01|Eight tourists, trekking through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in south-western Uganda, are killed by rebels armed with machetes and rifles. The attackers, a roving band of approximately 150 men, are believed to be remnants of the Hutu rebel army that killed about 500,000 Tutsi in Rwanda before fleeing into the forests of Uganda and Congo in 1994. The victims were British, American, and New Zealand sightseers visiting the park for glimpses of rare mountain gorillas. The Hutu rebels currently oppose U.S. and British support of the Ugandan government and its military.|
01|Police fire into crowds rioting outside a mosque in Ambon, Indonesia, a provincial capital approximately 644 kilometres east of Jakarta, the national capital. Nine people are killed and several injured in the brawl between Muslims and Christians. More than 150 people have died in Ambon in similar incidents since the beginning of 1999.|
02|California officials announce that Pacific Lumber Company has accepted a 480-million-U.S.-dollar federal and state offer for 4,047 hectares of redwoods in the Headwaters Forest, located 400 kilometres north of San Francisco. Approximately half of the area consists of old-growth trees, some of which are more than 1,500 years old. A provision of the sale requires Pacific Lumber to adhere to strict guidelines when logging timber on the 84,984 hectares that remain under corporate ownership. The Headwaters Forest was the last privately owned grove of ancient redwoods in the world.|
02|The United States protests against European barriers on certain brands of bananas by doubling tariffs (import taxes) on selected European goods. These include Scottish cashmere, French handbags, Italian cheese, and German coffee makers. U.S. trade representatives accuse the European Union (EU) of implementing barriers that favour bananas imported from former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.|
03|A mob in Lagos, Nigeria, attacks a police station and barracks, drags the police from the buildings, and murders five officers. Witnesses describe the rioters as opponents of the newly elected president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo. Anti-Obasanjo rioters destroyed two other police stations on March 1.|
04|The discovery of a major fault under central Los Angeles is announced in the journal Science by geologist John Shaw of Harvard University and seismologist Peter Shearer of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, California. Shaw and Shearer believe the fault caused the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, which killed eight people and destroyed 358 billion U.S. dollars in property. Blind-thrust faults, which cannot been seen on the ground's surface, cause quakes in which blocks of earth move diagonally or almost vertically.|
05|Russia , Norway, and Iceland sign an agreement over Arctic fishing rights. Icelandic trawlers will now be permitted to fish in a small area of international water in the Barents Sea. The ocean surrounding this international water is claimed by Russia and Norway. In the past, Norway has frequently detained Icelandic trawlers found in Norwegian waters.|
05|The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the U.S. economy, fuelled by consumer spending and a construction boom, has generated 275,000 new jobs since the beginning of 1999. Hourly wages have remained stable.|
06|The Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington, in the U.S.A., announces that it will modify its Windows 98 operating system to dispense with the user identification numbers. According to privacy advocates, the identification numbers gave Microsoft access to user documents and movements on the Internet. A Microsoft group product manager denied that the software giant intended to use or market data already gathered via the numbers and stored in databases.|
07|Accusations that Chinese spies in the 1980's stole U.S. nuclear weapons designs from a national weapon laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, are denounced as "unfounded" by Tang Jiaxuan, the Chinese foreign minister. Tang, speaking at a news conference in Beijing, labels a March 6 New York Times report of Chinese nuclear espionage "irresponsible." The article also alleged that China had used a commercial satellite to acquire information about military technologies.|
08|Germany's leading banker, Hans Tietmeyer, who heads the Bundesbank, warns European political leaders to stop meddling in the affairs of the European Union (EU) Central Bank. Tietmeyer, a prominent member of the governing board of the bank, blames the decline in the value of the Euro, the EU single currency, on mounting political pressures to lower interest rates in order to stimulate Europe's faltering economy. The value of the Euro has declined against the dollar by 10 per cent since being launched on Jan. 1, 1999.|
