01|Helen Wills Moody, famous American tennis star of the 1920's and 1930's, dies at the age of 91 in California, U.S.A. She is remembered for transforming the women's tennis game, and for her victories in eight Wimbledon finals, four French singles championships, and seven U.S. Open finals.|
01|It is reported in the Cambodian press that Pol Pot has fled Cambodia to escape trial by an international court for crimes against humanity. Pol Pot, once the leader of the Khmer Rouge, is infamous for his "killing fields" regime, under which more than a million people were killed.|
01|Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov dismisses the country's separatist government and authorises First Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Basayev to form a new cabinet.|
02| In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is denounced by more than 100,000 university students protesting against budget proposals. Their street protests deepen the crisis already facing Netanyahu, following yesterday's announcement by Foreign Minister David Levy that he intends to resign.|
02|Official sources in Sudan announce the surrender of more than 1,700 rebel soldiers of the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It is hoped this move will end the violence which has claimed about 1.3 million lives since the current phase of Sudan's civil war began in 1983.|
03|Across France, there are violent clashes between rioters and police as discontent over welfare payments continues. Protesters are demanding a bonus because benefit payments have failed to keep pace with inflation. Employment Minister Martine Aubry condemns the demonstrations, which began during New Year celebrations and show no sign of abating. The problems stem from the government's attempts to meet the economic criteria for European Monetary Union, which have reduced the money available for benefit payments.|
04|Daniel arap Moi is declared the winner of the elections in Kenya and will serve his fifth term in office as president. His Kenya African Union party (KANU) secures victory in a controversial election, with Moi's opposition accusing him and his party of corruption and violence (see December 21, 1997).|
04|The Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Freedom Fighters announce their withdrawal from participation in the Northern Ireland peace talks following the vote against participation by Loyalist prisoners in the Maze prison, near Belfast.|
05| American singer-songwriter and politician Sonny Bono dies in a skiing accident in California, U.S.A., aged 62. Bono is best remembered as part of the hippie duo "Sonny and Cher" and for their international chart-topping song "I Got You Babe", (1965). Bono was a prolific songwriter, whose songs were recorded by many artists, including Frank Sinatra. Bono took several acting roles before entering politics in 1988. He was elected a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994.|
05|Former American civil servant Valdas Adamkus, aged 71, is elected president of Lithuania, despite having returned to his country of birth only three months ago. Adamkus lived and worked in the U.S. throughout his adult life, and had to fight a court battle in order to be permitted to stand for election. He narrowly defeats Arturas Paulauskas, by a margin of 0.74 per cent of valid ballots.|
05|American adventurer Steve Fossett fails in his fourth attempt to become the first aviator to circumnavigate the world non-stop in a hot-air balloon. Fossett's bid ends when he is forced to land in southern Russia, having completed only a third of his journey.|
06|In Denmark, the Little Mermaid statue on Copenhagen's waterfront is decapitated by vandals. The police investigation includes an underwater search for the missing head. The statue, inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story, is regarded as a national symbol by the Danes. The statue's original head was sawn off in 1964 and never recovered.|
06|At a meeting of Hong Kong's Executive Council, it is decided that the island will end its policy of granting a port of first asylum to the Vietnamese boat people. Asylum seekers are now considered to be economic migrants.|
07|In the United Kingdom, a freak tornado devastates Selsey, a town in Sussex. The tornado brings with it hail, many lightning strikes, and winds reaching 160 kilometres per hour. More than one thousand homes are severely damaged, but only two people suffer injury.|
07|The Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, hints at a possible renewal of relations between Iran and the U.S. in an unprecedented televised interview which is broadcast on the Cable News Network. Relations between the two countries have been strained since the Islamic revolution in 1979, during which 52 U.S. diplomats were held hostage in their embassy in Teheran for 444 days.|
07|Officials in Papua New Guinea announce that the worsening drought in the country has claimed 75 lives and left 1.2 million people in urgent need of water. It is Papua New Guinea's worst drought in 100 years.|
07|Spanish police in Santa Cruz de Tenerife prevent the ritual suicide of a religious sect who believe that the world will end at 8 p.m. tomorrow. German psychologist Heide Fittkau-Garte is arrested in Tenerife and charged with attempting to induce suicide. Her followers, 29 Germans and a Spaniard, had planned to poison themselves on the summit of Mount Teide in the expectation of being transported from there by spaceship to another planet. They will be held "for their own protection" until at least 8 p.m. tomorrow. The sect may be an offshoot of the Order of the Solar Temple, a Swiss-based cult responsible for several mass suicides this decade.|
