up099601|United States launches missile attacks against Iraq|<STRONG>United States launches missile attacks against Iraq</STRONG><P>The United States launched cruise missile attacks at targets in southern Iraq on Sept. 3 and 4, 1996, to punish Iraq for invading the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq on August 31. The attacks were the most extensive U.S. military action against Iraq since 1993, when President Bill Clinton ordered a missile strike against a military intelligence complex in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in retaliation for undercover Iraqi plans to assassinate former President George Bush.</P><P>The United States claimed that the latest missile attack was in retaliation for Iraq's violation of a United Nations resolution passed in April 1991 that called on Iraq to protect the human rights of all its citizens. The resolution specifically mentioned Kurds as victims of Iraqi oppression.</P><P>Iraqi President Saddam Hussein claimed that a Kurdish faction in northern Iraq had asked for assistance from government troops in an ongoing struggle with a rival Kurdish group. The two main Kurdish factions vying for control in northern Iraq were the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK had ties with Iran, and the KDP was aligned with the Iraqi government. Hussein claimed that the KDP asked for assistance against the PUK on Aug. 22, 1996.</P><P>The United States had reportedly tried to arrange a truce between the two Kurdish factions before the takeover of Irbil. The United States feared that continued fighting between the Kurdish factions could widen into a regional conflict if Iran decided to aid its PUK allies. Fighting between the factions continued throughout September.</P>
up099602|Rebels and Guatemalan government sign peace accord|<STRONG>Rebels and Guatemalan government sign peace accord</STRONG><P>Antigovernment rebels and the government of Guatemala signed a peace agreement on Sept. 19, 1996, that effectively ended the longest guerrilla conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The peace agreement was signed in Mexico City.</P><P>Guatemala had suffered through a civil war that began in 1961 when leftist guerrillas belonging to the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union attacked the Guatemalan army. More than 100,000 people died in the war.</P><P>Under the peace agreement, the Guatemalan government agreed to cut the size of the armed forces by one-third and to reduce the size of the military's budget by an equal amount. The government also said it would create a new, expanded national police force. Key issues remained to be decided, however, including how former rebels would reenter society and whether members of the armed forces would receive amnesty for crimes they committed during the war.</P>
up099603|Clinton decrees huge tract of Utah a national monument|<STRONG>Clinton decrees huge tract of Utah a national monument</STRONG><P>President Bill Clinton created a national monument out of 1.7 million acres (688,000 hectares) of wilderness in southeastern Utah on Sept. 18, 1996. The area was named the Grand Staircase--Escalante National Monument. Clinton's authority to declare the land a national monument stemmed from the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows a president to protect unique national resources by executive order. </P><P>The new monument is made of federal land to the west of the Colorado River and east of Bryce Canyon National Park. The land contains sweeping canyons, red rock bluffs, and desertlike terrain. The land had been the center of a long-standing dispute between companies that wanted to mine the vast coal reserves in the area and conservationists who wanted the land protected.</P>
up099604|Voting takes place in Bosnia-Herzegovina|<STRONG>Voting takes place in Bosnia-Herzegovina</STRONG><P>Voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina held national elections on Sept. 14, 1996, for the first time since the country declared itself independent from Yugoslavia in 1992, setting off a civil war that raged until late 1995. Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, was elected as the chairman of the nation's rotating, three-person presidency, which included one Muslim, one Serb, and one Croat. Izetbegovic's fellow presidents were Momcilo Krajsnik, a Serb, and Kresimir Zubak, a Croat. Each president was to serve two years.</P><P>Besides the three-person presidency, voters chose a national parliament; regional parliaments; and presidents of the Croatian, Muslim, and Serbian enclaves of the country. Thirteen major parties and numerous smaller ones fielded candidates. International observers monitored the elections under terms of the December 1995 peace agreement that ended the country's civil war.</P><P>People who had been displaced by the civil war were allowed to vote in their hometown or in the region where they had resettled. Most voters refused to return to areas from which they had been expelled, however. Forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which were in the country to maintain the 1995 peace agreement, escorted voters who wished to return to their former hometowns to vote.</P>
up099605|Humans may have come to Australia much earlier than was thought|<STRONG>Humans may have come to Australia much earlier than was thought</STRONG><P>Two findings announced in September 1996 suggested that humans may have inhabited Australia more than 100,000 years longer than scientists had thought. Scientists had believed that humans first appeared in Australia between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.<P><P>Archaeologists from the Australian Museum in Sydney said on September 21 that they had discovered stone tools and other artifacts that were between 116,000 and 176,000 years old at Jinmium in northwest Australia. The scientists also said that they had found 75,000-year-old dotlike indentations engraved on rocks in the area and that the markings were the world's oldest rock art--more than twice as old as the most ancient of France's famed cave paintings.</P><P>On Sept. 24, 1996, Dutch geologist and biologist Sander van der Kaars said that his analysis of seafloor sediment off the coast of Australia had revealed large amounts of carbon from charcoal that was about 200,000 years old. The charcoal probably originated from fires set by humans and was washed into the ocean or drifted there, van der Kaars said. Together with the stone tools and other ancient artifacts, the charcoal makes a "stong case" for earlier human habitation, he said. Some scientists questioned the accuracy of the dates attributed to the Jinmium artifacts, however.</P>
up099606|Muslim rebels overrun Kabul|<STRONG>Muslim rebels overrun Kabul</STRONG><P>Fundamentalist Islamic guerrillas called the Taliban overran the war-ravaged Afghani capital of Kabul on Sept. 26, 1996. The group established a strict Islamic state before executing former Communist leaders, including former President Najibullah, who ruled from 1986 to 1992 after being installed by the invading army of the former Soviet Union. Afghanistan's ruling president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, fled Kabul before the Taliban arrived.</P><P>With the takeover of Kabul, the Taliban controlled 70 percent of the country. They quickly began an offensive to capture northern areas of the country, which remained in the hands of military commanders from the former government and other warlords.</P>
up099607|Lucid sets records for space flight|<STRONG>Lucid sets records for space flight</STRONG><P>On Sept. 26, 1996, United States astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth after 188 days in space. Lucid broke the U.S. record of 115 days in space set by Norman E. Thagard in 1995, and on September 7, she broke the world record for women in space of 169 days set by Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova in 1995. The 53-year-old Lucid spent 183 days performing science experiments aboard the Russian space station Mir. Lucid had flown on five space missions since 1985 and logged 223 days in space, making her the most experienced U.S. astronaut.</P>
up099608|Perot chooses vice presidential candidate|<STRONG>Perot chooses vice presidential candidate</STRONG><P>Reform Party presidential candidate Ross Perot chose economist Pat Choate to be his vice presidential candidate on Sept. 10, 1996. The 55-year-old Choate was also an author and a radio commentator. He held views similar to those of Perot on free trade and the need to reform politics in Washington, D.C. </P>
up099609|Former Vice President Agnew Dies|<STRONG>Former Vice President Agnew Dies</STRONG><P>Former United States Vice President Spiro T. Agnew died on Sept. 17, 1996, in Berlin, Maryland, of leukemia, a cancer of the blood-forming tissues. Agnew was 77 years old.</P>