09|President Mohammad Khatami of Iran pays a state visit to Italy. International affairs experts interpret the visit, the first to a Western nation by an Iranian leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a major change in Iranian foreign policy and a sign of moderation toward the West.|
09|The results of a 14-year study, conducted by Harvard University and published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, reveal that there is no evidence that a diet high in fat promotes breast cancer or that a diet low in fat prevents the disease. The study followed the lives of 88,795 women between 1980 and 1994.|
09|In Buenos Aires, Charles, Prince of Wales, lays a wreath at a memorial honouring the Argentines who died in the 1982 Falklands War. This gesture of reconciliation between the United Kingdom and Argentina follows a similar act by President Carlos Menem on his recent visit to London. In the evening, police use tear gas to disperse a crowd protesting against the royal visit.|
10|The United Nations announces that the World Food Programme is launching an emergency operation to feed 272,000 homeless Ethiopians, victims of the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The latest round of fighting broke out on February 6, ending eight months of comparative stability. The dispute is over parts of the national border that were never clearly demarcated when Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993. About 1,000 people died in fighting in May and June of last year.|
10|The United States Air Force discharges Jeffrey Bennendorf under "other than honourable conditions" after the airman first class refused to be vaccinated against anthrax. The vaccine was designed to protect against the deadly agent that is a staple of many biological weapons programs. Bettendorf claims the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine are unproven. Approximately 100 of the 218,000 men and women in the U.S. armed services have defied Defence Secretary William S. Cohen's order that all military personnel be vaccinated against various biological agents.|
11|The foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal, meeting at the United Nations in New York City, agree to allow the voters of East Timor to decide if they prefer greater autonomy within Indonesia or independence. Opponents of Indonesian rule in East Timor have fomented rebellion continuously since Indonesia invaded and annexed the former Portuguese colony in 1975.|
12|Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, former members of the Warsaw Pact military alliance, join NATO. The military alliance of 19 Western nations was formed in 1949 to discourage an attack on Western Europe by the former Soviet Union.|
12|In Mexico, the number of grey whales found dead near the Baja California Peninsula reaches 50, the highest-ever total in one season. The cause of death may be environmental contamination. Every year, whales migrate from the Arctic down through the Pacific, and breed in Mexican waters between December and March. Earlier this week, environmental groups from Mexico and the United States filed charges against ESSA, a company which makes salt from sea water. Eighteen whales have died this year in the lagoons where ESSA produce their salt. ESSA is run by the Mexican government in a joint venture with Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation.|
13|In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's National Front coalition wins 31 seats in the 48-seat assembly in the remote eastern state of Sabah. A party must win 25 seats to form a government. The election is the first test of Mahathir's popularity since his controversial dismissal of his deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, last September.|
13|The central markets of two northern Kosovo towns, Podujevo and Mitrovica, are rocked by three powerful bomb explosions, which kill six people and wound dozens of Saturday shoppers. The violence is another escalation in the year-long conflict between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, who demand some degree of autonomy, and Yugoslavia's Serbian-controlled government. Both sides are participating in NATO-sponsored peace talks in Paris.|
14|The U.S. Justice Department announces that the U.S. prison population climbed to 1.8 million in June 1998, a record high. The U.S. crime rate dropped in 1998 for the seventh consecutive year, according to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. Southern and Southwestern states led the country in highest incarceration rates per capita, with 709 out of every 100,000 residents of Louisiana behind bars. States in the Midwest and Northeast had the lowest rates per capita. In Minnesota in 1998, 117 of every 100,000 residents were incarcerated.|
14|The government of Indonesia closes 38 private banks and takes over the operation of 7 additional banks to conform with economic reforms mandated by the International Monetary Fund. This United Nations-affiliated organization provides short-term credit to member nations.|
