/09)
2008 Dec 31, The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on an Arab request for a binding and enforceable resolution condemning Israel and halting its military attacks on Gaza. The US immediately called the draft resolution circulated by Libya on behalf of the 22-member Arab League "unacceptable" and "unbalanced" and because it makes no mention of halting the Hamas rocket attacks that led to the Israeli offensive.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, The Vatican announced that it will no longer automatically adopt new Italian laws as its own, citing the vast number of laws Italy churns out, many of which are in odds with Catholic doctrine.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2009 Dec 31, US District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the case against the Blackwater guards accused of the shooting in a crowded Baghdad intersection on Sep 16, 2007.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2009 Dec 31, The Montana Supreme Court said that nothing in state law prevents patients from seeking physician assisted suicide, making Montana the third state to allow the procedure.
(SFC, 1/1/10, p.A5)
2009 Dec 31, Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 Dec 31, Afghan police said militants beheaded 6 Afghans for cooperating with government authorities. The men were killed near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot. A seventh victim was being treated for serious neck wounds. A US service member died in eastern Afghanistan of injuries not related to battle. A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/31/09)(AP, 1/1/10)
2009 Dec 31, In Australia residents returned to survey the wreckage after Western Australia's worst wildfire in 50 years engulfed 38 homes in an isolated rural community.
(AFP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, In Finland Ibrahim Shkupolli (43) shot himself at his home in Espoo after going on a rampage that killed his ex-girlfriend, then four other people at a local shopping mall where she also worked.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, Hundreds of demonstrators rallied on opposite sides of an Israeli-Gaza border crossing to protest the blockade of the seaside territory imposed by Egypt and Israel. Gaza's Hamas parliament approved a government budget of $540 million for 2010, suggesting that a tight border blockade isn't stopping the cash flow to the Islamic militants. The Hamas government has about 32,000 people on its payroll, including civil servants and members of the security forces. About $30 million of the budget would go to Arab residents of Jerusalem and Islamic sites in the city.
(AP, 12/31/09)(AP, 1/2/10)
2009 Dec 31, Lithuania began shutting down its the 2nd Ignalina nuclear reactor. It was scheduled to be disconnected from the power grid an hour before midnight. The 1st reactor was shut down in 2004.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, A Malaysian court ruled that a Catholic weekly, the Herald, had a constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God, striking down a government ban as illegal. On Jan 6, the High Court suspended its ruling following an appeal by the government and with the consent of the Catholic church.
(AP, 12/31/09)(Econ, 1/16/10, p.44)
2009 Dec 31, In Mexico Roberto Salcedo (33), an assistant principal and Southern California school board member, was killed while he and his wife were visiting relatives in Gomez Palacio.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2009 Dec 31, In Myanmar Freelance reporter Hla Hla Win (25) was sentenced by a court in Pakokku for an alleged violation of the country's Electronics Act. She was arrested in September after visiting a Buddhist monastery in the northern town of Pakokku. The jailed reporter had worked with the Myanmar exile broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Oslo, Norway. A man accompanying her was sentenced to 26 years in jail.
(AFP, 1/6/10)
2009 Dec 31, In northwest Pakistan a suspected US missile strike near Mir Ali hit a house and killed 3 people. In 2010 a Pakistani tribesman sought 500 million dollars in compensation from the CIA after his son and brother were killed in the drone attack. In 2015 a judge ordered criminal charges to be filed against former acting general counsel John Rizzo and ex-station chief Jonathan Bank.
(AP, 1/1/10)(AFP, 11/29/10)(SFC, 4/8/15, p.A3)
2009 Dec 31, Moscow police detained dozens of people at an anti-Kremlin protest, including Lyudmila Alexeyeva (82), a prominent rights activist. The New Year's Eve protest is a repeat of actions held on the 31st of July, August and October. The timing is a nod to the 31st Article of the Russian constitution, which guarantees the right of assembly.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, South Korea’s Pres. Lee Myung-bak pardoned former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was convicted of tax evasion on Apr 17, 2008. Pres. Lee Myung-bak said the country needed Mr. Lee’s help to win South Korea’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.74)
2009 Dec 31, In Sudan 17 people were killed when armed civilians ambushed south Sudanese soldiers trying to disarm tribes following heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous region.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2009 Dec 31, The Ugandan government said it was investigating the breakaway Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be illegal. 20 renegade Catholic priests, who are either married or want to marry, have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church and formed a new church where celibacy is not required. Vatican officials said the priests were now considered "outside" the Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2010 Dec 31, San Francisco was chosen to host the next America’s Cup in 2013.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A1)
2010 Dec 31, In Arkansas a tornado killed 3 people in the hamlet of Cincinnati. A storm spawned by the same weather left 3 people dead near Rolla, Missouri. A 4th person, injured in Rolla, died the next day.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A11)
2010 Dec 31, The body of John Wheeler III (66), a national defense consultant, was found in a load of trash at a landfill in Wilmington, Delaware. He was last seen alive a day earlier in Wilmington.
(http://tinyurl.com/2c6hzrd)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2010 Dec 31, In western Virginia a small aircraft collided with a medical helicopter in the air, killing two people on the plane.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Afghan forces conducted an overnight raid in two compounds in Tahar province killing a Taliban district chief in a gunfight that also left an Afghan policeman and a border guard dead, NATO said insurgents attacks claimed the lives of two coalition service members. Coalition forces killed Abdul Hai, a Taliban leader in Kunduz.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Argentina thieves dug a 100-foot-long (30m) ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a Buenos Aires bank and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch's 1,408 boxes. The robbery wasn't discovered until the bank opened on Jan 3.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Australia floodwater rose across a vast area in the northeast, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export port.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Belarus declared that Europe's top rights watchdog would no longer be able to work in the country, after the OSCE condemned the conduct of this month's presidential election.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Brazil's president granted political asylum to Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, but the case must still be heard by the nation's Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Britain said it no longer recognized the ambassador appointed by Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo who is refusing to step down after elections widely viewed as having been won by his rival Alassane Ouattara. Britain said it would give support at the UN for the use of force to oust Ivory Coast's incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo if West African nations sought backing for a military intervention.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation said in a new report that law enforcement officials from police to prison wardens routinely torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Mexico's federal police said that the once-fearsome La Familia drug cartel has been "completely dismembered" and has broken down into small groups that commit robberies to pay their members. The half-naked body of a woman who had escaped from prison officials while facing kidnapping charges was found hanging by the neck from an overpass in Monterey. 5 inmates, including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat, escaped a prison in Cancun.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 31, Nigerian police said they have arrested Bunu Wasili (55), a man suspected to be a leader and financier of Boko Haram, along with 91 others. The radical Muslim sect was responsible for dozens of recent killings in northern Nigeria. A New Year's Eve bombing in Abuja killed 4 people.
(AP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Pakistan violence flared as police and protesters clashed during a mass protest strike that closed businesses across the country over a bid to end the death penalty for blasphemy. A US missile strike killed 8 suspected militants in North Waziristan. A bomb blew up outside a district police headquarters in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a bystander and wounding two other people. A second bomb targeting a NATO supply convoy in the border town of Chaman set one fuel tanker on fire and wounded a passer-by. The Pakistani Taliban released 23 tribesmen it had kidnapped and held captive for three weeks. They were released after being tried by a Taliban court and being submerged in cold water as punishment.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas laid the first stone of what will become a Palestinian embassy in Brazil, the most important Latin American country to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, In the Philippines Councilman Reynaldo Dagsa was shot dead in Manila. A photograph identified one gunmen, who was captured Jan 3 along with an accomplice. One suspect was a car thief who was out on bail and likely sought revenge against Dagsa for ordering his arrest last year. The main shooter, Arnel Buenaflor, was captured on Jan 6 in a boarding house in Aurora township.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/7/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy Russian prime minister during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, was among 68 people arrested at an unsanctioned rally in Moscow. He and other protesters had gathered on the opposite side of a square from an authorized protest. On Jan 2 he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for failure to follow police orders. Nemtsov was released on Jan 15. A female suicide bomber was killed on the outskirts of Moscow by a bomb that was to have been deployed in the city's central Manezh Square where Muscovites throng for holiday celebrations. A 2nd female suicide bomber was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in jail in May, 2012. On Nov 28, 2012, Ilyas Saidov of Dagestan, who brought the suicide belts, was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 2/3/11(AP, 11/28/12)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia 13 villages remained without power following a freezing rain that caused trees and power lines to snap. Power was cut off to 789 villages and towns with a total of 400,000 inhabitants in the region around Moscow.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, Rwandan police said they are working with counterparts in Dhaka to deport 64 Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking, after the arrest in Kigali of their suspected trafficker. Abdul Sattar Miah was arrested Dec 27 in a hotel in Kigali, in possession of the passports of his presumed victims.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The FV Vega 5, hijacked by Somali pirates, was spotted near the Mozambique coast, approximately 200 nautical miles southwest of the Comoros islands. It was seen towing what looked to be a pirate attack skiff and did not respond to any calls.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In South Africa thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants crowded outside immigration offices as a deadline approached for them to obtain permits or face deportation.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2011 Dec 31, President Barack Obama signed a wide-ranging defense bill into law despite having "serious reservations" about provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists. The bill also applies penalties against Iran's central bank in an effort to hamper Tehran's ability to fund its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, The US ended import tariffs and tax credits that have long sheltered ethanol distilled from corn in the US from the same stuff made from sugarcane in Brazil.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 31, A NASA spacecraft, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, slipped into orbit around the moon. A 2nd Grail probe was expected to enter orbit the next day. Both were launched last September aboard the same rocket to measure lunar gravity.
(SSFC, 1/1/12, p.A10)
2011 Dec 31, Police in Beebe, Arkansas, said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks. Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on the town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, In NYC dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested as they tore down barricades surrounding Zucotti park just before midnight.
(SFC, 1/2/12, p.A4)
2011 Dec 31, Debra Cook, a former defender of Scientology, wrote an explosive e-mail to the organization’s 12,000 members saying chairman David Miscavige is mismanaging its finances and breaking internal rules.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.54)
2011 Dec 31, Basel 2.5, a new set of int’l. rules charging banks higher capital for risks in their trading books, took effect in most European and major world financial jurisdictions.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.69)
2011 Dec 31, Afghan child bride, Sahar Gul (15), spoke of how she was tortured by her mother-in-law who locked her in a toilet for six months, beat her, pulled out her fingernails and burned her with cigarettes. She was found in the basement of her husband's house in the northeastern Baghlan province late Dec 26. On May 5, 2012, her in-laws were sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations.
(AP, 12/31/11)(AP, 5/5/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Algeria three Islamist militants were killed in the northeastern region of Tizi Ouzou, the scene of frequent attacks by groups affiliated to AQIM.
(AP, 1/3/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Bahrain Sayed Hashim Saeed (15) died after a tear gas canister fired at close range hit him in the chest.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Britain's biggest cosmetic surgery chain revealed that rupture rates on allegedly faulty French-made breast implants are seven times higher than previously thought.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Chilean authorities said an Israeli tourist has been detained on suspicion of causing a forest fire that has burned more than 42 square miles (11,000 hectares) in the Torres del Paine national park. In 2012 Rotem Singer (23) agreed to pay $10,000 and raise other money to buy 50,000 native trees to replant the park.
(AP, 12/31/11)(SFC, 2/10/12, p.A2)
2011 Dec 31, In China a bus driver who contracted the bird flu virus died Shenzhen. This was the nation's first reported human case of the deadly disease in 18 months.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Ethiopian troops captured Beledweyne, a rebel-held town in central Somalia, leaving at least 18 people dead.
(Reuters, 12/31/11)(AFP, 12/31/12)
2011 Dec 31, In France Leon Kengo (76), CongoDRC Senate chief, was attacked at the Gare du Nord train station "by bands of those who call themselves 'fighters' close to Etienne Tshisekedi." According to initial reports, Kengo had some teeth knocked out, was trampled underfoot, and rolled on the ground.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Georgia’s defense ministry said a Georgian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, the 11th from the ex-Soviet state to die serving alongside NATO-led forces fighting the Taliban.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Iran said it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Japan Makoto Hirata (46), a senior member of the doomsday cult behind the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways, surrendered to police. Akemi Saito, also a member of Aum Shinrikyo, was arrested on Jan 10, 2012, for helping him evade police for nearly 17 years. On Jan 20 Hirata was indicted for his role in the abduction and confinement of a follower's relative in 1995.
(AP, 1/10/12)(AP, 1/20/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Kenya 5 people were killed in a New Year's Eve hand grenade attack and shooting in a bar in the eastern town of Garissa near the border with Somalia. The assailants were described as four men dressed in military uniform.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in parts of the nation, after a recent slew of deadly attacks blamed on a radical Muslim sect killed dozens of people.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Pakistan a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a military vehicle killing two Pakistani soldiers at Boya village in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Russian police detained 60 opposition activists to prevent them from protesting on a central Moscow square against the Kremlin's stifling of democratic freedoms.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Syria at least six people were killed in attacks on protests, including one in Damascus. Syria's state-run TV said Arab League observers visited the southern city of Daraa and the restive central city of Homs.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Yemen Islamist militants fired into the air to halt a peace march by thousands of Yemenis who were demanding an end to fighting that has forced them to flee their homes in the south. Pres. Saleh reversed his decision to leave the country.
(AP, 12/31/11)(AP, 1/1/12)
2012 Dec 31, Working with Congress against a midnight deadline, President Obama said that a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" was in sight but not yet finalized. The emerging deal would raise tax rates on family income over $450,000 and individual income over $400,000 a year, increase the estate tax rate and extend unemployment benefits for one year. The Senate voted 89-8 to approve a last-minute deal to avert income tax hikes on all but the richest Americans and stall painful spending cuts as part of a hard-fought compromise to avoid the economically toxic “fiscal cliff."
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued pardons to the Wilmington 10, a group wrongly convicted in the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store. A federal appeals had thrown out their convictions in 1980.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A4)
2012 Dec 31, A Texas state judge ruled that Texas can cut off funding to Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs for poor women if they advocate for abortion rights.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A4)
2012 Dec 31, In Angola 10 people, including four children, died in a stampede during a New Year’s Eve religious gathering at a sports stadium in Luanda.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2012 Dec 31, The Seleka rebels in the Central African Republic rejected appeals for them to halt their advances and to negotiate to form a coalition government. Seleka means alliance in the local Sango language.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, In Colombia 5 men and 4 women were shot to death on a farm outside Medellin. Rival drug traffickers were believed to be involved.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, Gunmen drove into Cairo's Tahrir Square before dawnand fired at an anti-government sit-in, seriously wounding a protester who had been jailed and tortured by former military rulers after he witnessed the killing of another activist.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Greece’s coalition government called for the indictment of former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou for allegedly removing the names of 3 of his relatives from a list of Swiss bank account holders whose tax records were to be re-examined. Papaconstantinou said the names were removed without his knowledge.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, In Iraq insurgents launched a wave of attacks across the country, primarily targeting Shiite communities and pilgrims and killing at least 36 people. 4 policemen were killed in the northern city of Kirkuk while trying to defuse a bomb the center of the city. Another a policeman was killed when a bomb hit a police convoy in the town of Tuz Khormato.
(AP, 12/31/12)(Econ, 1/5/12, p.35)
2012 Dec 31, Pakistan released eight members of the Afghan Taliban from prison, including the former justice minister under the Taliban, in a bid to boost the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Pakistani intelligence officials found the bodies of 9 militants dumped in the North Waziristan tribal region. The dead men were linked to the Pakistani Taliban.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, The West Bank Deputy Health Minister said an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu has killed 9 people.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, About 25 people reportedly were arrested in Moscow on New Year's Eve for trying to hold an unsanctioned protest. For about two years, activists have tried to rally on the 31st of each month with that many days, a reference to Article 31 of the Russian constitution that guarantees free assembly.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Residents of Saudi Arabia, where booze and New Year's celebrations are banned, flooded into neighboring Bahrain in search of festivities to ring in 2013.
(AP, 1/1/13)
2012 Dec 31, Syrian rebels blew up a natural gas pipeline in the country's oil-rich east. The blast, some 30 km (18 miles) north of Deir el-Zour, caused the loss of around 1.5 million cubic meters of gas.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2013 Dec 31, President Obama’s besieged Affordable Care Act suffered another setback with a US Supreme Court justice issuing a temporary injunction late today preventing enforcement of the law’s contraception mandate against a group of Roman Catholic nuns who provide care to low-income elderly patients.
(SFC, 1/2/14, p.2)
2013 Dec 31, US officials said Slovakia has accepted three Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who had posed a difficult resettlement challenge.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In San Francisco Uber driver Syed Muzaffar of Union City fatally struck Sophia Liu (6) at a crosswalk on Polk Street near the Civic Center. In 2018 Muzaffar was found guilty of manslaughter.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.D1)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In northern Afghanistan gunshots erupted during a rally in Samangan province where a group was protesting the selection of candidates for the 2014 elections, killing 2 people and wounding eight.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A cyclone ripped across northwest Australia, closing ports and threatening mining operations in the sparsely populated Pilbara region.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Christian militiamen attacked an army base in Bangui, as French and African soldiers struggled to contain sectarian violence. Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui, shouting slogans against Michel Djotodia, the nation's Muslim president, who grabbed power in a coup nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In China six herders who tried to defend grazing land from expropriation by a forestry firm were sentenced in the resource-rich Inner Mongolia region. The case has sparked protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Egypt unknown assailants attacked a natural gas pipeline in the Sinai.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In India a pregnant girl (16) died in Kolkata following severe burn injuries. She had been raped two times On Oct 25-26 and ended up in a hospital on Dec 23 with sever burn injuries. Her family said she was set on fire by associates of those who had gang raped her.
(AP, 1/7/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Indonesia more than 19,000 people were displaced by the Mount Sinabung volcano on Sumatra that has been erupting for months and shot lava into the air nine times overnight.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Indonesian police shot dead six suspected terrorists and arrested another in a New Year's Eve raid near Jakarta that broke out into an hours-long gun battle.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Iraq clashes between security forces and gunmen killed four more people in Ramadi, a day after the closure of a sprawling anti-government protest site.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due back in the Middle East to press the two sides to reach a framework peace deal. This release was the third of four groups to go free.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A Jordanian security official said British resident Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian-Palestinian critic of Jordan's monarchy, has been charged with incitement and insulting the king after calling for revolt on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Myanmar freed five prisoners and more were expected to be released next week as part of a pledge by the country's president to free all political prisoners by the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Marathon talks between the leaders of Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities broke down without agreement to ease tensions that have led to one of the worst years of rioting in the British province for a decade.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, South Sudan's warring factions agreed to attend peace talks in Ethiopia. Government troops fought renegade forces loyal to former VP Riek Machar as well as a pro-Machar tribal militia known as the "White Army," as rebels tried to retake Bor.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Syria a missile struck a bus in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, setting it on fire and killing at least 10 people. State media reported that a rebel-fired mortar shell killed 3 people in Homs. ISIS fighters returned the torture-marked corpse of a doctor-cum-commander with Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist rebel group which had hitherto been an ally.
(AP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.39)
2013 Dec 31, In Turkey another lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced his resignation amid a high-level bribery and corruption probe. Hasan Hami Yildirim had criticised the government forfor exerting pressure on the judiciary over the corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In southern Yemen armed men including a suicide bomber tried to storm police headquarters in Aden. Two guards were killed and at least 6 people wounded. Two suspects were arrested.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2014 Dec 31, Former American school teacher Michael R. Vucic (41) was extradited to the US from Bosnia to face prosecution in Illinois on sexual assault charges dating back to 2012.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Nazih al-Ragye (aka Abu Anas Al-Liby), a suspected al Qaeda figure, died in New York just days ahead of his scheduled trial. Al-Liby (50) was alleged to have planned the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
(Reuters, 1/3/15)
2014 Dec 31, In Arizona a helicopter leased by the Cochise County sheriff’s department crashed and killed two civilians as it returned from a trip to Phoenix for routine maintenance.
(SFC, 1/2/15, p.A5)
2014 Dec 31, Police in Oakland, Ca., arrested 29 people during new Year’s Eve police brutality protests. The arrests represented about one fourth of those who participated.
(SFC, 1/2/15, p.D5)
2014 Dec 31, Edward Herrmann (71), American stage and screen actor, died in Los Angeles. He won a Tony Award in 1976 for his performance in “Mrs. Warren’s Profession." His work in films included “Reds" (1981) and “The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013).