08|In Indonesia, the financial crisis deepens as the currency, the rupiah, plunges to a new low, its value falling to less than a quarter of its July 1997 rate. Shops are crowded as people buy food amid rumours that the cost of rice will double. Some banks run out of cash because so many people are withdrawing their savings.|
08|The 1997 Confectionery Market Review reveals that the United Kingdom consumes more sweets and chocolate than any other country. According to the review, people in the UK consume 16 kilograms of confectionery per head each year, far more than the U.S.A. with 10 kilograms and Japan at 3 kilograms.|
09|The sawn-off head of the Little Mermaid statue is left outside a Copenhagen television station by a hooded man. Danish police cannot identify the vandals. However, a radical feminist group earlier claimed responsibility for the statue's decapitation, stating that they had taken the head as a protest against male hostility toward women (see also January 6).|
09|Mo Mowlam, the UK's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, visits the Maze prison, near Belfast, in an attempt to salvage the Northern Irish peace process which has become uncertain following the murder of Billy Wright, a militant loyalist (see December 27). She holds an unprecedented discussion with loyalist prisoners, who are threatening to withdraw their support for the Ulster Democratic Party in the peace negotiations. As a result, the Ulster Freedom Fighters and Ulster Defence Association agree to back the UDP in multi-party talks scheduled to resume on January 12.|
09|Michael Tippett, one of the UK's most important contemporary composers, dies at his home in London, aged 93.|
10|At least 47 people are killed as an earthquake strikes near the Great Wall of China, north of Peking. More than 10,000 people are injured in the quake, which measures 6.2 on the Richter scale. Tens of thousands of Chinese people lose their homes and face a night without shelter in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius. The death toll is expected to rise.|
10|In Montreal, Canada, 4,000 soldiers help hundreds of residents abandon their homes for temporary shelters in local schools and community centres possessing generators. They are typical of the 3 million people left without electricity in the aftermath of North America's worst ice-storm on record. Thousands of electricity pylons have been crushed under the weight of ice. Airports and railways are closed. At least 10 people have been killed in the storm.|
11|In Slupsk, Poland, hundreds of youths riot in protest against the alleged police killing of a 14-year-old boy. The boy died on January 10 during clashes between police and fans after a basketball game. The rioters began their protest after suggestions by the police that the boy had hurt himself running into a post.|
11|In India, Sonia Gandhi, Italian-born widow of the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, begins an eight-week electoral campaign in Sriperumbudur, the town where her husband was assassinated in 1991. Speaking in English, she urges a crowd of about 15,000 to support India's Congress Party. It is a rare public appearance by Gandhi, who is not standing for office. Opinions are divided whether her intervention will prevent further defections by Congress supporters to other political parties such as the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP are expected to top the poll in February's general election.|
12|Thousands of Shi'ite Muslims riot in Lahore, Pakistan, smashing cars, burning buildings, and attempting to storm the Punjab provincial parliament. Their action is in protest at yesterday's massacre of 24 Shi'ites at prayer by members of a militant Sunni Muslim group, the Warriors of Jhangvi. The Sunni group has threatened further attacks on the minority Shi'ite community.|
12|Nineteen members of the Council of Europe sign a protocol prohibiting attempts to "create human beings genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead.". Germany and the United Kingdom are not signatories to this ban on human cloning.|
12|Japan's Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto issues an apology to the United Kingdom for Japan's treatment of UK prisoners during World War II. The apology is hailed by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as a significant step toward an era of improved relations. However, is condemned by UK war veterans as an "insult". The veterans are seeking financial compensation for each prisoner of war for the trauma they suffered.|
13|In Tokyo, a gunman enters the Stock Exchange and takes hostage the deputy controller in protest against the government's management of the economy, and its plans for financial reform. Tetsuo Itagaki, a right-wing extremist, is arrested after a five-hour siege and his hostage is released unharmed.|
13|The body of a United Kingdom victim of the Luxor massacre is finally located in Germany. Karina Turner's body had been missing since her murder by Islamic militants in Egypt. An international search unravelled the mistaken identification of her body. She will be buried with her mother and daughter, who were also victims of the massacre (see November 17, 1997).|
13|In Tenerife, Spanish police frustrate a mass suicide bid by members of a religious cult for the second time this week. Nineteen people, including three children, are held for a few hours for their own safety. (See January 7.)|
14|In the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, at least 20 people are hurt as protesters and police clash. More than 8,000 people demonstrate in Podgorica in support of the outgoing president Momir Bulatovic. Some are involved in skirmishes with the police, who disperse the crowds with tear gas. Bulatovic has accused his successor, Milo Djukanovic, of rigging the election that ousted him from power.|