15|Amtrak's City of New Orleans train, travelling at 113 kilometres per hour from Chicago to New Orleans, collides with a lorry loaded with steel bars at a railway crossing in Bourbonnais, Illinois, 88 kilometres south of Chicago. The derailment mangles the train's first five carriages, injuring more than 100 people. A fire, fed by diesel fuel spilling from the twin engines, engulfs a crushed sleeper carriage, killing 20 passengers.|
15|The Democratic National Committee announces that the party will hold its 2000 national convention in Los Angeles. The last Democratic convention in Los Angeles was held in 1960 when John F. Kennedy was nominated for president.|
16|The entire European Union (EU) Commission, the executive body that runs the day-to-day affairs of the 15-nation trade group, resigns in response to an official report, made public on March 15, that accuses the commissioners of corruption. The commission president, Jacques Santer of Luxembourg, said the 20-member board was unable to function under the accusations of financial irregularities and cronyism. The 140-page report was commissioned by the European parliament, the only EU governing body with members elected by voters of member nations. Santer and the 19 other commissioners will stay on in a caretaker capacity until their successors are appointed.|
16|Egypt's top prosecutor calls for an investigation of allegations that the Association for the Care of Homeless Children has sold organs from at least 32 children to major Egyptian hospitals, presumably for transplanting to wealthy patients. Officials who prefer to remain anonymous claim that 25 children at shelter had died during the past three months.|
17|In Sydney, Australia, an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale leaves 1,000 homes without power but causes little major damage. Three coal mines are evacuated. The city is warned to expect further shocks during the next two weeks.|
17|A panel of independent experts from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the U.S. U.S. National Academy of Sciences, reports that the active ingredients of marijuana appear to be useful in the treatment of pain, nausea, and weight loss, common symptoms of AIDS. The report, described as the most comprehensive analysis to date on medicinal use of marijuana, recommends that the drug be prescribed for short periods only and used under close supervision.|
18|The rate of death from the human form of "mad cow disease," called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, more than doubled in the United Kingdom in the fourth quarter of 1998, according to a scientific report in the latest issue of the British medical journal Lancet. The number of deaths from the disease had averaged four per quarter for more than three years. But nine people died in the last three months of 1998. The "mad cow" epidemic began in the United Kingdom in the 1986 outbreak. Diseased cattle developed abnormalities in their brains, which triggered personality change and a staggered gait. The British government destroyed more than 4 million cows. Scientists believe that human beings acquire the disease by eating infected beef.|
19|More than 60 people die and 107 are wounded when a powerful bomb explodes in the central food market in Vladikavkaz, in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, just 50 km from the border of the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Russian authorities, including President Boris Yeltsin, blame the bombing on "forces of chaos and terror."|
19|About 18,000 Iraqi Muslims, intent on making the annual hajj pilgrimage, Islam's most revered ritual, are driven across the border into Saudi Arabia, in direct contravention of U.N. sanctions. Other pilgrims flew into Saudi on Thursday violating U.N. sanctions banning international air travel to and from Iraq. The sanctions, imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait, are supported by Saudi Arabia. However, King Fahd orders that all the pilgrims be allowed in and promises that Saudi Arabia will cover their living expenses on the pilgrimage to Mecca or Medina.|
20|Health officials in the Netherlands confirm that 21 people have died of Legionnaires' Disease since March 13. Another 90 people are infected with the disease, which is caused by a rare bacterium that thrives in air-conditioning ducts, storage tanks, and river water. An additional 200 people show symptoms of the disease. The current outbreak was traced to Holland's largest flower and bulb show, the Westfriese Flora, which attracted 80,000 visitors in February.|