(SFC, 1/1/15, p.D3)
2014 Dec 31, Faustas Strolia (b.1931), Lithuanian composer, musician and teacher, died in Oak Forest, Ill.
(http://tinyurl.com/ny6qs3f)
2014 Dec 31, A Minnesota judge ordered Norway to pay Ellen Ewald $170,594, double her lost wages, plus $100,000 for emotional distress, for violating equal-pay laws. She had been paid $30,000 less than a male counterpart. Norway has had a diplomatic presence in Minnesota since 1906. The state is home to nearly 900,000 people of Norwegian descent.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In southern Afghanistan at least 28 people, many of them women and children, were killed when rockets fired by Afghan army soldiers hit a wedding party in Helmand province. Two Afghan soliders were soon arrested in connection with the deaths.
(AP, 1/1/15)(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2014 Dec 31, In southern China a gas explosion at an auto parts factory killed 17 people and injured 33 others in Foshan city.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In China a stampede during New Year's celebrations in Shanghai's historic waterfront area killed 36 people in the worst disaster to hit one of China's showcase cities in recent years.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In France a 50 percent tax paid by employers on income earned above one million euros ($1.22 million) ended today. Socialist President Francois Hollande's 75% super tax had been rejected by a court and re-written to 50%.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Hong Kong authorities began destroying 15,000 chickens at a poultry market and suspended imports from mainland China after some birds were found to be infected with the H7N9 strain of bird flu.
(AP, 12/31/14)(SSFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2014 Dec 31, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire near the border that divides the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, leaving one dead on the Indian side and two wounded on the Pakistani side.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Off the coast of India a fishing boat stocked with explosives blew up. India later said 4 men on the boat blew it up themselves as Indian coast guard officers approached on New Year's Eve. Senior coast guard officer B.K. Loshali was later removed from his post after he contradicted the government saying coast guard personnel had destroyed the Pakistani "terror boat".
(AP, 2/25/15)
2014 Dec 31, Israeli police arrested Palestinian girl Malak al-Khatib (14) on her way home from school. A military court sentenced her in late January to two months as part of a plea bargain in which she admitted to picking up a stone to throw at Israeli cars. On Feb 14 she insisted after serving a 45-day sentence that she had been unjustly imprisoned, saying she was forced to sign a paper in Hebrew, which she does not understand.
(AP, 2/14/15)
2014 Dec 31, Some 970 mostly Syrian migrants arrived in Italy on the Blue Sky M cargo ship after apparently being abandoned by its crew in the Adriatic Sea.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive to push Islamic State group extremists from an area outside the militant-held northern city of Mosul. US Central Command said that the international coalition it leads had conducted seven airstrikes against militants' positions in Syria and three in Iraq.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive to push Islamic State group extremists from an area outside the militant-held northern city of Mosul. The United States and its allies staged 29 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.
(Reuters, 1/1/15)(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In Morocco some 800 African migrants tried to storm the border fences separating Spain's North African enclave of Melilla in the second such attempt in two days. 54 migrants managed to make it across.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In northeastern Nigeria a woman suicide bomber was killed as she tried to enter a military barracks in Bolari. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in northeastern Borno state.
(AFP, 12/31/14)(AP, 1/2/15)
2014 Dec 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed on to 20 international agreements, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as a new avenue for action against Israel after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution on ending the occupation.
(AFP, 12/31/14)(Reuters, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, Hamas civil servants went on strike after the Palestinian government said it would rehire thousands of Gaza staff who were laid off when the Islamist movement seized power in 2007.
(AFP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In the southern Philippines a bomb exploded at the entrance of a town market packed with New Year's Eve shoppers n North Cotabato province, killing 4 people and wounding at least 30 others.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani man convicted of smuggling "large quantities" of heroin. An Associated Press tally showed 83 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 2014.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In eastern Ukraine a widespread electricity outage hit Luhansk, the second-largest city in the separatist east. The leader of the rebels who control it claimed that's due to Ukrainian sabotage.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, The World Health Organization said the number of reported Ebola deaths in West Africa has risen to 7,905.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In central Yemen a suicide bomber killed at least 49 people when he blew himself up at a cultural center where students were celebrating the Prophet Mohammad's birthday. 70 people were wounded.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)(AFP, 1/1/15)
2015 Dec 31, The United States and its allies conducted 24 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Arizona retired California police officer Frank Pascua (52) was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Gila River Casino in Phoenix. Suspect John Campos Sr. (47) was arrested the next day.
(SSFC, 1/3/16, p.A8)
2015 Dec 31, The largest container ship to visit the US passed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco before arriving at the Port of Oakland. The nearly quarter-mile-long megaship named the Benjamin Franklin can hold up to 18,000 20-foot shipping containers.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Natalie Cole (b.1950), Grammy-winning daughter of Nat King Cole, died in Los Angeles of complications from health issues.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A7)
2015 Dec 31, Wayne Rogers, TV actor who played Trapper John on MASH (1972-1975), died in Los Angeles from complications of pneumonia.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A7)
2015 Dec 31, Midwest floodwaters began receding. Three days of torrential rain, that had begun on Dec 26 across a wide swath of Missouri and Illinois, left 25 people dead.
(SFC, 1/1/16, p.A7)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.25)
2015 Dec 31, General Electric announced that it had won a contract worth nearly $1 billion from the Saudi Electricity Company to build and supply a power plant in northern Saudi Arabia.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, A court in Bangladesh sentenced two people to death and six others to prison for killing atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013, the first verdicts since suspected Islamist militants began targeting secular activists.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed the so-called LDO law overruling more than 50 amendments made by lawmakers in the nation's budget guidelines law for this year, including reductions to her flagship social program and a ban on state foreign financing for some projects.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Ursula Gauthier, the China correspondent for France's L'Obs news magazine, left Beijing. She was obliged to leave for criticizing government policy in violence-wracked Xinjiang. She had questioned official comparisons between global Islamist violence and unrest in the homeland of the mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila pardoned nine members of the Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK) separatist group as he pursues a policy of national dialogue ahead of elections later this year.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Egypt a couple and their 3 children, including a five-year-old girl, were killed when shelling hit their house in Rafah, North Sinai. It was unclear who fired the projectile.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, In Egypt a small ferry boat sank late today in the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh. At least 15 people were killed and two remained missing.
(AP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In southern Ethiopia a hand grenade attack killed two students and injured six at Dilla University in the SNNPR region.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Germany dozens of apparently coordinated sexual assaults took place against women on New Year's Eve in the western city of Cologne. "Arab-looking men" were blamed. The port city of Hamburg also reported around 10 similar attacks against women on New Year's Eve. By Jan 19 the number of complaints had risen to over 800.
(AFP, 1/4/16)(SFC, 1/20/16, p.A2)
2015 Dec 31, In Guatemala a fight at an overcrowded prison in Puerto Barrios, killed at least 8 prisoners and wounded 20.
(AP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Officials said Israel's Education Ministry has ruled against the inclusion of a novel about a romance between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in the Hebrew high school curriculum because it feared it could raise tensions among pupils. The plot of Dorit Rabinyan's novel "Borderlife" takes place in New York.
(Reuters, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian who rammed them with his car in the occupied West Bank, as a wave of violence approached its fourth month.
(Reuters, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara announced in his New Year's address that he had reduced the sentences of 3,100 prisoners held over bloody post-election unrest.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Rights campaigners said a Mauritanian court has remanded in custody two men accused of keeping women and children as slaves, during a crackdown on the deeply rooted practice.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, The Russian finance ministry said it will file a lawsuit against Ukraine after Kiev failed to repay a $3 billion Eurobond and $75 million of interest due today.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In southwestern Saudi Arabia 3 civilians including two children were killed in cross-border missile attacks from Yemen on a residential area.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Sweden at least 15 young women were reportedly groped by groups of men on New Year's Eve in the city of Kalmar.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Turkey hundreds of flights were cancelled from Istanbul's two main airports after the city was hit by a picturesque but troublesome snowfall.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Electricity from Ukraine to the Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula was cut again after the collapse of a power pylon.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, In Yemen a drive-by shooting killed top pro-government militia leader Ahmed al-Idrisi and five of his companions in the southern city of Aden, just hours after he reluctantly handed over control of the city's strategic port to government troops.
(AP, 12/31/15)(AP, 1/3/16)
2016 Dec 31, In southern California “MASH" actor William Christopher (84) died in Pasadena. He played the role of Father Francis Mulcahy on the TV series.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, David Meltzer (b.1937), poet and musician, died at his home in Oakland, Ca. His books included more than 40 volumes of poetry and the non-fiction works such as “Reading Jazz" (1993). His book "Rock Tao," written when he was 28, was published in 2022.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 3/19/22, p.D2)
2016 Dec 31, In Chicago hundreds of people marched carrying crosses for each of 762 people slain in the city this year.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.A7)(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, In Texas a federal judge granted a temporary injunction that stope federal health officials from enforcing rules that are intended to ban discrimination by doctors and hospitals against transgender people.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.A8)
2016 Dec 31, In Texas three people were killed when two small planes collided near McKinney.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, In Bangladesh Manzurul Islam Liton, a national legislator from PM Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party, was shot at his home in Gaibandha district.
(AP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Brazil a gunman stormed a house party and killed 13 people and himself late today during New Year celebrations in the southeastern city of Campinas. The shooter was believed to have been angry over a separation from his former wife, who was among those killed. The couple's 8-year-old son also died.
(Reuters, 1/1/17)(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A2)
2016 Dec 31, In southern England the RMT union launched a three-day strike on Southern Rail, which runs commuter services from the south coast into London, as part of a long-running dispute over plans to downgrade the role of the train guard.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Chinese media reported that Gao Baoyu, the chairman of China's Ying Kou Port Group, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for accepting around 26.8 million yuan (3.13 million pounds) in bribes. China’s corruption watchdog said it has recovered 2.3 billion yuan ($331.27 million) in losses from graft in the first 11 months of this year from across more than 70 different regions and countries.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that 16 people, including two surgeons, have been jailed for between two and five years for trafficking in human organs, a practice still widespread in the country.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Colombia's National Liberation Army, which has been fighting the government for more than five decades, freed businessman Octavio Figueroa. He had been held since March.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, An Egyptian appeals court upheld an agreement to give control of two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In Egypt an explosion targeting a security vehicle in the Sinai peninsula killed one junior officer and one soldier and injured another soldier.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh accused the West African regional bloc ECOWAS of declaring war after demanding that he stand down following his defeat at the ballot box.
(AFP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Germany police detained hundreds of North African men in Cologne in an effort to prevent a repeat of sexual assaults during New year’s festivities there a year ago.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A2)
2016 Dec 31, In India several women were groped and assaulted by a mob in the Bangalore central business district as they celebrated New Year's Eve. The assaults spurred women's rights activists to demand that police investigate.
(Reuters, 1/3/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Iraq three bombs killed 29 people in Baghdad as fighting intensified in the northern city of Mosul, where Iraqi government forces are trying to rout Islamic State militants from their last major stronghold in the country.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In northeastern Nigeria one person was seriously injured when a suicide bomber aged around 10 blew herself up in a New Year's Eve attack in Maiduguri.
(AFP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Poland Daniel R. and another Pole took two bottles of a beverage from the Prince Kebab restaurant in Elk, without paying. In the ensuing brawl, a 26-year-old Tunisian cook stabbed Daniel R. twice with his knife.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2016 Dec 31, A South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Moon Hyung-pyo, the head of the national pension fund, the world's third largest, in a corruption scandal that has led to President Park Geun-hye's impeachment.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In South Korea large crowds gathered to join another rally demanding the ouster of impeached President Park Geun-hye, who's determined to restore her powers through a court trial.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir announced a one-month extension of his unilateral ceasefire in fighting with rebels in the country's war zones.
(Reuters, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, Syrian rebel groups threatened to abandon a two-day-old truce if violations continued, and urged the UN Security Council not to endorse the deal until the Syrian government and its ally Russia had shown they would respect it.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Venezuela's government freed former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales along with five other activists who were jailed during anti-government protests in 2014.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2017 Dec 31, In the SF Bay Area CHP Officer Andrew Camilleri was killed when a driver crashed into his patrol car on I-880. His partner Officer Jonathan Velasquez was injured. Mohammed Abraar Ali (22) of Hayward was arrested and faced five felony accounts including second-degree murder and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
(SFC, 1/3/18, p.D1)
2017 Dec 31, In Colorado Matthew Riehl (37) fired more than 100 rounds at sheriff’s deputies killing one and injuring four others before being fatally shot himself at Highlands Ranch, a Denver suburb.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.A4)
2017 Dec 31, In New Jersey a teenager (16) fatally shot his parents, sister and a family friend just before midnight in Long Branch.
(SFC, 1/2/18, p.A5)
2017 Dec 31, In eastern Afghanistan a bombing targeted the funeral of a local official, killing at least 18 people in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Australia the chief executive of British catering giant Compass Group Plc and four members of his family were killed when the seaplane they were flying in crashed into the Hawkesbury River in Sydney. All six people on board were killed. In 2021 investigators reported elevated levels of carbon monoxide in their blood due to cracks in the exhaust system of the DHC-2 Beaver plane that was built in 1963.
(AP, 12/31/17)(Reuters, 1/1/18)(AP, 1/29/21)
2017 Dec 31, In Britain an estimated 1,400 cars were destroyed in a huge fire that raged through a multi-story parking garage in the northern English city of Liverpool.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, It was reported that hundreds of people have fled their villages in northeastern Central African Rep. following fresh violence between armed groups.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, China's complete ban on ivory trade went into effect, a major step forward in Beijing's efforts to rein in what was once the world's largest market for illegal ivory.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Congolese security forces shot dead two man in Kinshasa and injured several others in a bloody crackdown on Catholic worshippers who gathered at churches across the country to demand President Joseph Kabila leave power. Security forces killed at least seven people and at least one policeman died amid violence as more than a thousand people demonstrated in the capital.
(AFP, 12/31/17)(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Costa Rica a Nature Air's pilot training director died in an air crash near the Punta Islita beach town west of the capital, San Jose. The co-pilot was also killed, along with 10 US citizens including a family of five from New York. On January 12 Costa Rica's civil aviation agency suspended local airline Nature Air.
(AP, 1/1/18)(Reuters, 1/12/18)
2017 Dec 31, In Egypt a gunman on New Years’ eve killed two Coptic Christian brothers in an attack on a liquor store in Giza province on New Years’ eve.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, French authorities said heavy snow overnight stranded 4,000 travelers heading for resorts in the French Alps and killed one skier in an avalanche.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Greece dismissed Turkish anger over its decision to grant asylum to a soldier who Ankara accuses of involvement in the abortive coup against President Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016. The soldier was one of eight who fled after the July 15 coup attempt.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Greece a homeowner found a young tourist couple dead in the house they were renting on the western island of Kefalonia. Initial indications pointed to a double suicide.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2017 Dec 31, Five Indian soldiers and three suspected militants were killed after rebels stormed a paramilitary camp in disputed Kashmir, triggering a daylong battle. Separately, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded gunfire along the highly militarized line dividing Kashmir between the two rivals, killing an Indian soldier.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, India’s movie superstar Rajinikanth said he is entering politics in Tamil Nadu state with a plan to launch his own party, calling it his duty.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular Telegram messaging app used by activists to organize and publicize the protests now roiling the Islamic Republic. The free Telegram app, created by Russian national Pavel Durov, was used by an estimated 40 million Iranians.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran warned of a tough crackdown against demonstrators who pose one of the most audacious challenges to its clerical leaders since nationwide pro-reform unrest jolted the Islamist theocracy in 2009. In apparent response to the protests The government backed down on plans to raise fuel prices and promised to increase cash handouts to the poor and create more jobs in coming years. 10 people were killed in widespread anti-government protests across the country in cities including Kermanshah, Khorramabad and Shahinshahr.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AFP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, Israel’s ruling Likud Party's central committee unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the annexation of Israeli West Bank settlements.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, In central Kenya 36 people were killed and 11 injured early today in a head-on collision between a bus and a lorry on the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Nigeria a new report said at least 5,247 Muslims have been killed in Adamawa state over the past four years because of Boko Haram.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.A2)
2017 Dec 31, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law doubling the penalty for false reports of impending explosions or fire to a possible 10 years in prison.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, South Korean authorities said they have seized a Panama-flagged oil tanker suspected of evading international sanctions by trading with North Korea. The 5,100-ton KOTI was detained two weeks ago at the South's port of Pyeongtaek-Dangjin and its crew were being investigated over the alleged ship-to-ship transfers.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Syria rebels supported by an al-Qaida-linked cell renewed their assault against pro-government forces that have been holding a vast pocket of the Damascus suburbs under siege. A second front between many of the same groups saw fresh fighting in the northwest, along the border between Idlib and Hama provinces. 21 soldiers and 26 rebels and al-Qaida fighters were reported killed in two days of clashes.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Syria a Russian Mi-24 helicopter crashed on New Year's Eve killing both pilots following a technical fault.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2017 Dec 31, In western Syria two Russian service personnel were killed in a mortar attack on the Hmeimim base.
(Reuters, 1/8/18)
2017 Dec 31, Turkish authorities, fearing an attack over the New Year, detained 20 suspected IS members in Istanbul, 15 of them foreigners, who are believed to have spent time in Syria or Iraq. Three Syrians, an Iraqi and a Russian Chechen were detained in Ankara.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Venezuela Alexandra Colopoy (18) was reportedly gunned down by National Guard First Sergeant David Rebolledo. The soldier shot and killed the pregnant woman an incident that local media described as a melee over scarce pork. Rebolledo was soon arrested.
(Reuters, 1/1/18)
2018 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists said in an annual report that 94 journalists and media workers died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and conflict crossfire this year, 12 more than in 2017.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Ohio Devaughn Gibson (23), DelVaunte Johnson (19) and Toshon Banks (21) were all shot dead after a row outside an Airbnb rental in Cleveland. On August 29, 2019, Tevin Biles-Thomas, the brother of Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, was arrested in Georgia and charged with murder in the shooting.
(The Independent, 8/30/19)(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A7)
2018 Dec 31, Afghan special forces launched a new offensive against the Islamic State group in eastern Nangarhar province, killing 27 militants. Meanwhile, Taliban attacks in the north killed 15 members of the country's security forces.
(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, Bahraini prominent activist Nabeel Rajab lost his appeal and was handed down a five-year jail term. He had been jailed for criticizing his country's rulers on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The mayor of the northwestern Bosnian town of Banja Luka canceled New Year celebrations for security reasons after protesters demanding the truth about a student's death prevented a public concert taking place the previous evening.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, British police arrested 39 people early today on suspicion of attempted murder following a stabbing in west London.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Britain a triple stabbing at a Manchester railway station on New Year's Eve injured three people. It was soon treated as "a terrorist investigation." Counter-terrorism police arrested a 25-year-old man.
(AFP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, Burkina Faso said it is declaring a state of emergency in provinces grappling with jihadist violence. Gunmen on motorbikes attacked the village of Yirgou in Barsalogo district, killing seven people, including the village chief.
(AP, 12/31/18)(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2018 Dec 31, Dubai's stock market ended 2018 with a 25-percent annual loss, the worst year since the global financial crisis a decade ago, as the real estate and tourism sectors struggled.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Egypt Amal Fathi (34), arrested in May over a video she posted online in which she spoke out against sexual harassment, lost her appeal and was handed a two-year prison term, as well as a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($560).
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A French court authorized Central Africa Republic soccer executive and alleged militia leader Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona to be handed over to the Hague war crimes tribunal.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Indian troops fired at Pakistani forces across the two countries' line of control in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding nine civilians.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Indonesia rescuers recovered six more bodies buried under tons of mud from a landslide that crashed onto a hilly village on the main island of Java, bringing the death toll to 15. At least 20 people were missing after landslides during heavy rain buried 30 houses in Sukabumi regency, West Java.
(AP, 1/1/19)(Reuters, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, In Iran security forces clashed with students in Tehran in the third day of protests over a deadly bus crash, adding to officials' fears that rising public unrest could threaten national security.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had arrested 11 "economic disruptors" who misappropriated some $400 million earmarked for essential goods and smuggled the money out of the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iraqi fighter jets struck an Islamic State position inside Syria, a day after the Syrian government authorized its neighbor to target the militants at will.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, An Israeli court sentenced Palestinian Jamil Tamimi (59) to 18 years imprisonment for stabbing to death Hannah Bladon (21), a British woman in Jerusalem on April 14, 2017. A plea bargain acknowledged that Tamimi is mentally ill.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Italy's ruling 5-Star Movement expelled four parliamentarians from the party in an effort to instill discipline in its ranks. The decision means the ruling coalition, made up of 5-Star and the League, has just 167 seats in the 320-seat Senate.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The self-styled Libyan National Army freed 19 people who were kidnapped by Islamic State group militants during attacks in central Libya.