14|In Cuba, a 30-minute sermon by a Cardinal Jaime Ortega, archbishop of Havana, is broadcast on state-controlled television. It is the first time a Roman Catholic broadcast had been permitted by President Castro's government for more than forty years.|
15|Officials in Algeria agree to a visit by a delegation of European Union representatives from Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, and Austria. The EU delegation hopes to find ways in which they can help end Algeria's civil war, which began in January, 1992.|
15|Nasa officials announce that John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, is to return to space in October on a 10-day mission aboard the "Discovery" shuttle. Glenn, who will be 77 years old when the mission is launched, will become the world's oldest astronaut. His time in space will be used to monitor the effect of weightlessness on an older body.|
16|The Constitutional Court in Turkey rules that the country's largest parliamentary party, the pro-Islamist Welfare Party, must be shut down because it has contravened Turkey's strict secular rules. It also orders the expulsion of six Welfare deputies from parliament and prohibits their involvement in political activity for five years. Many countries see this action as a threat to democratic pluralism and freedom of expression in Turkey. Welfare's assets will automatically go to the treasury.|
16|A six-year custody dispute between Italy and Austria ends as the mummified remains of a Bronze Age man are returned to Italy. Both countries had claimed ownership of the 5,300-year-old mummy. The body had lain undisturbed in a glacier in the Dolomites on the Austro-Italian border until revealed by a thaw in 1991. Although found metres inside Italy, the body was taken to Innsbruck University, Austria, for scientific examination. The mummy will go on display in Bolzano archaeology museum from March 28.|
16|At least 86 people are killed in Kenya as torrential rain causes widespread flooding. The rains, attributed to the El Nino weather phenomenon, destroy many major transport links. Thousands of people are without fresh water and hundreds are made homeless. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says that two months of flooding have created ideal conditions for the spread of the haemorrhagic Rift Valley fever and that the disease may be out of control. At least 450 people have died of this disease in North Eastern Province.|
17|In Washington, U.S.A., Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to testify as a defendant in a legal action. He is accused by Paula Jones of sexually harassing her in 1991, when he was governor of the state of Arkansas and she was a state secretary. Clinton gives his deposition prior to the trial which is scheduled to begin on May 27.|
17|In London, more than 50 Gulf War veterans march in protest to the Ministry of Defence building to return the medals they won for their service. At a meeting with Lord Gilbert, the defence procurement minister, they demand an independent inquiry into Gulf War Syndrome, a variety of illnesses that are alleged to afflict more than 6,000 Gulf veterans, and which have already cost around 160 lives. Their protest coincides with the seventh anniversary of the outbreak of the war.|
18|In Guyana, President Janet Jagan signs an accord with the main opposition leader, Desmond Hoyte, which guarantees reforms to allow for new elections in 2000, as well as a reform of the constitution and an audit of the last election results. It is hoped that the agreement will end the violence that has been rife in the capital, Georgetown, since last month's elections began.|
18|Bosnia's Serb parliament elect a new, moderate, coalition government, to be led by incoming prime minister, Milorad Dodik. It is hoped that the new government will help work toward building a stable peace in Bosnia.|
18|In Amman, Jordan, Hikmet al-Hajou, deputy chief of mission for the Iraqi embassy, his wife, and six associates are stabbed to death by unknown assailants. The murders heighten the tension between Iraq and Jordan which followed the execution of four Jordanian students in Baghdad last December.|
19|In California, U.S.A., the Golden Globe Awards are announced at a ceremony in Hollywood. Best dramatic actress award goes to Dame Judy Dench of the United Kingdom for her portrayal of Queen Victoria in "Mrs. Brown". American Peter Fonda wins the best actor award for his part in "Ulee's Gold", which won the best film category. The disaster epic "Titanic" wins best drama, best director (James Cameron), best original score, and best original song. Titanic is believed to be the most expensive film ever made.|
19|President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe halts his plans to forcibly acquire 1,400 white-owned farms because of conditions imposed upon his government by the World Bank and the European Union. Mugabe secures a loan from both organizations on condition that he guarantees compensation for all farmers affected by his land reforms (see November 19, 1997).|
19|Across America, people celebrate Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the black civil rights leader assassinated thirty years ago. Schools, banks, and businesses close, and the New York stock exchange markets are shuttered for the day. A parade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ends in tragedy as a gunman opens fire on the crowd. One man is killed in the shooting and three children are badly injured. Police do not believe the attack to be racially motivated, as both the gunman and his victims were black.|
20|American television star Oprah Winfrey appears in court in Texas, U.S.A. Winfrey is being sued for libel by the American beef industry, led by Paul Engler, for comments she made in 1996 during her talk show which questioned the safety of eating beef and the dangers associated with the cattle disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). |