21|The first balloonists to circle the world, Bertrand Piccard from Switzerland and Brian Jones of the UK, end their 20-day voyage by landing in the desert 483 kilometres south of Cairo, Egypt. The 55-metre silver balloon, the Breitling Orbiter 3, actually completed the first nonstop balloon trip around the world over the African country of Mauritania on March 20. The balloon's captain is a Swiss psychiatrist and the grandson of Auguste Piccard. In 1932, Auguste Piccard attached an airtight gondola that he had invented to a hydrogen-filled balloon and ascended more than 85,000 kilometres into the stratosphere.|
22|Royal Caribbean Cruises pleads guilty in federal district court in Los Angeles to charges that employees concealed from U.S. Coast Guard inspectors that the Nordic Prince repeatedly discharged contaminated waste water into the Pacific Ocean in 1994. The Miami-based Royal Caribbean line pleaded guilty to similar charges in federal courts in June 1998. The line faces fines totalling 1.5 million dollars.|
23|U.S. President Bill Clinton announces that force is necessary to end Serbian aggression against the ethnic Albanian majority in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Clinton notes that "If President Milosevic [of Yugoslavia] is not willing to make peace, we are willing to limit his ability to make war. . ." In the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic declares a state of imminent war. Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, in flight to Washington, orders his plane turned around and returned to Moscow. Russia is Serbia's historic ally.|
23|The vice president of Paraguay, Luis Maria Argana, is assassinated in the streets of Asuncion, the capital. Argana, who was involved in a bitter power struggle with Paraguan President Raul Cubas, was ambushed by three or four men, who tossed a grenade into the vice-president's jeep and sprayed the vehicle with gunfire. (See also March 28.)|
24|NATO launches a broad offensive against Yugoslavia in an effort to force the Serbian-controlled government in Belgrade to end its year-long assault on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Waves of missiles from U.S. Navy cruisers in the Adriatic and bombers flying from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy target military bases and anti-aircraft sites in Serbia and Montenegro, Yugoslavia's two republics, and Kosovo, a Serbian province. The air strikes mark the first time in the 50-year history of NATO that the defence alliance has attacked a sovereign nation. The offensive is a response to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's rebuff of a peace plan. The U.S.-brokered plan was designed to restore the autonomy that Serbia stripped from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in 1989.|
25|The French minister of transport, Jean-Claude Gayssot, announces that the 11-kilometre Mont Blanc tunnel will remain closed for several weeks in the wake of a March 24 fire that killed 35 people. A fire aboard a lorry loaded with flour and margarine turned the highway tunnel, which connects France and Italy under the highest peak in the Alps, into an inferno that caused 100 metres of the ceiling to collapse and destroyed more than 30 vehicles. Most of the 30 victims died from breathing toxic fumes.|
26|Jack Kevorkian, an American doctor who claims to have assisted in the suicides of more than 130 people, is found guilty of murdering a 52-year-old man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). Although prosecutors in Michigan charged Kevorkian with first-degree murder, the jury, after deliberating for 13 hours, reduced the charge to second-degree murder, which imposes a minimum sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison. Supporters of euthanasia around the world have followed this case with great interest.|
27|Michael Aris, husband of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, dies at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Aris had been refused an visa by the Myanmar (formerly Burma) military government since Christmas 1995, when he last visited Suu Kyi. At that time, she was held under under house arrest. Aris collected her writings and later published them as a book entitled "Freedom From Fear". He never saw his wife again. The military government offers Suu Kyi a visa to attend the funeral, and guarantees she can return as long as she makes no political stand. She declines the offer. Suu Kyi won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent efforts to restore democracy to Burma. The military government refused to relinquish power to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy after the party won the 1990 general election.|
27|A U.S. pilot is rescued by an American military search team six hours after his F-117 stealth bomber was shot down in Yugoslavia, approximately 56 kilometres northwest of Belgrade, the capital. The crash is the first allied loss in four days of NATO bombing attacks on Yugoslavia.|