(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, A Palestinian court sentenced Issam Akel (55) from east Jerusalem to life in prison with hard labor for trying to sell property in the Old City to an Israeli group.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A Panamanian car carrier heading from Japan to Hawaii caught fire. Nearby merchant vessels rescued 16 crew members. Three were found dead in the water and two were missing.
(SFC, 1/3/19, p.A6)
2018 Dec 31, Peru's attorney general dismissed a team investigating the far-reaching Odebrecht corruption scandal, setting off street protests in cities across the country.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, in the southern Philippines a remotely controlled bomb, blamed by security forces on a small pro-Islamic State militant group, killed two people and wounded dozens at a shopping mall in Cotabato city.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A Russian apartment block partially collapsed in an explosion, killing at least four people in Magnitogorsk. Russian rescue crews soon pulled two more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building, bringing the death toll to nine. By Jan. 2 the number of confirmed dead rose to 22 and 19 remained missing. The number of dead from the gas explosion jumped to 39 on Jan. 3 as rescuers finished searching for bodies in the rubble of the partially collapsed building.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)(AP, 1/1/19)(AP, 1/2/19)(AFP, 1/3/19)
2018 Dec 31, Spanish police said they have seized 3.25 metric tons (3.64 short tons) of hashish in two operations against drug trafficking across the Strait of Gibraltar. Police made 42 arrests and broke up what they believed to be one of most important drug smuggling gangs operating between Spain and North Africa.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Sudanese riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Khartoum, dispersing protesters who had planned to march on the presidential palace following deadly anti-government rallies. President Omar al-Bashir ordered an investigation into "recent events" after two weeks of violent protests against his 29-year autocratic rule, as he seeks to placate popular anger over worsening economic conditions. Al-Bashir sought to defuse the anger, promising better days ahead and pledging more "transparency, effectiveness and justice in all our national institutions" in an address to the nation marking the anniversary of Sudan's independence 63 years ago.
(AFP, 12/31/18)(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, The UAE's Federal Supreme Court upheld a 10-year sentence for human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor (49).
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The UN food agency threatened to suspend some aid shipments to Yemen if the Houthi rebels do not investigate and stop theft and fraud in food distribution. The suspension would affect some 3 million people.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The Vatican spokesman and his deputy resigned over disagreements on strategy, ending a year of upheaval in the Holy See's communications structure.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Zambian President Edgar Lungu sacked the army commander and his deputy, a rare firing of the top military brass in the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2019 Dec 31, President Donald Trump ordered about 750 US soldiers deployed to the Middle East as about 3,000 more prepared for possible deployment in the next several days in response to recent events in Iraq.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, US President Donald Trump said that Phase 1 of trade deal with China would be signed on Jan. 15 at the White House, though considerable confusion remains about the details of the agreement.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A7)
2019 Dec 31, Two crew members of the Scandies Rose were rescued after the 130-foot crab fishing vessel from Dutch Harbor, Alaska. A search for the five crew members lasted 20 hours before it was called off.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, In San Francisco the last performance of the "Beach Blanket Babylon" show took place at Club Fugazi following a run of 45 years.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A1)
2019 Dec 31, A federal judge temporarily blocked a California labor law meant to take effect from Jan. 1 from impacting over 70,000 independent truckers by granting a temporary restraining order.
(Reuters, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, In Oakland, Ca., Shuo Zeng (34) was killed as he tried to chase down two robbers of his laptop from a Starbucks café in Montclair. Zeng was hit by the getaway vehicle and dragged on the ground. Suspects Byron O.J. Reed Jr. (22) and Javon Eugene Lee (21) were soon arrested. Zeng earned a doctorate in physics in 2015 and worked as an engineer at Aspera.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.C2)
2019 Dec 31, Three of the most powerful tribes in Oklahoma filed a federal lawsuit against state Gov. Kevin Stitt, asking the court to help resolve a dispute over gambling at tribal casinos. Stitt contends the gaming compacts expire on Jan. 1 and that casino gambling after that date will be illegal. Stitt has signaled he wants to renegotiate the compacts to give the state a larger slice of revenue.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, In Afghanistan at least 10 Afghan forces were killed and four others were wounded in an attack late today on a police checkpoint in the district of Dashti Archi. In Balkh province, the Taliban killed nine police officers in an attack on their checkpoint. A gunbattle with the Taliban killed seven members of the security forces in Takhar province.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, Wildfires burning across Australia's two most populous states trapped residents of a seaside town in apocalyptic conditions, destroyed many properties and caused at least two fatalities. In the southeastern town of Mallacoota in Victoria state, around 4,000 residents fled toward the waterside as winds pushed an emergency-level wildfire toward their homes.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Bosnia's war crimes prosecutor charged Milomir Savcic, a former Bosnian Serb general, with aiding genocide in the 1995 massacre at the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, unveiled a new initiative called the Earthshot Prize, described by Kensington Palace as "the most prestigious environment prize in history." The multimillion-dollar prize will be awarded to five winners per year over the next 10 years to encourage "Earth’s greatest problem solvers to solve Earth’s greatest environmental problems.
(Good Morning America, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for Hong Kong to return to stability following months of pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, China's National Medical Products Administration said it has approved a pneumonia vaccine developed by Chinese drugmaker Walvax Biotechnology's unit, offering an alternative to one of Pfizer's best-selling products Prevnar 13.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Chinese health authorities said they are investigating 27 cases of viral pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, after rumors on social media suggested the outbreak could be linked to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The disease later identified as COVID-19 was first reported by Chinese authorities to the WHO, and was not previously believed to have spread to Europe until January. The Huanan market was shuttered overnight after four cases of a mystery pneumonia were linked to the market. By the end of January, Wuhan had gone into a 76-day lockdown. In 2021 a World Health Organization-led team of experts investigating the origins of COVID-19 visited Huanan market.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)(Reuters, 5/5/20)(Reuters, 1/30/21)
2019 Dec 31, In Ingushetia one police officer was killed and three were injured when two men attacked a police post in Magas, the republic's capital. The Islamic State group soon claimed responsibility. One of the attackers was killed when police opened fire and the other was wounded in the northern Caucasus region.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2019 Dec 31, Iraqi supporters of pro-Iran factions attacked the US embassy in Baghdad, breaching its outer wall and chanting "Death to America!" in anger over weekend air strikes that killed two dozen fighters. President Donald Trump said he expects Iraq to "use its forces" to protect the US embassy in Baghdad as he blamed Iran for orchestrating the "attack" that breached the wall of the compound.
(AFP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Carlos Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan, announced that he is now in Lebanon, despite being ordered by Japanese courts not to leave the country while awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges.
(The Week, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Pakistan began issuing special health ID cards for transgender people as a way to lessen health care discrimination.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A2)
2019 Dec 31, Hundreds of Palestinians marched through the West Bank city of Ramallah to mark the 55th anniversary of the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, In Sudan sporadic tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs continued in West Darfur province, as the death toll climbed to at least 24 people, some of them burned to death.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Taiwan's legislature passed its Anti-Infiltration Law aimed at blocking political interference from China.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A2)
2019 Dec 31, Police in Turkey detained five suspected Islamic State militants who were allegedly planning to carry out attacks in the Turkish capital of Ankara during New Year's Eve celebrations. Anadolu news said close to 170 suspected IS militants have been detained in the past two days.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Turkish Airlines said it has agreed a compensation deal with plane maker Boeing Co over the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Yemeni officials said that a powerful rebel group's ban on recently-printed government banknotes in areas under their control, including the capital, Sanaa, has held up the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants and pensioners. Officials in Sanaa said the Houthis had given residents a month to hand over the newly printed but banned banknotes or face penalties that include jail.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Two Zimbabwe rangers, who had arrested four Zambian men for poaching, were transporting them by boat to Kariba town to be charged and jailed. But the four suspects overpowered the rangers and threw them into Lake Kariba. The rangers' bodies were discovered after a week-long search.
(AP, 1/7/20)
2020 Dec 31, US President Donald Trump extended a pair of immigration bans that block many "green card" applicants and temporary foreign workers from entering the country, measures he says are needed to protect US workers amid the pandemic-battered economy.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that Pres. Donald Trump has the power to bar immigrants from the US who cannot afford private health insurance. The ban would affect as many as 375,000 people a year.
(SFC, 1/2/21, p.B1)
2020 Dec 31, The US Department of Justice has confirmed that Ticketmaster has paid a $10m (£7.3m) criminal fine for "intrusions into a competitor's computer systems".
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A Pacific storm of record proportions swept a remote stretch of Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain, battering a region used heavily by commercial shipping with hurricane-force winds and seas five stories high.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, California to date had 2,262,972 cases of coronavirus and 25,423 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 259,374 cases and 2,501 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 19,852,041 with the death toll at 344,030.
(sfist.com, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, SF Bay Area poet Q.R. Hand (83) died of cancer in Vallejo. He had chronicled the Black experience in America while working for many years as a mental health councilor in the Mission district of San Francisco.
(SFC, 1/5/21, p.B4)
2020 Dec 31, Florida health officials said a more infections variant of COVID-19 that has swept through the United Kingdom has been identified in the state, marking the third known US state to identify such a case.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Chicago ended 2020 with 769 homicides, 274 more than the previous year and the most since the 784 homicides in 2016.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, Portland police declared a riot just before 11 p.m. local time on New Year's Eve after protesters broke windows, shot off fireworks and set fires near the federal courthouse. The demonstration had been publicized via posts on social media.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, In Pennsylvania about 50 people, all in black, vandalized the historic US Customs House in Philadelphia. Seven people soon faced felony charges after at least two federal buildings were attacked.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2020 Dec 31, Former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh (88) died in Pittsburgh. He had made integrity and efficiency the hallmarks of his public service as a governor, US attorney general and under-secretary-general of the UN.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, In Texas Pfc. Asia M. Graham (19) was found unresponsive in her barracks and was later pronounced dead by emergency services personnel on the Fort Bliss Army post.
(CBS News, 1/5/21)
2020 Dec 31, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News printed their final daily newspapers as they joined others that made the same decision in response to declining print and circulation revenues. The newspaper had printed daily for 149 years.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Apple removed 39,000 game apps on its China store, the biggest removal ever in a single day, as it set year-end as deadline for all game publishers to obtain a license.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, It was reported that Drugmakers including Pfizer, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline plan to raise US prices on more than 300 drugs in the US on Jan. 1.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Brazil reported 56,773 additional confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 1,074 deaths from COVID-19. A Brazilian lab said it has detected two cases of the new coronavirus variant that has spread rapidly in Britain, and urged reinforcement of quarantine measures for travelers coming from Europe.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, PM Boris Johnson said that Britain would withdraw from Erasmus, citing its high costs. Since its introduction in 1987, Erasmus has sent millions of people abroad for study exchanges, work placements or traineeships.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, The British government said it will allow people to be given shots of different COVID-19 vaccines on rare occasions, despite a lack of evidence about the extent of immunity offered by mixing doses.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2020 Dec 31, Thirty-three migrants on four boats crossed the Channel under the cover of darkness in freezing temperatures this morning, in a desperate attempt to reach the UK before Brexit. Some 8,400 people arrived on British shores this year having left northern France.
(The Telegraph, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Negotiators from the UK and Spain said they have reached a draft agreement on the post-Brexit future of Gibraltar. As part of the deal Gibraltar would be able to join European Union program and policies such as Schengen.
(The Guardian, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Ontario's Finance Minister Rod Phillips resigned after public outrage over a Caribbean vacation he took earlier this month in violation of his own government's coronavirus travel warnings.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, China introduced a delisting reform to strip lousy firms of their listing status. Companies with a share price below 1 yuan ($0.15) for 20 consecutive days will now face automatic delisting.
(Econ., 1/9/21, p.65)
2020 Dec 31, The Chinese government said that it had approved a homegrown coronavirus vaccine, after an early analysis of clinical trial results showed that it was effective. A day earlier Sinopharm said that a vaccine candidate made by its Beijing Institute of Biological Products arm had an efficacy rate of 79 percent based on an interim analysis of Phase 3 trials.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, China reported 19 new COVID-19 cases, down from 25 cases a day earlier.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, In Congo DRC at least 25 people were killed in an attack on New Year’s Eve by Allied Democratic Forces rebels in eastern Beni territory. Other people were kidnapped.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, The Czech Republic reported a record high 16,939 daily cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours. Total deaths have reached 11,580.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Hong Kong's highest court revoked media tycoon Jimmy Lai's bail after prosecutors succeeded in asking the judges to send him back to detention. The court said that it was “reasonably arguable" that the previous judge's decision was erroneous and that the order of granting bail was invalid.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A court in Jordan sentenced five leaders of the national teachers' syndicate to a year in prison over recent protests demanding a salary increase. The five were among 13 members of the Teachers Association council who were arrested in July after threatening to stage new protests over a long-running salary dispute.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Norway said all travelers entering the country will have to take a COVID-19 test within 24 hours of arrival from Jan. 2.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A province of islands in the southern Philippines said it will seal itself off for an initial two weeks from Jan. 4 to keep out a new COVID-19 variant found in nearby Malaysia.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck targets in Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for attacks in the southern port city of Aden the previous day that took place as officials in a government backed by Riyadh arrived there.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Singapore reported five locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, its highest number in nearly three months, and was seeking to verify two others suspected of being infected by a highly contagious variant first discovered in Britain.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, The Slovak government ordered ski resorts and hotels closed and banned travel between districts at an emergency session on New Year's Eve after new coronavirus cases hit record high and hospitals filled up with patients.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Turkey began a 4-day lockdown this evening to stem the spread of COVID-19 over the New Year's holiday.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A7)
2020 Dec 31, The UN General Assembly closed the year by approving the $3.231 billion budget for 2021. Only Israel and the US voted against it citing disagreements on Israel and Iran.
(The Telegraph, 12/31/20)
2021 Dec 31, Thousands of flights within the United States and internationally were delayed or canceled, adding to the travel disruptions during the holiday week due to adverse weather and rising cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 54,443,678 with the death toll at 824,630.
(sfist.com, 1/1/22)
2021 Dec 31, In southern California a massive spill of raw sewage forced the city of Long Beach to close all swimming areas at nearby beaches. The leak occurred a day earlier in the city of Carson and was caused by the failure of a 48-inch sewer main line.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger (94) died. She became famous during Austria's 2016 presidential campaign with a video message in which “Mrs. Gertrude" warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far right.
(AP, 1/1/22)
2021 Dec 31, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced a 700 million reais ($125.67 million) relief credit line to help the northeastern region with the impacts of severe flooding.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Britain said it has approved Pfizer's COVID-19 pill for adults who have mild to moderate infection and are at high risk of their illness worsening, its second easily administered antiviral against the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Britain reported a record high 189,846 new cases of COVID-19, up slightly from 189,213 the previous day. A British analysis said the risk of hospitalization with the Omicron variant of coronavirus is about one-third that of the Delta variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Denis O’Dell (98), a British film producer and director who worked with The Beatles on the movie “A Hard Day’s Night" and other productions, died overnight at his home in Spain.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Canada said it will take in female Afghan judges and their families who have been living in limbo, primarily in Greece, since their evacuation from Afghanistan in the fall.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Quebec, Canada, reimposed a nighttime beginning this evening and Ontario delayed the resumption of school by two days as several provinces reported new highs for coronavirus infections.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A5)
2021 Dec 31, China's anti-graft agency accused US retail giant Walmart Inc and its Sam's Club chain of "stupidity and shorted-sightedness" after Chinese news outlets reported Sam's Club had removed Xinjiang-sourced products from stores.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, China's market regulator said that Tesla Inc will recall 19,697 imported model S vehicles, 35,836 imported model 3s, and 144,208 China-made model 3 vehicles in China due to possible security risks.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, A study by researchers said that Sinovac's two-dose COVID-19 vaccine followed by a booster Pfizer-BioNTech shot showed a lower immune response against the Omicron variant compared with other strains.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Germany began shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The remaining three nuclear plants — Emsland, Isar and Neckarwestheim — will be powered down by the end of 2022.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Hong Kong's health officials said the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made its way past some of the world's toughest COVID 19 restrictions, with the city reporting its first cases outside its strict quarantine system.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, India's competition watchdog ordered an investigation into Apple Inc's business practices in the country, saying it was of the initial view that the iPhone maker had violated certain antitrust laws.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Israel said it has signed a deal with the United States to buy 12 Lockheed Martin Corp CH-53K helicopters and two Boeing Co KC-46 refueling planes at an estimated total price of around $3.1 billion.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Israeli troops shot and killed Amir Atef Reyan, a Palestinian man, as he ran toward a bus stop in the occupied West Bank wielding a knife in an attempted stabbing attack.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Portugal reported a new daily record of 30,829 coronavirus cases, up from 28,659 the previous day, with the rapidly spreading Omicron variant accounting for an estimated 83% of all new cases.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, It was reported that Russia test-fired around 10 new Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missiles from a frigate and two more from a submarine.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (69) was released from prison nearly five years after being convicted of corruption, fuelling debate over whether she would play any role ahead of a March presidential election.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Tunisian security forces detained Noureddine Bhair, a senior official from the biggest party in the suspended parliament. He was the first official detained since President Kais Saied seized governing powers in July.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turks should keep all their savings in lira and that recent exchange rate volatility was largely under control after the lira weakened sharply in the last two months.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Turkey allowed a 5th dose as a booster for people who received two doses of the Sinovac and BioNTech vaccines.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A5)
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For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
192 Dec 31, Lucius A.A. Commodus (31), Emperor of Rome (180-192), was murdered. His mistress Marcia, Chamberlain Eclectus, and praetorian prefect Laetus hired the wrestler Narcissus to strangle Commodus after they found their names on an imperial execution list.
(PCh, 1992, p.42)(MC, 12/31/01)
406 Dec 31, Godagisel, king of the Vandals, died in battle as some 80,000 Vandals attacked over the Rhine at Mainz.
(MC, 12/31/01)
765 Dec 31, The coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui was interred in a stupa built in China.
(MC, 12/31/01)
870 Dec 31, Skirmish at Englefield. Ethelred of Wessex beat back a Danish invasion army.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1378 Dec 31, Callistus III, [Alfonso the Borgia], Pope (1455-58), was born.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1384 Dec 31, John Wycliffe, English religious reformer and bible translator, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1492 Dec 31, 100,000 Jews were expelled from Sicily.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1502 Dec 31, Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) occupied Urbino.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1514 Dec 31, Andreas Vesalius (d.1564), anatomist, author of “De Humani Corporis Fabrica," was born in Brussels, Belgium
(NH, 10/96, p.34)(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(MC, 12/31/01)
1564 Dec 31, Willem of Orange demanded freedom of conscience and religion.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands. A company of 218 merchants were granted a monopoly to trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. For its first 20 years the company operated out of the home of its governor, Sir Thomas Smythe.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.109)
1687 Dec 31, The 1st Huguenots departed France to the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1705 Dec 31, Catherine of Braganza (b.1638), queen consort of England, of Scotland and of Ireland from 1662 to 1685 as the wife of King Charles II, died in Portugal. She was the daughter of King John IV, who became the first king of Portugal from the House of Braganza in 1640 after overthrowing the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs over Portugal. Catherine served as regent of Portugal during the absence of her brother in 1701 and during 1704–1705, after her return to her homeland as a widow.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Braganza)
1711 Dec 31, Duke of Marlborough was fired as English army commander.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1720 Dec 31, Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of James II, known as the Young Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie, was born.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1738 Dec 31, Charles Lord Cornwallis (d.1805), soldier and statesman, was born. "Fire when ready Gridley."
(MC, 12/31/01)
1745 Dec 31, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army met with de Esk.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1762 Dec 31, The Mozart family moved from Vienna to Salzburg.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1775 Dec 31, George Washington ordered recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1775 Dec 31, The British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1783 Dec 31, Import of African slaves was banned by all of the Northern American states.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1805 Dec 31, The French Revolutionary calendar law was abolished. France returned to the Gregorian calendar.
(K.I.-365D, p.43)(MC, 12/31/01)
1815 Dec 31, George Gordon Meade (d.1872), Union general, was born. He defeated Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg.
(HN, 12/31/99)(MC, 12/31/01)
1841 Dec 31, Alabama became the 1st state to license dental surgeons.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1852 Dec 31, The richest year of the gold rush ended, with $81.3 million in gold produced.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1857 Dec 31, Britain's Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1858 Dec 31, Vincas Kudirka (d.1899), author of the Lithuanian national anthem, was born in Vilkaviskis County.