20|North Korea's agricultural commission reveals the country is in desperate need of international help following the failure of the harvest in 1997. Cha Limsok, speaking on behalf of the commission, admits that the drought of the previous summer has produced famine conditions in the country. It is the first time North Korea has revealed such statistics to the international community.|
20|In Harare, Zimbabwe, as riots against the government continue for a second day, President Robert Mugabe deploys government troops to disperse demonstrators. The protesters, angry that the government continues to raise the price of the maize meal, loot and burn shops. Government troops are under orders to shoot rioters in what has become the country's worst civil unrest since it gained independence in 1980.|
21|Thousands of Cubans line the streets of Havana, Cuba, to welcome Pope John Paul II, the first pope to visit the country. President Fidel Castro has, in recent years, relaxed prohibition laws on religion in his communist country. It is understood that Castro hopes the pope's visit will help alter the U.S. stance toward Cuba, and the pope hints his disapproval of the U.S. embargo on Cuban goods.|
21|The World Wide Fund for Nature announces that the tiger is threatened with imminent extinction if nothing is done to protect its freedom and habitat. Experts believe only 20 to 25 South China tigers exist in the wild. This species is especially endangered by the recent increased demand for Chinese traditional medicines, which contain tiger body parts. Tigers are now worth large sums of money to poachers.|
21|In Bangkok, more than 2,000 workers riot for 12 hours outside their car factory in a protest over pay. The demonstration becomes violent as workers throw stones, bottles, and petrol bombs at the police, who eventually break up the protest and arrest 58 of the rioters.|
22|In Santa Clara, Cuba, Pope John Paul II addresses more than 40,000 people at the first of four open-air masses he will hold during his five-day visit to the country. He criticises Cuba's high abortion rate, lax moral values, and the lack of Catholic schools. He later has a 50-minute meeting with President Fidel Castro.|
22|In the Algerian parliament, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia , answering questions about the alleged 1,000 killings during Ramadan, claims that the death toll in the county's civil war is about 26,500. However, many Western observers believe the total is between 60,000 and 80,000, and are surprised at the minister's recent rejection of humanitarian aid offered by delegates from the European Union.|
22|The U.S. government accepts a plea of guilty from the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, in exchange for the withdrawal of the death penalty. Paranoid schizophrenic Kaczynski, 55, will not now face trial, and is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment for a bizarre bombing campaign that spanned nearly twenty years. He claimed his actions were an attempt to stem the encroachment of technology.|
22|Indonesia's currency falls to a new low for the third consecutive day. The government's Manpower Ministry predicts that unemployment in the country will increase by I million to 3.7 million people by the end of the year. About 200 students demonstrate at a rally in Jakarta, calling for President Suharto to resign and for Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the late President Sukano, to replace him.|
23|It is announced that French engineer Guy Negre has perfected a silent, odour-free car engine which has zero pollution. Once started, using the air-petrol mixture favoured by conventional engines, Negre's version runs on compressed air alone. The prototype vehicle runs for 10 hours on a tank of compressed air, achieving a top speed of 96 kilometres per hour. A version of Negre's vehicle, designed by an Italian company, will go into mass production in Mexico next month. Mexico City, the most polluted city in the world, intends to replace its 87,00 petrol and diesel taxis and delivery vehicles with zero-pollution taxis at a rate of 40,000 a year.|
23|In Athens, restoration of the temple of Athena Nike at the entrance to the Acropolis begins. Greek archaeologists will replace the original frieze, damaged by pollution and in danger of collapsing, with a cement copy. The original will be housed in a new museum.|
23|At least 11 people die as an avalanche buries 35, including 26 teenagers and their 6 teachers, near the southern Alpine resort of Les Orres, south of Grenoble, France. Rescue dogs locate 18 survivors who were buried in the snow for several hours. Six others are still missing.|
24|Pope John Paul II tells an audience of 200,000 people in Santiago de Cuba, "The Church calls everyone to make faith a reality in their lives as the best path ... for attaining true freedom, which includes the recognition of human rights and social justice." (See also January 22).|
24|In India, the Congress Party apologises in its general election manifesto for the 1992 destruction of the Ayodhya Mosque. The action is seen as an attempt to attract the Muslim vote. Narasimha Rao, prime minister at the time of the demolition, will be not be a candidate in the forthcoming general election.|
25|The Queen Mother is admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital in London for surgery to replace her left hip, fractured in a fall on Sunday.|
25|Thirteen people die as a lorry bomb explodes at Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist shrine, Dalada Maligawa, in Kandy. The three bombers, believed to belong to the Tamil Tigers, are killed in the explosion. The inner shrine, containing a tooth said to belong to the Buddha, is undamaged. The Sri Lankan government says it will not cancel celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the country's independence on 4 February.|