28|Ethnic Albanians, fleeing Serbian military forces, are crossing from Kosovo into Albania at a rate of 1,000 per hour. Refugees report a 16-kilometre column of between 150,000 and 200,000 people attempting to escape Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo. NATO observers believe that Milosevic has adopted the policy to drive ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, where Serbs constitute only 10 per cent of the population. The volume of people seeking refuge threatens to overwhelm Albania, Europe's poorest nation.|
28|Raul Cubas, president of Paraguay, resigns hours before the Paraguan Senate was scheduled to remove him from office for his alleged involvement in the March 23 assassination of Vice President Luis Maria Argana. Cubas and his ruling Colorado Party were also cited as triggering the riots on March 26 in Asuncion, the capital, which left six people dead and hundreds injured. The leader of the Senate, Luis Gonzalez Macchi, replaces Cubas as president. (See also March 23.)|
28|In Jerusalem, thousands of Christian pilgrims from all over the world retrace the final steps of Jesus Christ, crucified nearly 2,000 years ago. Carrying palm branches and singing hymns, they walk down the Mount of Olives to the Old City of Jerusalem. Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar.|
29|NATO officials announce that Serbian forces have executed five prominent ethnic Albanian leaders, including Fehmi Agani, a delegate to the failed Paris peace talks. According to NATO monitors, ethnic Albanian refugees are pouring through the Morina pass from Kosovo into Albania at a rate of 4,000 an hour. Officials estimate that 120,000 people have crossed the border since the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began on March 24. To escape Serb violence toward ethnic Albanians, 35,000 Kosovars also have fled into Montenegro and 16,000 refugees into Macedonia.|
29|The Dow Jones industrial average of selected stocks on the New York Stock Exchange closes above 10,000 for the first time in history. In November 1972, the Dow average stood at 1,000. It reached 5,000 in November 1995.|
29|In India, at least 110 people die as an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale strikes the Himalayan foothills. The epicentre of the earthquake is in a remote area of the Kumaon Hills, 120 kilometres east of Dehra Dun and nearly 300 kilometres from New Delhi.|
29| In Brazil, forty inmates stage a 26-hour riot at the Americano maximum security prison near Belem, capital of the state of Para. Six people are killed. Police quell the riot using tear gas and rubber truncheons.|
30|In West Africa, elections are held in Benin to elect 83 members to the national assembly. About 2.7 million voters have registered for this election.|
30|The United States and its NATO allies reject Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's offer to pull "some military forces" from Kosovo if NATO airstrikes are halted. Milosevic's offer, which included a promise to return to peace talks, was made, via television, after hours of negotiations with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. Russia, Serbia's historic ally, opposes NATO's use of force in Yugoslavia.|
30|In Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announces that a further 950,000 pigs in Negeri Sembilan are to be destroyed, in an attempt to curb a serious outbreak of viral encephalitis that has hit pig farmers in the states of Negeri Sembilan and Perak. This will bring the total cull to 1.3 million pigs. The disease, originally transmitted to humans only through the bite of the Culex mosquito, has claimed 71 lives since October 1998. Five pig farmers died of the disease yesterday. Heath officials now fear a new strain of the virus responsible is transmitted by direct contact with infected pigs or pig carcasses.|
30|The head of the Japanese Economic Planning Agency, Taichi Sakaiya, announces that the number of people unemployed in Japan in February 1999 rose to 3.13 million people, 4.6 per cent of the work force. The rate is the highest in Japan since the government began keeping unemployment records in 1953. On March 29, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi announced that Japan's worst recession since World War II (1939-1945) had "bottomed out."|
31|The Bank of Japan cuts interest rates on overnight loans between banks to 0.02 percent. Taking into account the standard 0.02 per cent commission on loans, Japan's prime rate stands at absolute zero, making loans between banks free. Interest on savings accounts falls to 0.05 per cent and interest on home mortgages to 2.35 per cent.|
31| At a court martial in Fort Portal, Uganda, 16 soldiers are sentenced to two years in prison for failing to protect a technical school. In June 1998, guerrillas of the Allied Democratic forces raided the school near Fort Portal, 320 kilometres west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala. They locked up the students and set the buildings ablaze, killing 80 students. Witnesses saw the soldiers flee as the rebels attacked.|