(LC, 1998, p.30)(LHC, 12/31/02)
1859 Dec 31, Luigi Ricci (54), composer, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1862 Dec 31, President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1862 Dec 31, In Tennessee Union General William Rosecrans' army repelled two Confederate attacks at the Second Battle of Murfreesboro (aka Battle of Stone's River). Fighting continued to Jan. 2, 1863.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stones_River)
1862 Dec 31, The USS Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, NC., while being towed by the Rhode Island. 16 officers and seamen died. In 1973 scientists from North Carolina’s Duke University discovered the deteriorating relic 16 miles from the coast, in 240 feet of water. In 1975 the site was designated the nation’s first marine sanctuary, and it was the first shipwreck to be named a National Historic Landmark in the United States. In 2002 the turret was raised.
(SFC, 8/6/02, p.A2)(HNQ, 11/29/02)(ON, 10/08, p.5)
1869 Dec 31, Henri Matisse (d.1954), French artist best known for his paintings "Woman with a Hat" and "The Red Studio," was born. His work included the “Dance II," now at the Hermitage in Moscow. In 1998 Hilary Spurling authored “The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol 1: 1869-1908."
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A5)(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.9)(HN, 12/31/98)
1877 Dec 31, Pres. and Mrs. Hayes celebrated their silver anniversary (technically, a day late) by re-enacting their wedding ceremony in the White House.
(AP, 12/31/02)
1879 Dec 31, Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1880 Dec 31, George Catlett Marshall, Chief of Staff who led the U.S. Army to victory in World War II and later became Secretary of State for President Harry Truman, was born. He won Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for the Marshall Plan.
(WUD, 1994 p.879)(HN, 12/31/98)(MC, 12/31/01)
1882 Dec 31, Leon Michel Gambetta (44), French attorney and premier (1881-82), died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1890 Dec 31, Ellis Island, NYC, opened as a US immigration depot.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1895 Dec 31, Ogden Bolton Jr. of Canton, Ohio, was awarded US patent 552,271 for an "electrical bicycle."
(https://tinyurl.com/cgn6qfp)(SFC, 3/5/21, p.B2)
1897 Dec 31, Brooklyn, N.Y., spent its last day as a separate entity before becoming part of New York City.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1899 Dec 31, Karl Millocker (b.1842), Austrian conductor and composer, died.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Mill%C3%B6cker)
1899 Dec 31, Silvestre Revueltas (d.1940), violinist, conductor and composer (Sensemaya), was born in Santiago, Papasquiaro, Mexico.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvestre_Revueltas)
1904 Dec 31, Nathan Milstein, concert violinist, was born in Odessa, Russia.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1905 Dec 31, Broadway composer Jule Styne was born in London.
(AP, 12/31/05)
1907 Dec 31, For 1st time a ball was dropped at Times Square to signal new year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1907 Dec 31, Gustav Mahler conducted the Metropolitan Opera.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1908 Dec 31, Simon Wiesenthal, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust who dedicated his life to tracking down former Nazis, was born.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1910 Dec 31, US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes for the year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1911 Dec 31, Tennessee Coal’s convict lease contract with Louisiana expired.
(WSJ, 7/16/01, p.A10)
1911 Dec 31, Helene Dutrieu won the Femina aviation cup in Etampes. She set a distance record for women at 158 miles.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1915 Dec 31, The Germans torpedoed the British liner Persia without any warning; 335 are dead.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1918 Dec 31, Kid Gleason replaced Pants Rowland as White Sox manager.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1923 Dec 31, BBC began using the Big Ben chime ID.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1923 Dec 31, The Sahara was crossed by an automobile for the first time.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1929 Dec 31, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time. Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with writing the song, although a similar poem by Robert Ayton (1570-1638), not to mention even older folk songs, use the same phrase, and may well have inspired Burns. The literal translation means "old long since" which less literally meant "days gone by."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne)(WSJ, 12/29/06, p.W10)
1929 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 248.48.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1930 Dec 31, Odetta, [Holmes], folk singer (Sanctuary), was born in Birmingham, Ala.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, Pontifical encyclical Casti connubial was against mixed marriages.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in this year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1930 Dec 31, Brewery heir Adolphus Busch was kidnapped.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1937 Dec 31, Anthony Hopkins, actor (Elephant Man, QB VII, Magic, Bounty, Silence of the Lambs), was born in Wales.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1938 Dec 31, Dr. R.N. Harger's "drunkometer," the 1st breath test, was introduced in Indiana.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1939 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 150.24.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1941 Dec 31, General MacArthur reported that U.S. lines in Manila had been pushed back by the Japanese.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1942 Dec 31, After five months of battle, Emperor Hirohito allowed the Japanese commanders at Guadalcanal to retreat.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1943 Dec 31, John Denver, singer (Rocky Mt High), was born in NM.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, Ben Kingsley, actor (Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice), was born in Scarborough, England.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1943 Dec 31, NYC's Times Square greeted Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1945 Dec 31, The ratification of the UN Charter was completed.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1945 Dec 31, Czechoslovakia began forcing the German population of the Sudetenland back to Germany.
(WSJ, 11/25/96, p.A15)
1946 Dec 31, President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
(HN, 12/31/98)(AP, 12/31/97)
1950 Dec 31, Charles Koechlin (b.1867), French composer, teacher and writer on music, died in France. He visited the USA four times to lecture and teach in 1918-19, 1928, 1929 and 1937. On the second and third visits he taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koechlin)
1951 Dec 31, The 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1952 Dec 31, Hank Williams died at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac full of pills and booz on his way to a gig.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, Par p.8)
1958 Dec 31, Cuba’s dictator Juan Batista fled the country taking most of the Central Bank’s reserves of dollars and gold as rebels under Fidel Castro marched into Havana.
(Econ, 12/3/16, p.18)
1959 Dec 31, Bebe Neuwirth, actress (Lilith-Cheers, Damn Yankees), was born in Princeton, NJ.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1959 Dec 31, The DJIA closed the decade at 679.36.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1961 Dec 31, "lrma La Douce" closed at the Plymouth Theater in NYC after 527 performances.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 Dec 31, Beach Boys played their debut gig under that name. The Beach Boys band was formed with brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. Their hit “Surfin" came out the same year.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.50)(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 Dec 31, The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1964 Dec 31, Syrian-based al-Fatah guerrillas of Yasser Arafat launched their 1st raid on Israel with the aim of provoking a retaliation and sparking an Arab war against Israel. Fatah, a Palestinian movement for independence, made the first terror attack on Israel and initiated the armed struggle for a state.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 6/5/02, p.D7)
1965 Dec 31, California became the largest state in population.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1965 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Jean-Bedel Bokassa overthrew his cousin, David Dacko, in a bloodless coup that was said to be backed by the French. He abolished the 1959 constitution, dissolved the National Assembly and concentrated power in the presidency.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A24)
1967 Dec 31, Evel Knievel (1938-2007) failed in his attempt to jump Caesar's Palace Fountain.
(www.evelknievel.com/ek-timeline.html)
1968 Dec 31, The Soviet Union's TU-144, similar in appearance to the Concorde, made its 1st flight. The first Tu-144S production aircraft crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144)
1969 Dec 31, In San Francisco the Cockettes, an avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group recently founded by Hibiscus (George Edgerly Harris III), took the stage at the Palace Theater in North Beach. The group folded in 1972, but returned for a show in 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cockettes)(SFC, 1/3/20, p.A1)
1969 Dec 31, In Clarksville, Pa., Joseph Yablonski was murdered with his wife and daughter. Yablonski had lost an election for the presidency of the United Mine Workers 3 weeks earlier. [see Jan 5, 1970]
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1969 Dec 31, Salvatore Baccaloni (b.1900), Italian opera basso buffa and actor, died in NYC. His films included “Full of Life" (1957).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Baccaloni)
1970 Dec 31, Congress authorized the Eisenhower dollar coin.
(http://eisenhowerdollarguide.com/)
1970 Dec 31, Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney)
1970 Dec 31, President Allende nationalized the Chilean coal mines.
(www.historyorb.com/countries/chile)
1972 Dec 31, Roberto Clemente (b.1934), baseball player, died in a plane crash while enroute from Puerto Rico to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. In 2006 David Maraniss authored “Clemente."
(WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
1974 Dec 31, US Congress overrode Pres. Ford’s veto of the Freedom of Information Act-strengthening amendments in the Privacy Act of 1974. It was passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It allowed ordinary citizens to hold the US government accountable by requesting public documents and records.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974)
1974 Dec 31, Private US citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1977 Dec 31, "Bubbling Brown Sugar" closed at ANTA Theater NYC after 766 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbling_Brown_Sugar)
1977 Dec 31, Cambodia broke relations with Vietnam.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1978 Dec 31, John McFall (1918-2006), an 11-term California Democrat, resigned from the US House of Representatives. In October the House had reprimanded him and 2 other California Democratic colleagues, Edward Roybal and Charles Wilson, for the questionable handling of money donated by South Korean businessman Tongsun Park.
(SFC, 3/15/06, p.B7)
1978 Dec 31, Peter Seeburg, one of 3 Univ. of California scientists who had identified the DNA for human growth hormone earlier in the year, returned to UCSF in a "midnight raid" and remove genetic material. Seeburg had left the university in late 1978 to join Genentech giving up rights to his materials, for which UCSF had filed a patent. In 1990 UCSF filed a patent infringement suit against Genentech.
(SFC, 5/21/99, p.B2)(www.mindfully.org/GE/Biotech-Born-Thief-1978.htm)
1978 Dec 31, Taiwanese diplomats struck their colors for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, marking the end of diplomatic relations with the United States.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1978 Dec 31, Nicolau Lobato (b.1946), East Timor guerrilla commander, was killed. Jose Alexandre Gusmao was made the de facto Falintil leader.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falintil)
1980 Dec 31, A bomb blast wrecked the Jewish-owned Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 16 people and wounding more than 80.
(www.emergency-management.net/bombings.htm)
1980 Dec 31, Marshall McLuhan (b.1911), Canadian professor, cultural philosopher and writer, died at age 69. He was the author "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man." In 1996 a CD-ROM titled "Understanding McLuhan" was released.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, BR p.8)(V.D.-H.K.p.357)(AP, 12/31/05)
1981 Dec 31, CNN launched Headline News.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100262)
1981 Dec 31, The Blue and Gold Fleet discontinued its ferry service between Berkeley and SF due to low usage. The service had operated for 5 months averaging 169 passengers a day.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.F2)
1981 Dec 31, In Ghana Lt. Jerry Rawlings, a young fighter pilot, toppled Pres. Hilla Limann.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A22)
1982 Dec 31, In Poland Martial Law was suspended. It was terminated on July 22, 1983.
(www.videofact.com/english/martial_law.htm)
1983 Dec 31, In France bombings in the main railroad terminal in Marseilles and on the Paris-Marseilles express train killed 5 people and injured 50. The attack was attributed to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(http://lists.jammed.com/IWAR/1997/12/0117.html)
1983 Dec 31, In Nigeria the military again ousted the civilian government. Gen’l. Muhammadu Buhari (b.1942), a Muslim from the Hausa tribe (Fulani), took power in a coup. He soon launched a “war on indiscipline" and continue to rule for 18 months.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammadu_Buhari)(Econ, 3/12/11, p.58)
1984 Dec 31, NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrendered to police in NH.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199801/ai_n8770775)
1985 Dec 31, Singer Rick Nelson (45) and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1986 Dec 31, A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killed 97 and injured 140 people. Three hotel workers later pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the blaze.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1987 Dec 31, One second was added to the year to compensate for precession of earth's axis.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1987 Dec 31, Robert Mugabe was sworn in as Zimbabwe's first executive president. Joshua Nkomo rejoined the Zimbabwe government as vice president.
(AP, 12/31/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Nkomo)
1988 Dec 31, President Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev exchanged New Year's messages in which both leaders expressed optimism about future superpower relations.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1989 Dec 31, "Me & My Girl," a revival of the 1937 British musical, closed at Marquis Theater, NYC, after 1420 performances.
(http://tinyurl.com/k3y4d)
1989 Dec 31, The Japanese Nikkei Index peaked at 38,915. The DJIA was at 2753.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.C1)
1989 Dec 31, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir fired Science Minister Ezer Weizman, accusing him of meeting with officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1990 Dec 31, Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV began transmitting.
(www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi?askmonth=12&askday=31)
1990 Dec 31, George Allen, US football coach (LA Rams, Wash Redskins), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Allen_(football))
1991 Dec 31, President Bush arrived in Australia as part of a 12-day Pacific trip.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, Representatives of the government of El Salvador and rebels reached agreement at the United Nations on a peace accord aimed at ending 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, This was the last day of existence for the USSR.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec01/russia_coup.html)
1992 Dec 31, President Bush visited Somalia, where he saw firsthand the famine racking the east African nation. He praised U.S. troops that provided relief to the starving population.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1992 Dec 31, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was jeered by Bosnians during a visit to Sarajevo.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1992 Dec 31, The Nation of Czechoslovakia officially ended with division into two Nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1992. When the country split, all citizens were deemed to be either Czech or Slovak, based on their parentage. The vast majority of the Romany living in the Czech Republic are of Slovak descent, and they had to apply for Czech citizenship. In 2009 Mary Haimann authored “Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed."
(HFA, '96, p.44)(SFC, 5/13/96, p.A-8)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.84)
1993 Dec 31, Entertainer Barbra Streisand performed her first paid concert in 22 years, singing to a sellout crowd at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1993 Dec 31, Scott Douglas (38) beat his wife, Anne Scripps Douglas (b.1946), with a claw hammer in their Bronxville home. She went into a coma and died Jan 6, 1994. Anne Scripps Douglas was the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps. Douglas disappeared, though his car was found on the off the Tappan Zee Bridge. His body was found washed up in the Bronx on March 30, 1994. In 2009 Anne Morell Petrillo (38), the daughter of Anne Scripps Douglas from a previous marriage, committed suicide off the Tappan Zee Bridge.
(SFC, 9/29/09, p.A9)(http://acollectionofarticlesannscripps.blogspot.com/)
1993 Dec 31, Former IBM chairman Thomas J. Watson died in Greenwich, Conn., at age 79.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1993 Dec 31, Samuel Morris Steward (b.1909), also known by the pen name Phil Andros, died. He was a novelist and tattoo artist later based in Oakland, California. His “Stud File" ran to more than 4,600 encounters with over 800 men. In 2010 Justin Spring authored “Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Andros)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.F1)(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
1993 Dec 31, Former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia (b.1939) died on New Year’s Eve. He had returned to lead an uprising in western Georgia, but the fighting was quickly put down and Gamsakhurdia was surrounded. His body was then taken to Chechnya. In 2007 His body was returned for burial in Georgia.
(AP, 3/28/07)
1994 Dec 31, John C. Salvi III, accused of killing two receptionists at two Boston-area abortion clinics on Dec 30, was arrested in Norfolk, Va. Salvi, later convicted of murder, committed suicide in prison.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1994 Dec 31, Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1994 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1995 Dec 31, Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky engaged in their 3rd sexual encounter. By this time Lewinsky was a member of the staff of the Office of legislative Affairs.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A12)
1995 Dec 31, The first US tanks crossed a pontoon bridge over the Sava River from Croatia to Bosnia to start the deployment of 20,000 US troops under IFOR, the Implementation Force under NATO command.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1995 Dec 31, Cartoonist Bill Watterson ended his "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip.
(http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/10/24/reclusive.cartoonist.ap/)
1995 Dec 31, In Algeria Ahmed Ouyahia began serving as Prime Minister and held that position until December 1998. He resigned following the election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika as President.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ouyahia)
1995 Dec 31, Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a UN-brokered cease-fire agreement.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1995 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1996 Dec 31, In China former student leader Li Hai was sentenced to 9 years in prison on charges of prying into state secrets.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C2)
1996 Dec 31, Leftist rebels in Peru released two diplomats, leaving 81 hostages in the besieged Japanese embassy residence in Lima.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1996 Dec 31, In Syria a New Year’s Eve bomb on a bus killed 9 and injured 44.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, A federal judge in Texas ruled that parts of the 1996 Telecommunications Act are unconstitutional.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A1)
1997 Dec 31, Microsoft bought the Hotmail E-mail service.
(www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1997/12/29/daily12.html)
1997 Dec 31, Michael L. Kennedy, 39-year-old son of the late US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a ski accident at Aspen, Colo.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, Pianist Floyd Cramer died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 64.
(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, In Sorocaba, Brazil, riot troops stormed a prison where inmates held hundreds of hostages, quickly ending a three-day rebellion without any deaths.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)(AP, 12/31/98)
1997 Dec 31, China banned leaded gasoline in the whole Beijing area.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, The US State Dept. reported that Iraq had ordered the summary execution of “hundreds if not thousands" of political detainees in recent weeks. The exiled Iraqi Communist party in London said 1,500 prisoners were killed on Nov 21. The exiled Iraqi National Congress said 800 prisoners were recently executed. A former Dutch foreign minister and UN Human Rights investigator said about 200 were reportedly executed. Iraq denied the charges.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A18)
1997 Dec 31, In Kenya projected counts indicated that Moi would win the elections with about 40% of the vote. Former vice-president Mwai Kibaki had about 30%.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, Masked gunmen opened fire at the Clifton Tavern in Belfast and left one man dead and 5 wounded. The Loyalist Volunteer Force admitted killing Eddie Trainor (31) and wounding 5 others.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A16)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A15)
1997 Dec 31, In Pakistan Rafiz Tarar won the presidential election with 374 votes in the National Assembly. He faced a Jan 12 court hearing on charges of defaming the judiciary last month.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Dec 31, In Zambia former Pres. Kaunda (73) was released from prison and placed under house arrest.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1998 Dec 31, In New Orleans a truck loaded with fireworks exploded prior to a New Years Eve show. 2 technicians were killed.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A12)
1998 Dec 31, In Cambodia Hun Sen said he would not oppose a trial of the 2 recently emerged Khmer Rouge defectors. The National Assembly passed a $393.4 million budget that included $133 million for defense and security.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C12)
1998 Dec 31, In China the collected villages of Bujun in Sichuan province cast ballots for their own magistrate.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A13)
1998 Dec 31, Europe's leaders proclaimed a new era as 11 nations merged currencies to create the euro, a shared money they said would boost business, underpin unity and strengthen their role in world affairs.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1999 Dec 31, The $500,000 Anheuser-Busch prize to the first person of team to circle the globe in a balloon expires. An additional $500,000 goes to a charity of the winner’s choice.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A6)
1999 Dec 31, The US was by a 1977 treaty required to give up control of the Panama Canal and withdraw its forces by this date. The treaty also required the US to pay for environmental cleanup.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C5)
1999 Dec 31, An arson attack of the genetic research building at Michigan State University caused $3.7 million in damages. Frank Ambrose of Detroit later admitted to the arson and went undercover for investigations of eco-terrorism. In 2008 Ambrose was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
(WSJ, 10/11/08, p.A7)(www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=409)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A3)
1999 Dec 31, Elliot L. Richardson (79), former Attorney General, died in Boston.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1999 Dec 31, In Afghanistan the hijackers of an Indian airline Flight 814 (see Dec 24) released all 150 hostages after India released 3 jailed militants: Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the Harkat-ul-Ansar rebel group, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargat, an Indian Kashmiri. 4 hijackers came off the plane and left one dead hijacker behind. The Taliban gave them 10 hours to leave the country.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A19)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A25)
1999 Dec 31, Burundian soldiers killed at least 43 people including children in the Kabezi commune in Bujumbura Rural province.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 31, In Congo Jean-Pierre Bemba said his Congolese Liberation Movement forces had ambushed and killed 80 government troops at Libanda.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, Europe’s leaders proclaimed a new era as eleven nations merged currencies to create the euro, a shared money they said would boost business, underpin unity and strengthen their role in world affairs.