26|Shinichi Suzuki, the Japanese violinist and educator, dies at the age of 99. Suzuki developed revolutionary theories about teaching music. Starting at the age of two or three, his pupils learned to play the violin, piano, or cello by ear, through example and constant repetition, in much the same way as they learned to speak. The Suzuki Method is now used in more than 40 countries, and many eminent musicians claim Suzuki training.|
26|The Ulster Democratic Party, political representatives of the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Freedom Fighters, walks out of cross-party talks in Northern Ireland. Mo Mowlam, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, says the UDP will have to show "by word and deed" that they are committed to the peace process. David Andrews, the Irish foreign minister, had said that contact would be maintained with the UDP and that the peace talks would not collapse.|
27|U.S. President Bill Clinton's annual State of the Union address is overshadowed by frenzied international media speculation about whether he had an improper relationship with a former member of his White House staff, Monica Lewinsky, and later told her to lie about it. Hillary Rodham Clinton claims on television that the allegations of a cover-up are part of a "vast rightwing conspiracy" against her husband.|
28|As Iraqi president Saddam Hussein continues to obstruct United Nations weapons inspectors in their search for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sets off for Europe and the Middle East on a diplomatic initiative to discuss possible military retaliation against Iraq.|
28|A former South African policeman, Daniel Bosman, tells the Truth Commission in Johannesburg that police suppressed evidence proving that Winnie Madikizela Mandela had given a false alibi at her trial for the murder of 14-year old Stompie Seipei Moeketsie, in 1991. Telephone taps placed Mrs. Mandela in Soweto, not Brandfort, during the crucial period in 1988. Transcripts of her calls were withheld at her trial. Other evidence suggests that the police may have killed a white officer in order to protect Mrs. Mandela.|
28|In Madras, India, 26 Tamil Tiger militants are sentenced to death for their part in the 1991 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.|
29|Rescuers find 31 bodies after the town of Choco in the Peruvian Andes is hit by an avalanche of mud as a river bursts its banks. The freak rains causing the flooding are blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon.|
29|In Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, health officials announce they will need a further three weeks to exhume and re-bury hundreds of the city's civil war dead.|
29|Three cosmonauts, two Russian and one French, blast into space from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Russia. Their mission is to link up with the Mir space station and perform essential repairs. The American space shuttle Endeavour, which has been attached to Mir for the last five days, undocks and begins its journey back to Earth.|
29|Shell UK Exploration and Production announce plans to cut up their 14,500-metric-ton oil-storage buoy, Brent Spar, to support a ferry quay in Mekjarvik, Norway. Two-and-a-half years ago, a vigorous campaign by the environmental group Greenpeace prevented Shell from dumping the unwanted Brent Spar in the Atlantic Ocean.|
29|At Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, the first 1998 Test cricket match between England and the West Indies is abandoned because of a substandard pitch. Play is halted after several batsmen are hit due to unpredictable bounces of the ball. The rest of the series of matches will now be played in Trinidad.|
30|Ethnic tensions are rising as economic problems continue in Indonesia. Chinese Indonesians, descended from immigrants two or more generations ago, comprise less than 3 per cent of the population. However, because they control almost 70 per cent of the economy, Chinese Indonesians are being blamed for the price rises which followed the fall in the value of the rupiah and their shops are coming under attack. President Suharto is quoted in the Jakarta Post warning of the dangers of unrest, a reference to the unrest of thirty years ago in which half a million people died.|
30|A Russian government commission recommends that the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family be buried in St. Petersburg on 17 July, the eightieth anniversary of their execution by Bolshevik revolutionaries. Moscow and Yekaterinburg had also claimed the right to house the royal remains. President Yeltsin is expected to accept the commission's recommendations next month.|
30|In Australia, two white government ministers, both doctors, attend the televised ritual circumcision of seven-year old Nathan Djerruka, son of the chairman of the Aboriginal parliament. Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron and Health Minister Michael Wooldridge wear tribal paint at the ceremony which they hoped would promote understanding between black and white cultures in Australia. Instead, they have generated a controversy about whether or not the custom constitutes child abuse, and should be banned.|
31|In London, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, seeking a solution to the Iraqi question, warns that "the time for diplomacy is running out". UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook agree that Saddam Hussein must be stopped and do not rule out military action. France and Russia are believed to favour a diplomatic solution (see also January 27).|