(AP, 12/31/00)
1999 Dec 31, In Indonesia thousands of residents fled clashes between the Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands. 350 people had died in 5 days of violence. 5 people were killed at Makariki on Seram Island and security forces imposed a curfew.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Iran Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel during demonstrations for "Al-Quds Day." Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Dec 31, In Lebanon Muslim militants ambushed an army patrol and killed 4 soldiers with 3 wounded in Diniyah. A kidnapped soldier was found dead the next day and a kidnapped Lt. Col. Was missing.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A27)
1999 Dec 31, Pres. Yeltsin (68) announced his resignation and handed power over to PM Putin. Yeltsin approved a law just before resigning that required presidential candidates to collect 1 million registered signatures to win a place on the next ballet. Putin flew to Chechnya and vowed to pursue terrorists everywhere.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/1/08, p.54)
2000 Dec 31, The US signed a treaty for the creation of the 1st permanent int’l. court, joining most other countries of the world, despite objections by conservatives and the Pentagon.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/05)
2000 Dec 31, Former Sen. Alan Cranston died in Los Altos, Calif., at age 86.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/31/01)
2000 Dec 31, Flamenco dancer Jose Greco died in Lancaster, Pa., at age 82.
(AP, 12/31/01)
2000 Dec 31, In London the Millennium dome opened for its last day.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A8)
2000 Dec 31, In the West Bank Binyamin Kahane, son of Jewish extremist Meir Kahane, and his wife Talia were killed in an ambush by Palestinian gunmen. Israeli military soon after killed Thabet Thabet, a Fatah leader.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A13)
2000 Dec 31, In Malaysia 15 parachutists planned to leap from the Petronas Towers just before midnight and land in the new year.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 31, In Mexico Pres. Fox ordered a 2nd military base closed in Chiapas. Separately the outgoing Tabasco state Congress named Enrique Priego as acting governor.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 31, In Pakistan staggered elections for municipal and district councils began. A third of the seats were reserved for women, another third for the poor.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
2000 Dec 31, Six Persian Gulf nations (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) signed a regional defense pact.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A10)
2000 Dec 31, In St. Lucia machete wielding men stormed the Castries Cathedral, hacked at worshipers and set them ablaze. One nun was killed and 12 people injured. Two suspects identified themselves as Rastafarian foes of corruption in the Catholic Church.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 31, Notre Dame tapped Tyrone Willingham to be its football coach, replacing George O'Leary, who'd resigned because of misstatements about his academic and athletic achievements on his resume; Willingham became the first black head coach in any sport for the Irish.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2001 Dec 31, The US designated 6 more entities as suspected terrorist organizations. 5 groups were active in the UK, the 6th was active in Spain. Lashkar-e-Taiba was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2001 Dec 31, It was reported that federal pay raises ranged from 4.5 to 5.4% with the largest increase going to workers in San Francisco.
(SFC, 12/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 31, The US planned to deploy elements of the 101st Airborne Division to replace Marines near Kandahar. US troops moved by helicopter to Helmand province, the region where Mohammed Omar was suspected to be.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 31, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent his final day in office praising police, firefighters, and other city employees, and said he had no regrets about returning to private life. In 2005 Fred and Harry Siegel authored “Prince of the City," an account of the Giuliani’s years as mayor of NYC.
(AP, 12/31/02)(WSJ, 6/23/05, p.D8)
2001 Dec 31, Actress Eileen Heckart died in Norwalk, Conn., at age 82.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2001 Dec 31, In Caracas, Venezuela, street vendors began selling pre-recorded CDs of banging pots to help drown out the long-winded speeches of Pres. Chavez. Earlier protests included the banging of pots and pans and became known as “cacerolazes." Approval ratings for Chavez had dropped from 80% to just over 50% in recent months.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A2)
2001 Dec 31, Pakistani high command planned to pull some 50,000 troops off the Afghan border and redeploy them along the India border.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A10)
2001 Dec 31, It was reported that Zimbabwe planned to publish the names of nearly 100,000 black citizens to be given portions of some 20 million acres of now farmland owned by whites.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 31, President Bush told reporters an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally "would cripple our economy."
(AP, 12/31/03)
2002 Dec 31, US executions for the year rose from 66 to71 with 33 in Texas.
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 31, Australia's asylum seeker detention centers were in turmoil following an attempted mass breakout and riot in a Sydney centre, an armed stand off at another and fires burning in two.
(Reuters, 12/31/02)
2002 Dec 31, In China a German-designed magnetic-levitation train hit 260 mph on its maiden run between Shanghai and Pudong airport.
(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A10)
2002 Dec 31, Two U.N. nuclear inspectors expelled by North Korea arrived in China, leaving the communist nation's nuclear program isolated from international scrutiny.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2002 Dec 31, In Colombia at least 12 people, including eight civilians, were killed in attacks by suspected rebels around the country.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Dec 31, Mexico City's only English-language newspaper, The News, shut down along with its sister Spanish-language publication, Novedades, after more than 50 years in operation.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2002 Dec 31, In Mexico illegal fireworks stands ignited in the port city of Veracruz as revelers thronged a marketplace to buy New Year's supplies. The blaze quickly engulfed an entire city block and killed at least 28 people.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Dec 31, In Puerto Rico police recaptured one of five convicts who escaped from prison when a helicopter swooped into their maximum security compound and spirited them away.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2003 Dec 31, Neal Batson ended his tenure as bankruptcy examiner of Enron. The 18-month probe had a final tab of $90 million. It included lawyer rates of as much as $600 an hour.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.C1)
2003 Dec 31, Chicago regained the title of America's murder capital. It finished 2003 with 599 homicides. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Gary, Ind., appeared to finish 2003 with the nation's highest per capita homicide rate for the ninth straight year.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, The JenniCam website, begun by Jennifer Ringley in 1996, shut down. 7 years earlier she installed a Web camera in her Pennsylvania college dorm room and kept it on for 24 hours a day recording every detail of her life.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.B4)
2003 Dec 31, China offered to allow Taiwan to fly unlimited numbers of direct charter flights to the mainland in 2004, if the island's government agrees to allow Chinese airlines to do the same the following year.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In Indonesia a bomb tore through a crowded New Year's concert in Aceh province, killing 10 people, including three children. 45 were wounded.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, In Iraq gunfire erupted in Kirkuk as hundreds of Arabs and Turkmen marched in protest over fears of Kurdish domination in the oil-rich northern city.
(AP, 12/31/03)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, A New Year's Eve car bombing at the upscale Nabil restaurant in Baghdad killed 8 people and injured 35.
(AP, 1/1/04)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, Security forces boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri (b.1963). For the next five months, el-Masri was a ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan. He was the wrong guy. El-Masri was dumped in Albania in a remote hillside on May 28, 2004, without explanation or apology. Five months later Germany withdrew warrants for the arrest of 13 CIA agents. In 2012 el-Masri took his case to Europe’s human rights court.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri)(AP, 2/9/11)(SSFC, 3/6/11, p.F6)(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A4)
2003 Dec 31, An avalanche swept down Mount Tasman, one of New Zealand's tallest peaks, killing four climbers and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In the Philippines a fire sparked by firecrackers swept through an old market in Lucena City, killing at least 14 people who were trapped inside their stalls.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, Vietnam sentenced Nguyen Vu Binh (35) to 7 years in jai and 3 years house arrest for writing an article in 2002 that circulated on the Internet criticizing a border agreement between Vietnam and China.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A3)
2004 Dec 31, The US pledged $350 million in grant aid for tsunami disaster relief. The World Bank committed $250 million. Great Britain offered $95 million.
(AP, 1/1/05)(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A1)
2004 Dec 31, Bulgarian authorities picked up Suleyman Demirel, one-time owner of Egebank and nephew of former pres. Demirel, and returned him to Turkey for trial. Egebank’s collapse had caused financial losses of $1.2 billion.
(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey p.10)
2004 Dec 31, Ricardo Palmera (54) became the first leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to be sent to face prosecution in a U.S. federal court.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Dec 31, In Colombia suspected Marxist rebels massacred 16 peasants, including women and children, in a remote area in lawless Arauca province.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Dec 31, Gerard Debreu (b.1921), winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1983), died in Paris.
(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Debreu)
2004 Dec 31, Spain's socialist government approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriages.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2004 Dec 31, Sudanese government and southern rebel officials signed landmark deals on how to implement a series of agreements on ending a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2004 Dec 31, Thai authorities said more than 2,230 foreigners from 36 nations were confirmed dead from Thailand's southern resorts alone.
(AP, 12/31/04)(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A1)
2004 Dec 30, Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovych resigned, acknowledging that he had little hope of reversing the election victory of his Western-leaning rival, Viktor Yushchenko.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Dick Clark, in his first television appearance since his stroke in 2004, helped to ring in the new year in Times Square.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2005 Dec 31, Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobil, retired. It was later revealed that he received $144,573 for each day he spent as chief from 1993 thru 2005.
(SFC, 4/15/06, p.C1)(www.exxposeexxon.com/newsroom/)
2005 Dec 31, A powerful storm plowed through Northern California, causing mudslides and widespread flooding and snarling holiday traffic from Sonoma to Monterey.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Guillermo Martinez (18) died in a Tijuana hospital one day after he was shot by a US Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego. On Jan 2 Mexico opened an investigation into the killing saying he was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to draw attention to a contentious US anti-immigration measure. In 2008 the US Dept. of Justice cleared the Border Patrol agent of any wrongdoing.
(AP, 1/3/06)(SFC, 2/16/08, p.A4)
2005 Dec 31, British subway workers in London walked out in a 24-hour strike timed to cripple the subway system on a night when tens of thousands of revelers were planning to celebrate New Year in the city.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A first group of UN peacekeepers from Mozambique left Burundi as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Cambodia police arrested two leading human rights activists on defamation charges as the UN human rights body expressed "extreme concern" over the move.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak swore in a new Cabinet that retained major personalities of the previous government, while adding two more pro-American business figures and installing Egypt's first minister to wear a headscarf. The government of PM Ahmed Nazif included Aisha Abdul Hadi, appointed as labor and immigration minister.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2005 Dec 31, In Egypt several Sudanese migrants injured when police violently cleared a ramshackle camp died later from their wounds, raising the death toll from the clash to 25. Sudanese refugees began trickling across the border to Israel following the clashes.
(AP, 12/31/05)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2005 Dec 31, In Palu, Indonesia, a bomb packed with ball bearings and nails ripped through a meat market crowded with holiday shoppers, killing at least eight people and wounding 45.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A bomb in Khalis killed 5 members of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Gunmen raided a house south of Baghdad, killing five Sunni family members, and a roadside bomb in the capital killed two policemen. The wave of violence claimed at least 20 lives.
(AP, 12/31/05)(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.A3)
2005 Dec 31, Al-Qaida in Iraq released 6 kidnapped employees of Sudan's embassy following the Sudanese government's pledge to close its embassy in Baghdad.
(Reuters, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Guillermo Martinez (18) died in a Tijuana hospital one day after he was shot by a US Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego. On Jan 2 Mexico opened an investigation into the killing saying he was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to draw attention to a contentious US anti-immigration measure.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2005 Dec 31, Dozens of Palestinian gunmen stormed several government offices in Gaza City and briefly took the Interior Ministry to demand jobs.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, A British aid worker and her parents were whisked out of Gaza after being released by Palestinian gunmen who had abducted them two days earlier.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, El Salvador's 22 penitentiaries, designed to house 7,370 inmates, were packed with more than 12,500 prisoners.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2005 Dec 31, In Iraq inflation for the year ran at 15%. The official unemployment was 10%, but some believed that it could be more than 20%. The population was around 70 million.
(WSJ, 6/22/06, p.A12)
2005 Dec 31, Two Palestinians were killed in Israel's first deadly airstrike in a Gaza border area it recently put off-limits, just as a truce that has drastically reduced violence between the two sides formally ended.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo announced Indonesia's Lippo Group with local partners is investing some three billion pesos (56.5 million dollars) in a Philippine bank.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly to supply Ukraine with natural gas at the current price for three months, if the government in Kiev immediately agreed to a big price hike to take effect later.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Moscow jailed Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's former nuclear minister, on fraud charges after a Swiss court decided to extradite him to Russia instead of the US.
(WSJ, 1/3/06, p.A1)
2005 Dec 31, In Slovakia 7 tourists from the Czech Republic died in avalanches in the Tatra mountains. A day earlier a German was killed by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Sri Lanka police and soldiers cordoned off five districts in Colombo and detained more than 900 people during door-to-door searches to track down Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Syria's ruling Baath Party stripped former Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam of membership and joined parliament in demanding his trial on a charge of high treason. The French Foreign Ministry confirmed Khaddam has been in France for several months but declined to give any details on his whereabouts.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 31, Yemeni kidnappers released a former German diplomat and his four family members.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2006 Dec 31, The US Medicare prescription drug plan went into effect.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared statewide emergencies after a winter storm dumped as much as 3-feet of snow across much of the Plains. Snowdrifts reached 10 feet and 12 people died in 4 states.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2006 Dec 31, American teenager Farris Hassan, who'd traveled alone to Iraq to experience the lives of its people, returned home to Florida after three weeks in the Middle East.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, In San Francisco members of the Baker’s Dozen, a choral group from Yale, were assaulted on 15th Ave. near Lake Street. Police went under criticism for not making any arrests.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A8)
2006 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists announced that the year 2006 was the deadliest for journalists and media workers worldwide, with at least 155 murders and unexplained deaths.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Scientists reported that they have used genetic engineering techniques to produce the first cattle that may be biologically incapable of getting Mad Cow disease.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A2)
2006 Dec 31, Seymour Martin Lipset (1922), renowned social scientist, died in Virginia. His books included “Political Man" (1960). Lipset had served as a political sociologist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and as the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Martin_Lipset)
2006 Dec 31, Belarus agreed to a more than doubling of the price it pays for Russian gas, signing what it called an "unfortunate" deal two minutes before a midnight New Year's Eve deadline expired.
(AFP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, The British Nuclear Group closed two nuclear power stations after 40 years of service. Dungeness A and Sizewell A were the oldest commercial nuclear plants in the world.
(AP, 12/31/06)(WSJ, 1/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 31, In Bulgaria 2 Chernobyl-era nuclear energy units were shut down at Kozloduy as an accession to Bulgaria’s joining the EU. This led to a cut in energy exports and to soaring energy prices in the Balkans.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.51)(http://tinyurl.com/2oyyok)
2006 Dec 31, In Ecuador the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, a package of trade benefits with the US offered in exchange for cooperation in counter-drug activities expired, but was extended for six months.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2006 Dec 31, Indonesian rescue boats picked up some 177 exhausted survivors from the Senopati Nusantara, an Indonesian ferry that sank in the Java Sea, but they also recovered dozens of bodies and around 400 people remained missing.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Japanese media reported that Japanese courts had sentenced 44 people to death in 2006, the largest number in at least 26 years, amid a toughening of sentences for violent crimes.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Saddam Hussein was buried in the Ouja, the village of his birth, 24 hours after his execution. The death toll for Americans killed in the Iraq war reached 3,000 as President Bush struggled to salvage a military campaign that has scant public support.
(AP, 12/31/06)(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Fighting erupted on the outskirts of the last remaining stronghold of Somalia's militant Islamic movement, as thousands of residents streamed from the area ahead of the feared battle with Ethiopian-backed government troops.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, In Thailand 6 bomb blasts rocked Bangkok on New Years Eve and 3 more just after midnight. 3 people were killed 38 wounded. The city cancelled its major New Year's Eve celebrations just as revelers had begun to gather ahead of the countdown.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2006 Dec 31, Over a thousand Turks spent the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in emergency wards after stabbing themselves or suffering other injuries while sacrificing startled animals.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dec 31, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa rejected IMF directives to introduce more taxes in his impoverished southern African nation.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Dec 31, President George W. Bush signed into a law a measure aimed at allowing states, local governments, mutual funds and pension funds to divest from Sudan businesses, particularly its oil sectors.
(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, In Ohio a drunken driver went about four miles down a highway in the wrong direction before his pickup truck slammed into a minivan, killing a woman and four children and injuring three others. All 8 had been visiting family in Michigan and were returning to Maryland.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In San Francisco Albert Collins (30) shielded his daughter (9) from gunfire in the Sunnydale public housing project and was killed becoming the city’s 98th homicide victim.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.B1)
2007 Dec 31, Oakland, Ca., police officers shot and killed Andrew Moppin-Buckskin (20) at 47th and Int’l. Blvd. after he ran from his car following a traffic stop. In 2010 a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by the family of Moppin-Buckskin.
(SSFC, 1/17/10, p.C2)
2007 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists said at least 134 media workers were killed on assignment this year, most of them in Iraq, which has become the most dangerous place for journalists since the start of the US-led war there.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In California murders for 2007 in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood of Los Angeles held at 19 as of Dec 24. Murders there had dropped from 43 in 2005 to 19 in 2006. In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of Florencia 13, or F13, one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a NATO soldier and wounded four others. In Helmand province, a roadside bomb exploded against a police vehicle driving through Musa Qala, killing two officers. Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police this year, and large swaths of the country remained outside government control. More than 6,500 people, mostly militants, died in 2007, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials. Also in 2007, 110 US soldiers were killed in the country, the highest American toll since the 2001 invasion. US military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper said a one percentage-point cut to the country's consumption tax will be effective January 1, 2008.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages, including a 3-year old boy, from leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart as the guerrillas accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, In southern Egypt a bus plunged into a canal alongside the Nile River, killing 17 passengers and the driver.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A suicide bomber drove a truck rigged with explosives into a checkpoint manned by members of a US-backed security volunteer group in a town north of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Another three people were missing following the explosion in the town of Mishada, 20 miles north of the capital. A female suicide bomber detonated herself near a police patrol, wounding five policemen and four civilians in the town of Baqouba. In the town of Khalis gunmen traded fire with police and Awakening Council members, leaving one council member and one policeman dead. A roadside bomb targeting a patrol near the Iranian border killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured another four. According to Iraqi health, defense and interior ministries, 16,232 civilians, 432 soldiers and about 1,300 policeman died this year compared to 12,371 civilians, 603 soldiers and 1,224 policeman killed in 2006. 2007 was the deadliest year for the US military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed.
(AP, 12/31/07)(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, The number of people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence dropped dramatically this year. A report from an Israeli human rights group said Israeli forces killed 373 Palestinians during 2007, a 45 percent drop from the previous year. Palestinians killed 13 Israelis in the same period.
(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 31, Kenyan police battled thousands of opposition supporters enraged over President Mwai Kibaki's allegedly fraudulent re-election, firing tear gas and live ammunition as the death toll from the violence rose to 103.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Nepal 4 former communist rebels were sworn in as Cabinet ministers, ending a political crisis that began when the ex-guerrillas walked out of a coalition government three-months ago.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, North Korea failed to meet a year-end deadline to declare all its nuclear programs under an aid-for-disarmament deal, prompting disappointed reactions from South Korea, the United States and Japan.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A newly released video of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and an inconclusive medical report raised new doubts about the official explanation of her death and were likely to intensify calls for an independent, international investigation.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Palestinian pilgrims broke windows and burned mattresses and blankets in temporary camps to protest Egypt's refusal to let them return to Gaza through a crossing controlled by Hamas. A Palestinian woman (67) died of a heart attack when she was caught amid scuffles. The standoff over the pilgrims began Dec 29, when some 3,060 Palestinians returning from the hajj in Saudi Arabia arrived by ferry at the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba in southern Sinai, heading back to Gaza.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Sudan the African Union transferred authority to a new joint peacekeeping force with the UN in Darfur. An AU official said Ethiopia and Egypt will each send 850 troops early in the new year to serve with a joint UN-AU force in the Darfur region.
(AP, 12/31/07)(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Syria’s state-run media called on the US to begin a direct dialogue, a day after an influential US senator said Washington could "bridge the gap" between Israel and Syria.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Thailand a bomb attack wounded 27 people in Sungai Kolok, a tourist town where people had gathered to celebrate the New Year.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, President Hugo Chavez granted amnesty to many opponents accused of supporting a failed 2002 coup that briefly drove him from power. Chavez said he signed an amnesty decree that would also pardon others accused of attempting to overthrow his government in recent years.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2008 Dec 31, US mortgage lender Freddie Mac said interest rates on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to an average of 5.10% for the week ending this day, down from the previous week's 5.14%.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Aspen, Colorado, James Chester Blanning (72), walked into two downtown banks afternoon and left gift-wrapped bombs made of gasoline and cell phone components. He had skied competitively as a teen but had grown bitter about his hometown. His bombs caused the evacuation of a 16-block area, which lasted until 4 a.m. Police found Blanning dead in his Jeep Cherokee a few hours later in a rural area east of Aspen.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2008 Dec 31, Donald Westlake (1933), American mystery author, died while vacationing in Mexico. He authored over 90 books and a number of screenplays.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.B6)
2008 Dec 31, In Afghanistan Taliban militants attacked a district governor's compound in southern Helmand province, killing 20 police guards and fatally shooting the mother of one as she pleaded unsuccessfully for her son's life. Two foreign soldiers helping to fight the extremists were killed in separate incidents. US-led forces killed eight armed Taliban militants in Zabul province.
(AFP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, In Brazil Christian Wolffer (70), owner of the Wolffer Estate winery, bled to death after suffering two deep cuts on his back while swimming on New Year's Eve near the colonial town of Paraty, about 150 kilometers (100 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro. A man suspected of piloting a motorboat that struck and killed Wolffer was detained on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2008 Dec 31, It was reported that China has delayed plans to start the central section of its massive South-to-North water diversion project by 4 years due to environmental concerns.
(WSJ, 12/31/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 31, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that a pair of Chinese forestry executives cheated thousands of investors out of 160 million dollars by selling off "timber lands" in a barren desert region. Chairman Chen Xianggui of Inner Mongolia's Wanli Afforestation Co. was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a court in the region while general manager Liu Yanying received nine years for the pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, Tian Wenhua, former chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, one of China’s biggest dairy producers, pleaded guilty to selling fake and substandard milk powder.
(SFC, 1/1/09, p.A3)
2008 Dec 31, In Denmark a gunman shot and wounded two Israelis working at the Rosengaard mall in Odense. Police son arrested a 27-year-old Dane born in Lebanon of Palestinian parents.
(AP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Dec 31, India's president signed an anti-terror bill into law to boost police powers in the wake of a bloody attack on the country's financial capital.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Iraq Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani kicked off the country's second postwar bidding round, naming 11 oil and gas fields or groups of fields as eligible for development proposals. 8 people were killed in four bombings in the north. At least 314 US soldiers died in 2008, down from 904 in 2007.
(AP, 12/31/08)(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, Israel rejected international pressure for a two-day cease-fire with Hamas and sent warplanes to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic rulers. Gaza officials said the five days of airstrikes have killed 390, including 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, Mexico sent 10 alleged drug smugglers to the United States, capping an already record year for extraditions between the two countries. 2 Canadian tourists were hospitalized with gunshot wounds after assailants opened fire at a nightclub in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, In Pakistan tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships continued their attacks in the Khyber Pass. Over the last two days, security forces destroyed 19 suspected militant compounds and arrested 28 Pakistanis. Government troops reportedly killed three militants in the operation to secure the major supply route to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, A senior Pakistani government official said Zarar Shah, a militant arrested in Pakistan, has confessed involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and is giving investigators details of the plot. Shah and another suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, were said to be cooperating with investigators.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Bangkok, Thailand, a New Year's Eve fire erupted at the Santika nightclub. Before the revelry was over, 62 people were killed and more than 200 injured after they tried to flee what swiftly became a charred, gutted ruin in a glitzy Bangkok entertainment area.
(AP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/4/09)
2008 Dec 31, The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on an Arab request for a binding and enforceable resolution condemning Israel and halting its military attacks on Gaza. The US immediately called the draft resolution circulated by Libya on behalf of the 22-member Arab League "unacceptable" and "unbalanced" and because it makes no mention of halting the Hamas rocket attacks that led to the Israeli offensive.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec 31, The Vatican announced that it will no longer automatically adopt new Italian laws as its own, citing the vast number of laws Italy churns out, many of which are in odds with Catholic doctrine.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2009 Dec 31, US District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the case against the Blackwater guards accused of the shooting in a crowded Baghdad intersection on Sep 16, 2007.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2009 Dec 31, The Montana Supreme Court said that nothing in state law prevents patients from seeking physician assisted suicide, making Montana the third state to allow the procedure.
(SFC, 1/1/10, p.A5)
2009 Dec 31, Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 Dec 31, Afghan police said militants beheaded 6 Afghans for cooperating with government authorities. The men were killed near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot. A seventh victim was being treated for serious neck wounds. A US service member died in eastern Afghanistan of injuries not related to battle. A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/31/09)(AP, 1/1/10)
2009 Dec 31, In Australia residents returned to survey the wreckage after Western Australia's worst wildfire in 50 years engulfed 38 homes in an isolated rural community.
(AFP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, In Finland Ibrahim Shkupolli (43) shot himself at his home in Espoo after going on a rampage that killed his ex-girlfriend, then four other people at a local shopping mall where she also worked.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, Hundreds of demonstrators rallied on opposite sides of an Israeli-Gaza border crossing to protest the blockade of the seaside territory imposed by Egypt and Israel. Gaza's Hamas parliament approved a government budget of $540 million for 2010, suggesting that a tight border blockade isn't stopping the cash flow to the Islamic militants. The Hamas government has about 32,000 people on its payroll, including civil servants and members of the security forces. About $30 million of the budget would go to Arab residents of Jerusalem and Islamic sites in the city.
(AP, 12/31/09)(AP, 1/2/10)
2009 Dec 31, Lithuania began shutting down its the 2nd Ignalina nuclear reactor. It was scheduled to be disconnected from the power grid an hour before midnight. The 1st reactor was shut down in 2004.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, A Malaysian court ruled that a Catholic weekly, the Herald, had a constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God, striking down a government ban as illegal. On Jan 6, the High Court suspended its ruling following an appeal by the government and with the consent of the Catholic church.
(AP, 12/31/09)(Econ, 1/16/10, p.44)
2009 Dec 31, In Mexico Roberto Salcedo (33), an assistant principal and Southern California school board member, was killed while he and his wife were visiting relatives in Gomez Palacio.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2009 Dec 31, In Myanmar Freelance reporter Hla Hla Win (25) was sentenced by a court in Pakokku for an alleged violation of the country's Electronics Act. She was arrested in September after visiting a Buddhist monastery in the northern town of Pakokku. The jailed reporter had worked with the Myanmar exile broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Oslo, Norway. A man accompanying her was sentenced to 26 years in jail.
(AFP, 1/6/10)
2009 Dec 31, In northwest Pakistan a suspected US missile strike near Mir Ali hit a house and killed 3 people. In 2010 a Pakistani tribesman sought 500 million dollars in compensation from the CIA after his son and brother were killed in the drone attack. In 2015 a judge ordered criminal charges to be filed against former acting general counsel John Rizzo and ex-station chief Jonathan Bank.
(AP, 1/1/10)(AFP, 11/29/10)(SFC, 4/8/15, p.A3)
2009 Dec 31, Moscow police detained dozens of people at an anti-Kremlin protest, including Lyudmila Alexeyeva (82), a prominent rights activist. The New Year's Eve protest is a repeat of actions held on the 31st of July, August and October. The timing is a nod to the 31st Article of the Russian constitution, which guarantees the right of assembly.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 31, South Korea’s Pres. Lee Myung-bak pardoned former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was convicted of tax evasion on Apr 17, 2008. Pres. Lee Myung-bak said the country needed Mr. Lee’s help to win South Korea’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.74)
2009 Dec 31, In Sudan 17 people were killed when armed civilians ambushed south Sudanese soldiers trying to disarm tribes following heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous region.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2009 Dec 31, The Ugandan government said it was investigating the breakaway Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be illegal. 20 renegade Catholic priests, who are either married or want to marry, have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church and formed a new church where celibacy is not required. Vatican officials said the priests were now considered "outside" the Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2010 Dec 31, San Francisco was chosen to host the next America’s Cup in 2013.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A1)
2010 Dec 31, In Arkansas a tornado killed 3 people in the hamlet of Cincinnati. A storm spawned by the same weather left 3 people dead near Rolla, Missouri. A 4th person, injured in Rolla, died the next day.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A11)
2010 Dec 31, The body of John Wheeler III (66), a national defense consultant, was found in a load of trash at a landfill in Wilmington, Delaware. He was last seen alive a day earlier in Wilmington.
(http://tinyurl.com/2c6hzrd)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2010 Dec 31, In western Virginia a small aircraft collided with a medical helicopter in the air, killing two people on the plane.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Afghan forces conducted an overnight raid in two compounds in Tahar province killing a Taliban district chief in a gunfight that also left an Afghan policeman and a border guard dead, NATO said insurgents attacks claimed the lives of two coalition service members. Coalition forces killed Abdul Hai, a Taliban leader in Kunduz.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Argentina thieves dug a 100-foot-long (30m) ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a Buenos Aires bank and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch's 1,408 boxes. The robbery wasn't discovered until the bank opened on Jan 3.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Australia floodwater rose across a vast area in the northeast, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export port.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Belarus declared that Europe's top rights watchdog would no longer be able to work in the country, after the OSCE condemned the conduct of this month's presidential election.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Brazil's president granted political asylum to Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, but the case must still be heard by the nation's Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Britain said it no longer recognized the ambassador appointed by Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo who is refusing to step down after elections widely viewed as having been won by his rival Alassane Ouattara. Britain said it would give support at the UN for the use of force to oust Ivory Coast's incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo if West African nations sought backing for a military intervention.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation said in a new report that law enforcement officials from police to prison wardens routinely torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Mexico's federal police said that the once-fearsome La Familia drug cartel has been "completely dismembered" and has broken down into small groups that commit robberies to pay their members. The half-naked body of a woman who had escaped from prison officials while facing kidnapping charges was found hanging by the neck from an overpass in Monterey. 5 inmates, including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat, escaped a prison in Cancun.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 31, Nigerian police said they have arrested Bunu Wasili (55), a man suspected to be a leader and financier of Boko Haram, along with 91 others. The radical Muslim sect was responsible for dozens of recent killings in northern Nigeria. A New Year's Eve bombing in Abuja killed 4 people.
(AP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Pakistan violence flared as police and protesters clashed during a mass protest strike that closed businesses across the country over a bid to end the death penalty for blasphemy. A US missile strike killed 8 suspected militants in North Waziristan. A bomb blew up outside a district police headquarters in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a bystander and wounding two other people. A second bomb targeting a NATO supply convoy in the border town of Chaman set one fuel tanker on fire and wounded a passer-by. The Pakistani Taliban released 23 tribesmen it had kidnapped and held captive for three weeks. They were released after being tried by a Taliban court and being submerged in cold water as punishment.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas laid the first stone of what will become a Palestinian embassy in Brazil, the most important Latin American country to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, In the Philippines Councilman Reynaldo Dagsa was shot dead in Manila. A photograph identified one gunmen, who was captured Jan 3 along with an accomplice. One suspect was a car thief who was out on bail and likely sought revenge against Dagsa for ordering his arrest last year. The main shooter, Arnel Buenaflor, was captured on Jan 6 in a boarding house in Aurora township.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/7/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy Russian prime minister during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, was among 68 people arrested at an unsanctioned rally in Moscow. He and other protesters had gathered on the opposite side of a square from an authorized protest. On Jan 2 he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for failure to follow police orders. Nemtsov was released on Jan 15. A female suicide bomber was killed on the outskirts of Moscow by a bomb that was to have been deployed in the city's central Manezh Square where Muscovites throng for holiday celebrations. A 2nd female suicide bomber was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in jail in May, 2012. On Nov 28, 2012, Ilyas Saidov of Dagestan, who brought the suicide belts, was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 2/3/11(AP, 11/28/12)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia 13 villages remained without power following a freezing rain that caused trees and power lines to snap. Power was cut off to 789 villages and towns with a total of 400,000 inhabitants in the region around Moscow.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, Rwandan police said they are working with counterparts in Dhaka to deport 64 Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking, after the arrest in Kigali of their suspected trafficker. Abdul Sattar Miah was arrested Dec 27 in a hotel in Kigali, in possession of the passports of his presumed victims.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The FV Vega 5, hijacked by Somali pirates, was spotted near the Mozambique coast, approximately 200 nautical miles southwest of the Comoros islands. It was seen towing what looked to be a pirate attack skiff and did not respond to any calls.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In South Africa thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants crowded outside immigration offices as a deadline approached for them to obtain permits or face deportation.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2011 Dec 31, President Barack Obama signed a wide-ranging defense bill into law despite having "serious reservations" about provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists. The bill also applies penalties against Iran's central bank in an effort to hamper Tehran's ability to fund its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, The US ended import tariffs and tax credits that have long sheltered ethanol distilled from corn in the US from the same stuff made from sugarcane in Brazil.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 31, A NASA spacecraft, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, slipped into orbit around the moon. A 2nd Grail probe was expected to enter orbit the next day. Both were launched last September aboard the same rocket to measure lunar gravity.
(SSFC, 1/1/12, p.A10)
2011 Dec 31, Police in Beebe, Arkansas, said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks. Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on the town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, In NYC dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested as they tore down barricades surrounding Zucotti park just before midnight.
(SFC, 1/2/12, p.A4)
2011 Dec 31, Debra Cook, a former defender of Scientology, wrote an explosive e-mail to the organization’s 12,000 members saying chairman David Miscavige is mismanaging its finances and breaking internal rules.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.54)
2011 Dec 31, Basel 2.5, a new set of int’l. rules charging banks higher capital for risks in their trading books, took effect in most European and major world financial jurisdictions.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.69)
2011 Dec 31, Afghan child bride, Sahar Gul (15), spoke of how she was tortured by her mother-in-law who locked her in a toilet for six months, beat her, pulled out her fingernails and burned her with cigarettes. She was found in the basement of her husband's house in the northeastern Baghlan province late Dec 26. On May 5, 2012, her in-laws were sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations.
(AP, 12/31/11)(AP, 5/5/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Algeria three Islamist militants were killed in the northeastern region of Tizi Ouzou, the scene of frequent attacks by groups affiliated to AQIM.
(AP, 1/3/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Bahrain Sayed Hashim Saeed (15) died after a tear gas canister fired at close range hit him in the chest.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Britain's biggest cosmetic surgery chain revealed that rupture rates on allegedly faulty French-made breast implants are seven times higher than previously thought.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Chilean authorities said an Israeli tourist has been detained on suspicion of causing a forest fire that has burned more than 42 square miles (11,000 hectares) in the Torres del Paine national park. In 2012 Rotem Singer (23) agreed to pay $10,000 and raise other money to buy 50,000 native trees to replant the park.
(AP, 12/31/11)(SFC, 2/10/12, p.A2)
2011 Dec 31, In China a bus driver who contracted the bird flu virus died Shenzhen. This was the nation's first reported human case of the deadly disease in 18 months.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Ethiopian troops captured Beledweyne, a rebel-held town in central Somalia, leaving at least 18 people dead.
(Reuters, 12/31/11)(AFP, 12/31/12)
2011 Dec 31, In France Leon Kengo (76), CongoDRC Senate chief, was attacked at the Gare du Nord train station "by bands of those who call themselves 'fighters' close to Etienne Tshisekedi." According to initial reports, Kengo had some teeth knocked out, was trampled underfoot, and rolled on the ground.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Georgia’s defense ministry said a Georgian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, the 11th from the ex-Soviet state to die serving alongside NATO-led forces fighting the Taliban.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Iran said it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Japan Makoto Hirata (46), a senior member of the doomsday cult behind the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways, surrendered to police. Akemi Saito, also a member of Aum Shinrikyo, was arrested on Jan 10, 2012, for helping him evade police for nearly 17 years. On Jan 20 Hirata was indicted for his role in the abduction and confinement of a follower's relative in 1995.
(AP, 1/10/12)(AP, 1/20/12)
2011 Dec 31, In Kenya 5 people were killed in a New Year's Eve hand grenade attack and shooting in a bar in the eastern town of Garissa near the border with Somalia. The assailants were described as four men dressed in military uniform.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2011 Dec 31, Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in parts of the nation, after a recent slew of deadly attacks blamed on a radical Muslim sect killed dozens of people.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Pakistan a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a military vehicle killing two Pakistani soldiers at Boya village in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, Russian police detained 60 opposition activists to prevent them from protesting on a central Moscow square against the Kremlin's stifling of democratic freedoms.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Syria at least six people were killed in attacks on protests, including one in Damascus. Syria's state-run TV said Arab League observers visited the southern city of Daraa and the restive central city of Homs.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec 31, In Yemen Islamist militants fired into the air to halt a peace march by thousands of Yemenis who were demanding an end to fighting that has forced them to flee their homes in the south. Pres. Saleh reversed his decision to leave the country.
(AP, 12/31/11)(AP, 1/1/12)
2012 Dec 31, Working with Congress against a midnight deadline, President Obama said that a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" was in sight but not yet finalized. The emerging deal would raise tax rates on family income over $450,000 and individual income over $400,000 a year, increase the estate tax rate and extend unemployment benefits for one year. The Senate voted 89-8 to approve a last-minute deal to avert income tax hikes on all but the richest Americans and stall painful spending cuts as part of a hard-fought compromise to avoid the economically toxic “fiscal cliff."
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued pardons to the Wilmington 10, a group wrongly convicted in the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store. A federal appeals had thrown out their convictions in 1980.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A4)
2012 Dec 31, A Texas state judge ruled that Texas can cut off funding to Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs for poor women if they advocate for abortion rights.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A4)
2012 Dec 31, In Angola 10 people, including four children, died in a stampede during a New Year’s Eve religious gathering at a sports stadium in Luanda.
(AP, 1/2/13)
2012 Dec 31, The Seleka rebels in the Central African Republic rejected appeals for them to halt their advances and to negotiate to form a coalition government. Seleka means alliance in the local Sango language.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, In Colombia 5 men and 4 women were shot to death on a farm outside Medellin. Rival drug traffickers were believed to be involved.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, Gunmen drove into Cairo's Tahrir Square before dawnand fired at an anti-government sit-in, seriously wounding a protester who had been jailed and tortured by former military rulers after he witnessed the killing of another activist.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Greece’s coalition government called for the indictment of former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou for allegedly removing the names of 3 of his relatives from a list of Swiss bank account holders whose tax records were to be re-examined. Papaconstantinou said the names were removed without his knowledge.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, In Iraq insurgents launched a wave of attacks across the country, primarily targeting Shiite communities and pilgrims and killing at least 36 people. 4 policemen were killed in the northern city of Kirkuk while trying to defuse a bomb the center of the city. Another a policeman was killed when a bomb hit a police convoy in the town of Tuz Khormato.
(AP, 12/31/12)(Econ, 1/5/12, p.35)
2012 Dec 31, Pakistan released eight members of the Afghan Taliban from prison, including the former justice minister under the Taliban, in a bid to boost the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Pakistani intelligence officials found the bodies of 9 militants dumped in the North Waziristan tribal region. The dead men were linked to the Pakistani Taliban.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, The West Bank Deputy Health Minister said an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu has killed 9 people.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2012 Dec 31, About 25 people reportedly were arrested in Moscow on New Year's Eve for trying to hold an unsanctioned protest. For about two years, activists have tried to rally on the 31st of each month with that many days, a reference to Article 31 of the Russian constitution that guarantees free assembly.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, Residents of Saudi Arabia, where booze and New Year's celebrations are banned, flooded into neighboring Bahrain in search of festivities to ring in 2013.
(AP, 1/1/13)
2012 Dec 31, Syrian rebels blew up a natural gas pipeline in the country's oil-rich east. The blast, some 30 km (18 miles) north of Deir el-Zour, caused the loss of around 1.5 million cubic meters of gas.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2013 Dec 31, President Obama’s besieged Affordable Care Act suffered another setback with a US Supreme Court justice issuing a temporary injunction late today preventing enforcement of the law’s contraception mandate against a group of Roman Catholic nuns who provide care to low-income elderly patients.
(SFC, 1/2/14, p.2)
2013 Dec 31, US officials said Slovakia has accepted three Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who had posed a difficult resettlement challenge.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In San Francisco Uber driver Syed Muzaffar of Union City fatally struck Sophia Liu (6) at a crosswalk on Polk Street near the Civic Center. In 2018 Muzaffar was found guilty of manslaughter.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.D1)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In northern Afghanistan gunshots erupted during a rally in Samangan province where a group was protesting the selection of candidates for the 2014 elections, killing 2 people and wounding eight.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A cyclone ripped across northwest Australia, closing ports and threatening mining operations in the sparsely populated Pilbara region.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Christian militiamen attacked an army base in Bangui, as French and African soldiers struggled to contain sectarian violence. Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui, shouting slogans against Michel Djotodia, the nation's Muslim president, who grabbed power in a coup nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In China six herders who tried to defend grazing land from expropriation by a forestry firm were sentenced in the resource-rich Inner Mongolia region. The case has sparked protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Egypt unknown assailants attacked a natural gas pipeline in the Sinai.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In India a pregnant girl (16) died in Kolkata following severe burn injuries. She had been raped two times On Oct 25-26 and ended up in a hospital on Dec 23 with sever burn injuries. Her family said she was set on fire by associates of those who had gang raped her.
(AP, 1/7/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Indonesia more than 19,000 people were displaced by the Mount Sinabung volcano on Sumatra that has been erupting for months and shot lava into the air nine times overnight.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Indonesian police shot dead six suspected terrorists and arrested another in a New Year's Eve raid near Jakarta that broke out into an hours-long gun battle.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Iraq clashes between security forces and gunmen killed four more people in Ramadi, a day after the closure of a sprawling anti-government protest site.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due back in the Middle East to press the two sides to reach a framework peace deal. This release was the third of four groups to go free.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A Jordanian security official said British resident Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian-Palestinian critic of Jordan's monarchy, has been charged with incitement and insulting the king after calling for revolt on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Myanmar freed five prisoners and more were expected to be released next week as part of a pledge by the country's president to free all political prisoners by the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Marathon talks between the leaders of Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities broke down without agreement to ease tensions that have led to one of the worst years of rioting in the British province for a decade.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, South Sudan's warring factions agreed to attend peace talks in Ethiopia. Government troops fought renegade forces loyal to former VP Riek Machar as well as a pro-Machar tribal militia known as the "White Army," as rebels tried to retake Bor.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Syria a missile struck a bus in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, setting it on fire and killing at least 10 people. State media reported that a rebel-fired mortar shell killed 3 people in Homs. ISIS fighters returned the torture-marked corpse of a doctor-cum-commander with Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist rebel group which had hitherto been an ally.
(AP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.39)
2013 Dec 31, In Turkey another lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced his resignation amid a high-level bribery and corruption probe. Hasan Hami Yildirim had criticised the government forfor exerting pressure on the judiciary over the corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In southern Yemen armed men including a suicide bomber tried to storm police headquarters in Aden. Two guards were killed and at least 6 people wounded. Two suspects were arrested.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2014 Dec 31, Former American school teacher Michael R. Vucic (41) was extradited to the US from Bosnia to face prosecution in Illinois on sexual assault charges dating back to 2012.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Nazih al-Ragye (aka Abu Anas Al-Liby), a suspected al Qaeda figure, died in New York just days ahead of his scheduled trial. Al-Liby (50) was alleged to have planned the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
(Reuters, 1/3/15)
2014 Dec 31, In Arizona a helicopter leased by the Cochise County sheriff’s department crashed and killed two civilians as it returned from a trip to Phoenix for routine maintenance.
(SFC, 1/2/15, p.A5)
2014 Dec 31, Police in Oakland, Ca., arrested 29 people during new Year’s Eve police brutality protests. The arrests represented about one fourth of those who participated.
(SFC, 1/2/15, p.D5)
2014 Dec 31, Edward Herrmann (71), American stage and screen actor, died in Los Angeles. He won a Tony Award in 1976 for his performance in “Mrs. Warren’s Profession." His work in films included “Reds" (1981) and “The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013).
(SFC, 1/1/15, p.D3)
2014 Dec 31, Faustas Strolia (b.1931), Lithuanian composer, musician and teacher, died in Oak Forest, Ill.
(http://tinyurl.com/ny6qs3f)
2014 Dec 31, A Minnesota judge ordered Norway to pay Ellen Ewald $170,594, double her lost wages, plus $100,000 for emotional distress, for violating equal-pay laws. She had been paid $30,000 less than a male counterpart. Norway has had a diplomatic presence in Minnesota since 1906. The state is home to nearly 900,000 people of Norwegian descent.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In southern Afghanistan at least 28 people, many of them women and children, were killed when rockets fired by Afghan army soldiers hit a wedding party in Helmand province. Two Afghan soliders were soon arrested in connection with the deaths.
(AP, 1/1/15)(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2014 Dec 31, In southern China a gas explosion at an auto parts factory killed 17 people and injured 33 others in Foshan city.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In China a stampede during New Year's celebrations in Shanghai's historic waterfront area killed 36 people in the worst disaster to hit one of China's showcase cities in recent years.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In France a 50 percent tax paid by employers on income earned above one million euros ($1.22 million) ended today. Socialist President Francois Hollande's 75% super tax had been rejected by a court and re-written to 50%.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Hong Kong authorities began destroying 15,000 chickens at a poultry market and suspended imports from mainland China after some birds were found to be infected with the H7N9 strain of bird flu.
(AP, 12/31/14)(SSFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2014 Dec 31, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire near the border that divides the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, leaving one dead on the Indian side and two wounded on the Pakistani side.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Off the coast of India a fishing boat stocked with explosives blew up. India later said 4 men on the boat blew it up themselves as Indian coast guard officers approached on New Year's Eve. Senior coast guard officer B.K. Loshali was later removed from his post after he contradicted the government saying coast guard personnel had destroyed the Pakistani "terror boat".
(AP, 2/25/15)
2014 Dec 31, Israeli police arrested Palestinian girl Malak al-Khatib (14) on her way home from school. A military court sentenced her in late January to two months as part of a plea bargain in which she admitted to picking up a stone to throw at Israeli cars. On Feb 14 she insisted after serving a 45-day sentence that she had been unjustly imprisoned, saying she was forced to sign a paper in Hebrew, which she does not understand.
(AP, 2/14/15)
2014 Dec 31, Some 970 mostly Syrian migrants arrived in Italy on the Blue Sky M cargo ship after apparently being abandoned by its crew in the Adriatic Sea.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive to push Islamic State group extremists from an area outside the militant-held northern city of Mosul. US Central Command said that the international coalition it leads had conducted seven airstrikes against militants' positions in Syria and three in Iraq.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive to push Islamic State group extremists from an area outside the militant-held northern city of Mosul. The United States and its allies staged 29 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.
(Reuters, 1/1/15)(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In Morocco some 800 African migrants tried to storm the border fences separating Spain's North African enclave of Melilla in the second such attempt in two days. 54 migrants managed to make it across.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In northeastern Nigeria a woman suicide bomber was killed as she tried to enter a military barracks in Bolari. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in northeastern Borno state.
(AFP, 12/31/14)(AP, 1/2/15)
2014 Dec 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed on to 20 international agreements, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as a new avenue for action against Israel after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution on ending the occupation.
(AFP, 12/31/14)(Reuters, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, Hamas civil servants went on strike after the Palestinian government said it would rehire thousands of Gaza staff who were laid off when the Islamist movement seized power in 2007.
(AFP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In the southern Philippines a bomb exploded at the entrance of a town market packed with New Year's Eve shoppers n North Cotabato province, killing 4 people and wounding at least 30 others.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani man convicted of smuggling "large quantities" of heroin. An Associated Press tally showed 83 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 2014.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, In eastern Ukraine a widespread electricity outage hit Luhansk, the second-largest city in the separatist east. The leader of the rebels who control it claimed that's due to Ukrainian sabotage.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, The World Health Organization said the number of reported Ebola deaths in West Africa has risen to 7,905.
(AP, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, In central Yemen a suicide bomber killed at least 49 people when he blew himself up at a cultural center where students were celebrating the Prophet Mohammad's birthday. 70 people were wounded.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)(AFP, 1/1/15)
2015 Dec 31, The United States and its allies conducted 24 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Arizona retired California police officer Frank Pascua (52) was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Gila River Casino in Phoenix. Suspect John Campos Sr. (47) was arrested the next day.
(SSFC, 1/3/16, p.A8)
2015 Dec 31, The largest container ship to visit the US passed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco before arriving at the Port of Oakland. The nearly quarter-mile-long megaship named the Benjamin Franklin can hold up to 18,000 20-foot shipping containers.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Natalie Cole (b.1950), Grammy-winning daughter of Nat King Cole, died in Los Angeles of complications from health issues.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A7)
2015 Dec 31, Wayne Rogers, TV actor who played Trapper John on MASH (1972-1975), died in Los Angeles from complications of pneumonia.
(SFC, 1/2/16, p.A7)
2015 Dec 31, Midwest floodwaters began receding. Three days of torrential rain, that had begun on Dec 26 across a wide swath of Missouri and Illinois, left 25 people dead.
(SFC, 1/1/16, p.A7)(Econ, 1/9/16, p.25)
2015 Dec 31, General Electric announced that it had won a contract worth nearly $1 billion from the Saudi Electricity Company to build and supply a power plant in northern Saudi Arabia.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, A court in Bangladesh sentenced two people to death and six others to prison for killing atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013, the first verdicts since suspected Islamist militants began targeting secular activists.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed the so-called LDO law overruling more than 50 amendments made by lawmakers in the nation's budget guidelines law for this year, including reductions to her flagship social program and a ban on state foreign financing for some projects.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Ursula Gauthier, the China correspondent for France's L'Obs news magazine, left Beijing. She was obliged to leave for criticizing government policy in violence-wracked Xinjiang. She had questioned official comparisons between global Islamist violence and unrest in the homeland of the mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila pardoned nine members of the Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK) separatist group as he pursues a policy of national dialogue ahead of elections later this year.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Egypt a couple and their 3 children, including a five-year-old girl, were killed when shelling hit their house in Rafah, North Sinai. It was unclear who fired the projectile.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, In Egypt a small ferry boat sank late today in the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh. At least 15 people were killed and two remained missing.
(AP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In southern Ethiopia a hand grenade attack killed two students and injured six at Dilla University in the SNNPR region.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Germany dozens of apparently coordinated sexual assaults took place against women on New Year's Eve in the western city of Cologne. "Arab-looking men" were blamed. The port city of Hamburg also reported around 10 similar attacks against women on New Year's Eve. By Jan 19 the number of complaints had risen to over 800.
(AFP, 1/4/16)(SFC, 1/20/16, p.A2)
2015 Dec 31, In Guatemala a fight at an overcrowded prison in Puerto Barrios, killed at least 8 prisoners and wounded 20.
(AP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, Officials said Israel's Education Ministry has ruled against the inclusion of a novel about a romance between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in the Hebrew high school curriculum because it feared it could raise tensions among pupils. The plot of Dorit Rabinyan's novel "Borderlife" takes place in New York.
(Reuters, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian who rammed them with his car in the occupied West Bank, as a wave of violence approached its fourth month.
(Reuters, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara announced in his New Year's address that he had reduced the sentences of 3,100 prisoners held over bloody post-election unrest.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Rights campaigners said a Mauritanian court has remanded in custody two men accused of keeping women and children as slaves, during a crackdown on the deeply rooted practice.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, The Russian finance ministry said it will file a lawsuit against Ukraine after Kiev failed to repay a $3 billion Eurobond and $75 million of interest due today.
(Reuters, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In southwestern Saudi Arabia 3 civilians including two children were killed in cross-border missile attacks from Yemen on a residential area.
(AFP, 1/1/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Sweden at least 15 young women were reportedly groped by groups of men on New Year's Eve in the city of Kalmar.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2015 Dec 31, In Turkey hundreds of flights were cancelled from Istanbul's two main airports after the city was hit by a picturesque but troublesome snowfall.
(AFP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, Electricity from Ukraine to the Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula was cut again after the collapse of a power pylon.
(AP, 12/31/15)
2015 Dec 31, In Yemen a drive-by shooting killed top pro-government militia leader Ahmed al-Idrisi and five of his companions in the southern city of Aden, just hours after he reluctantly handed over control of the city's strategic port to government troops.
(AP, 12/31/15)(AP, 1/3/16)
2016 Dec 31, In southern California “MASH" actor William Christopher (84) died in Pasadena. He played the role of Father Francis Mulcahy on the TV series.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, David Meltzer (b.1937), poet and musician, died at his home in Oakland, Ca. His books included more than 40 volumes of poetry and the non-fiction works such as “Reading Jazz" (1993). His book "Rock Tao," written when he was 28, was published in 2022.
(SFC, 1/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 3/19/22, p.D2)
2016 Dec 31, In Chicago hundreds of people marched carrying crosses for each of 762 people slain in the city this year.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.A7)(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, In Texas a federal judge granted a temporary injunction that stope federal health officials from enforcing rules that are intended to ban discrimination by doctors and hospitals against transgender people.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.A8)
2016 Dec 31, In Texas three people were killed when two small planes collided near McKinney.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A4)
2016 Dec 31, In Bangladesh Manzurul Islam Liton, a national legislator from PM Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party, was shot at his home in Gaibandha district.
(AP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Brazil a gunman stormed a house party and killed 13 people and himself late today during New Year celebrations in the southeastern city of Campinas. The shooter was believed to have been angry over a separation from his former wife, who was among those killed. The couple's 8-year-old son also died.
(Reuters, 1/1/17)(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A2)
2016 Dec 31, In southern England the RMT union launched a three-day strike on Southern Rail, which runs commuter services from the south coast into London, as part of a long-running dispute over plans to downgrade the role of the train guard.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Chinese media reported that Gao Baoyu, the chairman of China's Ying Kou Port Group, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for accepting around 26.8 million yuan (3.13 million pounds) in bribes. China’s corruption watchdog said it has recovered 2.3 billion yuan ($331.27 million) in losses from graft in the first 11 months of this year from across more than 70 different regions and countries.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that 16 people, including two surgeons, have been jailed for between two and five years for trafficking in human organs, a practice still widespread in the country.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Colombia's National Liberation Army, which has been fighting the government for more than five decades, freed businessman Octavio Figueroa. He had been held since March.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, An Egyptian appeals court upheld an agreement to give control of two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In Egypt an explosion targeting a security vehicle in the Sinai peninsula killed one junior officer and one soldier and injured another soldier.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh accused the West African regional bloc ECOWAS of declaring war after demanding that he stand down following his defeat at the ballot box.
(AFP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Germany police detained hundreds of North African men in Cologne in an effort to prevent a repeat of sexual assaults during New year’s festivities there a year ago.
(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A2)
2016 Dec 31, In India several women were groped and assaulted by a mob in the Bangalore central business district as they celebrated New Year's Eve. The assaults spurred women's rights activists to demand that police investigate.
(Reuters, 1/3/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Iraq three bombs killed 29 people in Baghdad as fighting intensified in the northern city of Mosul, where Iraqi government forces are trying to rout Islamic State militants from their last major stronghold in the country.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In northeastern Nigeria one person was seriously injured when a suicide bomber aged around 10 blew herself up in a New Year's Eve attack in Maiduguri.
(AFP, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, In Poland Daniel R. and another Pole took two bottles of a beverage from the Prince Kebab restaurant in Elk, without paying. In the ensuing brawl, a 26-year-old Tunisian cook stabbed Daniel R. twice with his knife.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2016 Dec 31, A South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Moon Hyung-pyo, the head of the national pension fund, the world's third largest, in a corruption scandal that has led to President Park Geun-hye's impeachment.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, In South Korea large crowds gathered to join another rally demanding the ouster of impeached President Park Geun-hye, who's determined to restore her powers through a court trial.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir announced a one-month extension of his unilateral ceasefire in fighting with rebels in the country's war zones.
(Reuters, 1/1/17)
2016 Dec 31, Syrian rebel groups threatened to abandon a two-day-old truce if violations continued, and urged the UN Security Council not to endorse the deal until the Syrian government and its ally Russia had shown they would respect it.
(Reuters, 12/31/16)
2016 Dec 31, Venezuela's government freed former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales along with five other activists who were jailed during anti-government protests in 2014.
(AP, 12/31/16)
2017 Dec 31, In the SF Bay Area CHP Officer Andrew Camilleri was killed when a driver crashed into his patrol car on I-880. His partner Officer Jonathan Velasquez was injured. Mohammed Abraar Ali (22) of Hayward was arrested and faced five felony accounts including second-degree murder and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
(SFC, 1/3/18, p.D1)
2017 Dec 31, In Colorado Matthew Riehl (37) fired more than 100 rounds at sheriff’s deputies killing one and injuring four others before being fatally shot himself at Highlands Ranch, a Denver suburb.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.A4)
2017 Dec 31, In New Jersey a teenager (16) fatally shot his parents, sister and a family friend just before midnight in Long Branch.
(SFC, 1/2/18, p.A5)
2017 Dec 31, In eastern Afghanistan a bombing targeted the funeral of a local official, killing at least 18 people in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Australia the chief executive of British catering giant Compass Group Plc and four members of his family were killed when the seaplane they were flying in crashed into the Hawkesbury River in Sydney. All six people on board were killed. In 2021 investigators reported elevated levels of carbon monoxide in their blood due to cracks in the exhaust system of the DHC-2 Beaver plane that was built in 1963.
(AP, 12/31/17)(Reuters, 1/1/18)(AP, 1/29/21)
2017 Dec 31, In Britain an estimated 1,400 cars were destroyed in a huge fire that raged through a multi-story parking garage in the northern English city of Liverpool.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, It was reported that hundreds of people have fled their villages in northeastern Central African Rep. following fresh violence between armed groups.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, China's complete ban on ivory trade went into effect, a major step forward in Beijing's efforts to rein in what was once the world's largest market for illegal ivory.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Congolese security forces shot dead two man in Kinshasa and injured several others in a bloody crackdown on Catholic worshippers who gathered at churches across the country to demand President Joseph Kabila leave power. Security forces killed at least seven people and at least one policeman died amid violence as more than a thousand people demonstrated in the capital.
(AFP, 12/31/17)(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Costa Rica a Nature Air's pilot training director died in an air crash near the Punta Islita beach town west of the capital, San Jose. The co-pilot was also killed, along with 10 US citizens including a family of five from New York. On January 12 Costa Rica's civil aviation agency suspended local airline Nature Air.
(AP, 1/1/18)(Reuters, 1/12/18)
2017 Dec 31, In Egypt a gunman on New Years’ eve killed two Coptic Christian brothers in an attack on a liquor store in Giza province on New Years’ eve.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, French authorities said heavy snow overnight stranded 4,000 travelers heading for resorts in the French Alps and killed one skier in an avalanche.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Greece dismissed Turkish anger over its decision to grant asylum to a soldier who Ankara accuses of involvement in the abortive coup against President Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016. The soldier was one of eight who fled after the July 15 coup attempt.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Greece a homeowner found a young tourist couple dead in the house they were renting on the western island of Kefalonia. Initial indications pointed to a double suicide.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2017 Dec 31, Five Indian soldiers and three suspected militants were killed after rebels stormed a paramilitary camp in disputed Kashmir, triggering a daylong battle. Separately, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded gunfire along the highly militarized line dividing Kashmir between the two rivals, killing an Indian soldier.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, India’s movie superstar Rajinikanth said he is entering politics in Tamil Nadu state with a plan to launch his own party, calling it his duty.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular Telegram messaging app used by activists to organize and publicize the protests now roiling the Islamic Republic. The free Telegram app, created by Russian national Pavel Durov, was used by an estimated 40 million Iranians.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran warned of a tough crackdown against demonstrators who pose one of the most audacious challenges to its clerical leaders since nationwide pro-reform unrest jolted the Islamist theocracy in 2009. In apparent response to the protests The government backed down on plans to raise fuel prices and promised to increase cash handouts to the poor and create more jobs in coming years. 10 people were killed in widespread anti-government protests across the country in cities including Kermanshah, Khorramabad and Shahinshahr.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AFP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, Israel’s ruling Likud Party's central committee unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the annexation of Israeli West Bank settlements.
(AP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec 31, In central Kenya 36 people were killed and 11 injured early today in a head-on collision between a bus and a lorry on the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Nigeria a new report said at least 5,247 Muslims have been killed in Adamawa state over the past four years because of Boko Haram.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.A2)
2017 Dec 31, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law doubling the penalty for false reports of impending explosions or fire to a possible 10 years in prison.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, South Korean authorities said they have seized a Panama-flagged oil tanker suspected of evading international sanctions by trading with North Korea. The 5,100-ton KOTI was detained two weeks ago at the South's port of Pyeongtaek-Dangjin and its crew were being investigated over the alleged ship-to-ship transfers.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Syria rebels supported by an al-Qaida-linked cell renewed their assault against pro-government forces that have been holding a vast pocket of the Damascus suburbs under siege. A second front between many of the same groups saw fresh fighting in the northwest, along the border between Idlib and Hama provinces. 21 soldiers and 26 rebels and al-Qaida fighters were reported killed in two days of clashes.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Syria a Russian Mi-24 helicopter crashed on New Year's Eve killing both pilots following a technical fault.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2017 Dec 31, In western Syria two Russian service personnel were killed in a mortar attack on the Hmeimim base.
(Reuters, 1/8/18)
2017 Dec 31, Turkish authorities, fearing an attack over the New Year, detained 20 suspected IS members in Istanbul, 15 of them foreigners, who are believed to have spent time in Syria or Iraq. Three Syrians, an Iraqi and a Russian Chechen were detained in Ankara.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, In Venezuela Alexandra Colopoy (18) was reportedly gunned down by National Guard First Sergeant David Rebolledo. The soldier shot and killed the pregnant woman an incident that local media described as a melee over scarce pork. Rebolledo was soon arrested.
(Reuters, 1/1/18)
2018 Dec 31, The International Federation of Journalists said in an annual report that 94 journalists and media workers died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and conflict crossfire this year, 12 more than in 2017.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Ohio Devaughn Gibson (23), DelVaunte Johnson (19) and Toshon Banks (21) were all shot dead after a row outside an Airbnb rental in Cleveland. On August 29, 2019, Tevin Biles-Thomas, the brother of Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, was arrested in Georgia and charged with murder in the shooting.
(The Independent, 8/30/19)(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A7)
2018 Dec 31, Afghan special forces launched a new offensive against the Islamic State group in eastern Nangarhar province, killing 27 militants. Meanwhile, Taliban attacks in the north killed 15 members of the country's security forces.
(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, Bahraini prominent activist Nabeel Rajab lost his appeal and was handed down a five-year jail term. He had been jailed for criticizing his country's rulers on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The mayor of the northwestern Bosnian town of Banja Luka canceled New Year celebrations for security reasons after protesters demanding the truth about a student's death prevented a public concert taking place the previous evening.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, British police arrested 39 people early today on suspicion of attempted murder following a stabbing in west London.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Britain a triple stabbing at a Manchester railway station on New Year's Eve injured three people. It was soon treated as "a terrorist investigation." Counter-terrorism police arrested a 25-year-old man.
(AFP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, Burkina Faso said it is declaring a state of emergency in provinces grappling with jihadist violence. Gunmen on motorbikes attacked the village of Yirgou in Barsalogo district, killing seven people, including the village chief.
(AP, 12/31/18)(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2018 Dec 31, Dubai's stock market ended 2018 with a 25-percent annual loss, the worst year since the global financial crisis a decade ago, as the real estate and tourism sectors struggled.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Egypt Amal Fathi (34), arrested in May over a video she posted online in which she spoke out against sexual harassment, lost her appeal and was handed a two-year prison term, as well as a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($560).
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A French court authorized Central Africa Republic soccer executive and alleged militia leader Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona to be handed over to the Hague war crimes tribunal.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Indian troops fired at Pakistani forces across the two countries' line of control in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding nine civilians.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Indonesia rescuers recovered six more bodies buried under tons of mud from a landslide that crashed onto a hilly village on the main island of Java, bringing the death toll to 15. At least 20 people were missing after landslides during heavy rain buried 30 houses in Sukabumi regency, West Java.
(AP, 1/1/19)(Reuters, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, In Iran security forces clashed with students in Tehran in the third day of protests over a deadly bus crash, adding to officials' fears that rising public unrest could threaten national security.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had arrested 11 "economic disruptors" who misappropriated some $400 million earmarked for essential goods and smuggled the money out of the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iraqi fighter jets struck an Islamic State position inside Syria, a day after the Syrian government authorized its neighbor to target the militants at will.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, An Israeli court sentenced Palestinian Jamil Tamimi (59) to 18 years imprisonment for stabbing to death Hannah Bladon (21), a British woman in Jerusalem on April 14, 2017. A plea bargain acknowledged that Tamimi is mentally ill.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Italy's ruling 5-Star Movement expelled four parliamentarians from the party in an effort to instill discipline in its ranks. The decision means the ruling coalition, made up of 5-Star and the League, has just 167 seats in the 320-seat Senate.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The self-styled Libyan National Army freed 19 people who were kidnapped by Islamic State group militants during attacks in central Libya.
(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, A Palestinian court sentenced Issam Akel (55) from east Jerusalem to life in prison with hard labor for trying to sell property in the Old City to an Israeli group.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A Panamanian car carrier heading from Japan to Hawaii caught fire. Nearby merchant vessels rescued 16 crew members. Three were found dead in the water and two were missing.
(SFC, 1/3/19, p.A6)
2018 Dec 31, Peru's attorney general dismissed a team investigating the far-reaching Odebrecht corruption scandal, setting off street protests in cities across the country.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, in the southern Philippines a remotely controlled bomb, blamed by security forces on a small pro-Islamic State militant group, killed two people and wounded dozens at a shopping mall in Cotabato city.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, A Russian apartment block partially collapsed in an explosion, killing at least four people in Magnitogorsk. Russian rescue crews soon pulled two more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building, bringing the death toll to nine. By Jan. 2 the number of confirmed dead rose to 22 and 19 remained missing. The number of dead from the gas explosion jumped to 39 on Jan. 3 as rescuers finished searching for bodies in the rubble of the partially collapsed building.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)(AP, 1/1/19)(AP, 1/2/19)(AFP, 1/3/19)
2018 Dec 31, Spanish police said they have seized 3.25 metric tons (3.64 short tons) of hashish in two operations against drug trafficking across the Strait of Gibraltar. Police made 42 arrests and broke up what they believed to be one of most important drug smuggling gangs operating between Spain and North Africa.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Sudanese riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Khartoum, dispersing protesters who had planned to march on the presidential palace following deadly anti-government rallies. President Omar al-Bashir ordered an investigation into "recent events" after two weeks of violent protests against his 29-year autocratic rule, as he seeks to placate popular anger over worsening economic conditions. Al-Bashir sought to defuse the anger, promising better days ahead and pledging more "transparency, effectiveness and justice in all our national institutions" in an address to the nation marking the anniversary of Sudan's independence 63 years ago.
(AFP, 12/31/18)(AP, 1/1/19)
2018 Dec 31, The UAE's Federal Supreme Court upheld a 10-year sentence for human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor (49).
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The UN food agency threatened to suspend some aid shipments to Yemen if the Houthi rebels do not investigate and stop theft and fraud in food distribution. The suspension would affect some 3 million people.
(AP, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, The Vatican spokesman and his deputy resigned over disagreements on strategy, ending a year of upheaval in the Holy See's communications structure.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Zambian President Edgar Lungu sacked the army commander and his deputy, a rare firing of the top military brass in the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2019 Dec 31, President Donald Trump ordered about 750 US soldiers deployed to the Middle East as about 3,000 more prepared for possible deployment in the next several days in response to recent events in Iraq.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, US President Donald Trump said that Phase 1 of trade deal with China would be signed on Jan. 15 at the White House, though considerable confusion remains about the details of the agreement.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A7)
2019 Dec 31, Two crew members of the Scandies Rose were rescued after the 130-foot crab fishing vessel from Dutch Harbor, Alaska. A search for the five crew members lasted 20 hours before it was called off.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, In San Francisco the last performance of the "Beach Blanket Babylon" show took place at Club Fugazi following a run of 45 years.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A1)
2019 Dec 31, A federal judge temporarily blocked a California labor law meant to take effect from Jan. 1 from impacting over 70,000 independent truckers by granting a temporary restraining order.
(Reuters, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, In Oakland, Ca., Shuo Zeng (34) was killed as he tried to chase down two robbers of his laptop from a Starbucks café in Montclair. Zeng was hit by the getaway vehicle and dragged on the ground. Suspects Byron O.J. Reed Jr. (22) and Javon Eugene Lee (21) were soon arrested. Zeng earned a doctorate in physics in 2015 and worked as an engineer at Aspera.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.C2)
2019 Dec 31, Three of the most powerful tribes in Oklahoma filed a federal lawsuit against state Gov. Kevin Stitt, asking the court to help resolve a dispute over gambling at tribal casinos. Stitt contends the gaming compacts expire on Jan. 1 and that casino gambling after that date will be illegal. Stitt has signaled he wants to renegotiate the compacts to give the state a larger slice of revenue.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, In Afghanistan at least 10 Afghan forces were killed and four others were wounded in an attack late today on a police checkpoint in the district of Dashti Archi. In Balkh province, the Taliban killed nine police officers in an attack on their checkpoint. A gunbattle with the Taliban killed seven members of the security forces in Takhar province.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2019 Dec 31, Wildfires burning across Australia's two most populous states trapped residents of a seaside town in apocalyptic conditions, destroyed many properties and caused at least two fatalities. In the southeastern town of Mallacoota in Victoria state, around 4,000 residents fled toward the waterside as winds pushed an emergency-level wildfire toward their homes.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Bosnia's war crimes prosecutor charged Milomir Savcic, a former Bosnian Serb general, with aiding genocide in the 1995 massacre at the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, unveiled a new initiative called the Earthshot Prize, described by Kensington Palace as "the most prestigious environment prize in history." The multimillion-dollar prize will be awarded to five winners per year over the next 10 years to encourage "Earth’s greatest problem solvers to solve Earth’s greatest environmental problems.
(Good Morning America, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for Hong Kong to return to stability following months of pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, China's National Medical Products Administration said it has approved a pneumonia vaccine developed by Chinese drugmaker Walvax Biotechnology's unit, offering an alternative to one of Pfizer's best-selling products Prevnar 13.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Chinese health authorities said they are investigating 27 cases of viral pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, after rumors on social media suggested the outbreak could be linked to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The disease later identified as COVID-19 was first reported by Chinese authorities to the WHO, and was not previously believed to have spread to Europe until January. The Huanan market was shuttered overnight after four cases of a mystery pneumonia were linked to the market. By the end of January, Wuhan had gone into a 76-day lockdown. In 2021 a World Health Organization-led team of experts investigating the origins of COVID-19 visited Huanan market.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)(Reuters, 5/5/20)(Reuters, 1/30/21)
2019 Dec 31, In Ingushetia one police officer was killed and three were injured when two men attacked a police post in Magas, the republic's capital. The Islamic State group soon claimed responsibility. One of the attackers was killed when police opened fire and the other was wounded in the northern Caucasus region.
(AP, 1/2/20)
2019 Dec 31, Iraqi supporters of pro-Iran factions attacked the US embassy in Baghdad, breaching its outer wall and chanting "Death to America!" in anger over weekend air strikes that killed two dozen fighters. President Donald Trump said he expects Iraq to "use its forces" to protect the US embassy in Baghdad as he blamed Iran for orchestrating the "attack" that breached the wall of the compound.
(AFP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Carlos Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan, announced that he is now in Lebanon, despite being ordered by Japanese courts not to leave the country while awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges.
(The Week, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Pakistan began issuing special health ID cards for transgender people as a way to lessen health care discrimination.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A2)
2019 Dec 31, Hundreds of Palestinians marched through the West Bank city of Ramallah to mark the 55th anniversary of the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, In Sudan sporadic tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs continued in West Darfur province, as the death toll climbed to at least 24 people, some of them burned to death.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Taiwan's legislature passed its Anti-Infiltration Law aimed at blocking political interference from China.
(SFC, 1/1/20, p.A2)
2019 Dec 31, Police in Turkey detained five suspected Islamic State militants who were allegedly planning to carry out attacks in the Turkish capital of Ankara during New Year's Eve celebrations. Anadolu news said close to 170 suspected IS militants have been detained in the past two days.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Turkish Airlines said it has agreed a compensation deal with plane maker Boeing Co over the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Yemeni officials said that a powerful rebel group's ban on recently-printed government banknotes in areas under their control, including the capital, Sanaa, has held up the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants and pensioners. Officials in Sanaa said the Houthis had given residents a month to hand over the newly printed but banned banknotes or face penalties that include jail.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 31, Two Zimbabwe rangers, who had arrested four Zambian men for poaching, were transporting them by boat to Kariba town to be charged and jailed. But the four suspects overpowered the rangers and threw them into Lake Kariba. The rangers' bodies were discovered after a week-long search.
(AP, 1/7/20)
2020 Dec 31, US President Donald Trump extended a pair of immigration bans that block many "green card" applicants and temporary foreign workers from entering the country, measures he says are needed to protect US workers amid the pandemic-battered economy.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that Pres. Donald Trump has the power to bar immigrants from the US who cannot afford private health insurance. The ban would affect as many as 375,000 people a year.
(SFC, 1/2/21, p.B1)
2020 Dec 31, The US Department of Justice has confirmed that Ticketmaster has paid a $10m (£7.3m) criminal fine for "intrusions into a competitor's computer systems".
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A Pacific storm of record proportions swept a remote stretch of Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain, battering a region used heavily by commercial shipping with hurricane-force winds and seas five stories high.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, California to date had 2,262,972 cases of coronavirus and 25,423 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 259,374 cases and 2,501 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 19,852,041 with the death toll at 344,030.
(sfist.com, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, SF Bay Area poet Q.R. Hand (83) died of cancer in Vallejo. He had chronicled the Black experience in America while working for many years as a mental health councilor in the Mission district of San Francisco.
(SFC, 1/5/21, p.B4)
2020 Dec 31, Florida health officials said a more infections variant of COVID-19 that has swept through the United Kingdom has been identified in the state, marking the third known US state to identify such a case.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Chicago ended 2020 with 769 homicides, 274 more than the previous year and the most since the 784 homicides in 2016.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, Portland police declared a riot just before 11 p.m. local time on New Year's Eve after protesters broke windows, shot off fireworks and set fires near the federal courthouse. The demonstration had been publicized via posts on social media.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, In Pennsylvania about 50 people, all in black, vandalized the historic US Customs House in Philadelphia. Seven people soon faced felony charges after at least two federal buildings were attacked.
(AP, 1/2/21)
2020 Dec 31, Former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh (88) died in Pittsburgh. He had made integrity and efficiency the hallmarks of his public service as a governor, US attorney general and under-secretary-general of the UN.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, In Texas Pfc. Asia M. Graham (19) was found unresponsive in her barracks and was later pronounced dead by emergency services personnel on the Fort Bliss Army post.
(CBS News, 1/5/21)
2020 Dec 31, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News printed their final daily newspapers as they joined others that made the same decision in response to declining print and circulation revenues. The newspaper had printed daily for 149 years.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Apple removed 39,000 game apps on its China store, the biggest removal ever in a single day, as it set year-end as deadline for all game publishers to obtain a license.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, It was reported that Drugmakers including Pfizer, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline plan to raise US prices on more than 300 drugs in the US on Jan. 1.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Brazil reported 56,773 additional confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 1,074 deaths from COVID-19. A Brazilian lab said it has detected two cases of the new coronavirus variant that has spread rapidly in Britain, and urged reinforcement of quarantine measures for travelers coming from Europe.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, PM Boris Johnson said that Britain would withdraw from Erasmus, citing its high costs. Since its introduction in 1987, Erasmus has sent millions of people abroad for study exchanges, work placements or traineeships.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, The British government said it will allow people to be given shots of different COVID-19 vaccines on rare occasions, despite a lack of evidence about the extent of immunity offered by mixing doses.
(Reuters, 1/2/21)
2020 Dec 31, Thirty-three migrants on four boats crossed the Channel under the cover of darkness in freezing temperatures this morning, in a desperate attempt to reach the UK before Brexit. Some 8,400 people arrived on British shores this year having left northern France.
(The Telegraph, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Negotiators from the UK and Spain said they have reached a draft agreement on the post-Brexit future of Gibraltar. As part of the deal Gibraltar would be able to join European Union program and policies such as Schengen.
(The Guardian, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Ontario's Finance Minister Rod Phillips resigned after public outrage over a Caribbean vacation he took earlier this month in violation of his own government's coronavirus travel warnings.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, China introduced a delisting reform to strip lousy firms of their listing status. Companies with a share price below 1 yuan ($0.15) for 20 consecutive days will now face automatic delisting.
(Econ., 1/9/21, p.65)
2020 Dec 31, The Chinese government said that it had approved a homegrown coronavirus vaccine, after an early analysis of clinical trial results showed that it was effective. A day earlier Sinopharm said that a vaccine candidate made by its Beijing Institute of Biological Products arm had an efficacy rate of 79 percent based on an interim analysis of Phase 3 trials.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, China reported 19 new COVID-19 cases, down from 25 cases a day earlier.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, In Congo DRC at least 25 people were killed in an attack on New Year’s Eve by Allied Democratic Forces rebels in eastern Beni territory. Other people were kidnapped.
(AP, 1/1/21)
2020 Dec 31, The Czech Republic reported a record high 16,939 daily cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours. Total deaths have reached 11,580.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Hong Kong's highest court revoked media tycoon Jimmy Lai's bail after prosecutors succeeded in asking the judges to send him back to detention. The court said that it was “reasonably arguable" that the previous judge's decision was erroneous and that the order of granting bail was invalid.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A court in Jordan sentenced five leaders of the national teachers' syndicate to a year in prison over recent protests demanding a salary increase. The five were among 13 members of the Teachers Association council who were arrested in July after threatening to stage new protests over a long-running salary dispute.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Norway said all travelers entering the country will have to take a COVID-19 test within 24 hours of arrival from Jan. 2.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, A province of islands in the southern Philippines said it will seal itself off for an initial two weeks from Jan. 4 to keep out a new COVID-19 variant found in nearby Malaysia.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck targets in Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for attacks in the southern port city of Aden the previous day that took place as officials in a government backed by Riyadh arrived there.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Singapore reported five locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, its highest number in nearly three months, and was seeking to verify two others suspected of being infected by a highly contagious variant first discovered in Britain.
(Reuters, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, The Slovak government ordered ski resorts and hotels closed and banned travel between districts at an emergency session on New Year's Eve after new coronavirus cases hit record high and hospitals filled up with patients.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 31, Turkey began a 4-day lockdown this evening to stem the spread of COVID-19 over the New Year's holiday.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A7)
2020 Dec 31, The UN General Assembly closed the year by approving the $3.231 billion budget for 2021. Only Israel and the US voted against it citing disagreements on Israel and Iran.
(The Telegraph, 12/31/20)
2021 Dec 31, Thousands of flights within the United States and internationally were delayed or canceled, adding to the travel disruptions during the holiday week due to adverse weather and rising cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 54,443,678 with the death toll at 824,630.
(sfist.com, 1/1/22)
2021 Dec 31, In southern California a massive spill of raw sewage forced the city of Long Beach to close all swimming areas at nearby beaches. The leak occurred a day earlier in the city of Carson and was caused by the failure of a 48-inch sewer main line.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger (94) died. She became famous during Austria's 2016 presidential campaign with a video message in which “Mrs. Gertrude" warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far right.
(AP, 1/1/22)
2021 Dec 31, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced a 700 million reais ($125.67 million) relief credit line to help the northeastern region with the impacts of severe flooding.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Britain said it has approved Pfizer's COVID-19 pill for adults who have mild to moderate infection and are at high risk of their illness worsening, its second easily administered antiviral against the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Britain reported a record high 189,846 new cases of COVID-19, up slightly from 189,213 the previous day. A British analysis said the risk of hospitalization with the Omicron variant of coronavirus is about one-third that of the Delta variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Denis O’Dell (98), a British film producer and director who worked with The Beatles on the movie “A Hard Day’s Night" and other productions, died overnight at his home in Spain.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Canada said it will take in female Afghan judges and their families who have been living in limbo, primarily in Greece, since their evacuation from Afghanistan in the fall.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Quebec, Canada, reimposed a nighttime beginning this evening and Ontario delayed the resumption of school by two days as several provinces reported new highs for coronavirus infections.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A5)
2021 Dec 31, China's anti-graft agency accused US retail giant Walmart Inc and its Sam's Club chain of "stupidity and shorted-sightedness" after Chinese news outlets reported Sam's Club had removed Xinjiang-sourced products from stores.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, China's market regulator said that Tesla Inc will recall 19,697 imported model S vehicles, 35,836 imported model 3s, and 144,208 China-made model 3 vehicles in China due to possible security risks.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, A study by researchers said that Sinovac's two-dose COVID-19 vaccine followed by a booster Pfizer-BioNTech shot showed a lower immune response against the Omicron variant compared with other strains.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Germany began shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The remaining three nuclear plants — Emsland, Isar and Neckarwestheim — will be powered down by the end of 2022.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Hong Kong's health officials said the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made its way past some of the world's toughest COVID 19 restrictions, with the city reporting its first cases outside its strict quarantine system.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, India's competition watchdog ordered an investigation into Apple Inc's business practices in the country, saying it was of the initial view that the iPhone maker had violated certain antitrust laws.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Israel said it has signed a deal with the United States to buy 12 Lockheed Martin Corp CH-53K helicopters and two Boeing Co KC-46 refueling planes at an estimated total price of around $3.1 billion.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Israeli troops shot and killed Amir Atef Reyan, a Palestinian man, as he ran toward a bus stop in the occupied West Bank wielding a knife in an attempted stabbing attack.
(AP, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Portugal reported a new daily record of 30,829 coronavirus cases, up from 28,659 the previous day, with the rapidly spreading Omicron variant accounting for an estimated 83% of all new cases.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, It was reported that Russia test-fired around 10 new Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missiles from a frigate and two more from a submarine.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (69) was released from prison nearly five years after being convicted of corruption, fuelling debate over whether she would play any role ahead of a March presidential election.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Tunisian security forces detained Noureddine Bhair, a senior official from the biggest party in the suspended parliament. He was the first official detained since President Kais Saied seized governing powers in July.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turks should keep all their savings in lira and that recent exchange rate volatility was largely under control after the lira weakened sharply in the last two months.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2021 Dec 31, Turkey allowed a 5th dose as a booster for people who received two doses of the Sinovac and BioNTech vaccines.
(SFC, 1/1/21, p.A5)
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