01|Susan Webber Wright, judge of the United States District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, dismisses Paula Corbin Jones's civil suit against President Bill Clinton, saying "There are no genuine issues for trial in this case." Judge Wright rejects Ms. Jones's allegations that she was sexually harassed and suffered emotional distress as a result of an alleged 1991 encounter in a Little Rock hotel room between Jones, then a state of Arkansas employee, and Clinton, then governor of Arkansas.|
02|A business survey conducted by the Bank of Japan reports that the Japanese economy is either on the brink of recession or already in recession. The report sends the Japanese stock market into its biggest drop yet in 1998. Norio Ohga, chairman of the Sony Corporation, responds to the market drop by announcing that "the Japanese economy is on the verge of collapse." In Frankfurt, Germany, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank AG, Rolf Breuer, reports that the current economic crisis in Asia has forced his bank to cover loans, now considered highly risky, in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand, cutting 1997 net profits by more than 50 percent.|
03|President Bill Clinton responds to a question at a press conference with an explicit warning to Prime Minister Hashimoto of Japan that if the prime minister wishes to avoid further economic downturn, Japan must change its economic strategy, which President Clinton characterizes as "clearly not appropriate to the times." Experts have predicted that the Japanese economy--the world's second largest--could shrink by as much as 2 percent in 1998, worsening the current economic crisis in Southeast Asia. Economists also have warned that if any more big Japanese banks and investment firms collapse, the effects would rock U.S. markets.|
04|Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto of Japan responds to President Bill Clinton's criticism of Japan's economic policies by reminding the investment community of Japan's economic resources. Hashimoto argues that with $800 billion in foreign assets, $220 billion in foreign reserves, and no external debt, Japan is not, as Chairman Ohga of the Sony Corporation recently suggested, on "the brink of collapse." When speaking to reporters on April 2, the Sony chairman compared Hashimoto to U.S. President Herbert Hoover on the eve of the Great Depression in 1929.|
05|President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea agrees to send delegates to Beijing for an April 11 meeting with North Korea to discuss food and agricultural problems, including the current severe food shortage in North Korea. The meeting, proposed by North Korea, is expected to open a dialogue between the two countries, which have conducted no official communication for nearly four years. Since taking office in early 1998, South Korean President Kim has twice pledged deliveries of food and fertilizer to North Korea through the World Food Program.|
06|Citicorp, a bank, and Travelers Group, an insurance company, announce their intention to merge. The planned merger would involve a stock swap worth $70 billion, the largest such transaction in history. Financial analysts suggest that Citicorp and Travelers, using their combined political might and the current force of the bull market, intend to overturn two laws--1933 Glass-Steagall Act and the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act--which were created specifically to keep banks, insurance companies, and brokerage houses separate.|
06|The Dow Jones Industrial Average of selected stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange closes above 9,000 for the first time in history.|
07|British Prime Minister Tony Blair flies to Northern Ireland in a last-minute attempt to hold together peace negotiations between Protestant and Roman Catholic political leaders. The talks broke down when the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party rejected a proposal made by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, chairman of the negotiations, as biased toward Catholics.|
08|A ragged line of violent thunder storms, accompanied by high winds and large hail, rolls across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Tornadoes touch down in all three states, killing at least 43 people. The most severe damage and 32 of the fatalities are concentrated in Jefferson County, Alabama, west of Birmingham, where winds reached 250 miles (402 kilometers) per hour.|
08|A worldwide survey, conducted by an international team of botanists and conservationists over a 20-year period, reveals that at least 1 in every 8 known plant species on Earth is either near or threatened with extinction. Approximately 34,000 species--12.5 percent of the 270,000 species known worldwide--are edging toward destruction. The survey attributes the loss of diversity of plant life to destruction of habitat and the introduction of nonnative species.|
09|Tens of thousands of Islamic pilgrims--in Mecca for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage that is one of Islam's holiest rituals--stampede during the traditional "stoning of the devil" ceremony, which involves hurling pebbles at pillars that symbolize the temptations of Satan. More than 150 people, mostly elderly Indonesians and Malaysians, fall to their death from a bridge or are trampled to death. During the same ceremony in 1994, more than 250 pilgrims were killed in a similar stampede.|
10|Twenty-two months of peace talks produce an accord designed to end the deadly conflict in Northern Ireland between Roman Catholics and Protestants. The product of major concessions by Catholic and Protestant politicians, the agreement provides for a 108-seat National Assembly in which Protestants and Catholics are to govern jointly. The assembly is charged with cooperating with the Irish Republic in a new lawmaking body, named the North-South Council. The accord also provides for a body of representatives--the Council of the Isles--made up of members of the British and Irish parliaments and the new assemblies of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Finally, the Irish Republic is to amend its constitution to renounce territorial claim on Northern Ireland. The settlement is to be put to the voters of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic as a referendum on May 22, 1998.|
11|Palestinian Authority police arrest dozens of members of Hamas, the militant Islamic group, including a man the authority claims masterminded the March 29, 1998, murder of Muhyiaddin al-Sharif. Israel has characterized al-Sharif as a known terrorist responsible for several bombings. According to the Palestinian Authority, Al-Sharif was murdered by his own colleagues during an internal feud. Hamas, however, claims al-Sharif was executed by the Palestinian Authority in collusion with Israel and vows to revenge the death by launching terrorist attacks on Israel.|
12|Mark O'Meara of the United States birdies three of the last four holes of the Masters, in Augusta, Georgia, sinking a 20-foot (6-meter) putt on the 18th green to win his first major Professional Golf Association tournament.|
13|Executives at Banc One announce a merger, valued at $28 billion, between the Columbus, Ohio, bank and First Chicago NBD Corporation, parent company of the largest banks in Chicago and Detroit. With deposits estimated at $153.7 billion and assets of $230 billion, the new bank will be the most powerful in the U.S. Midwest. On April 12, the BankAmerica and Nationsbank corporations announced a $60-billion merger, creating a company with $343.1 billion in deposits, $570 billion in assets, and branches in 22 U.S. states.|
14|The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules that radio and television stations are not required to seek minority job applicants as has been required since 1969 by the Federal Communications Commission. In 1971, approximately 9 percent of all full-time employees in radio and television were members of minorities. In 1998, 19.9 percent of full-time employees are counted as minorities.|
15|The legendary head of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, dies in his bed in a thatched hut in the mountains of northern Cambodia. He was being held under house arrest by his former followers, Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who had convicted him of crimes against humanity in 1997. The cause of death is attributed to heart failure. During Pol Pot's four years of radical Communist rule in the late 1970's, he presided over a reign of terror that left more than one million Cambodians dead.|
16|Paula Corbin Jones announces to the press that she intends to appeal the dismissal in federal court of her civil suit against President Bill Clinton. On April 1, Judge Susan Webber Wright of the United States District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, rejected Jones's allegations that she was sexually harassed and suffered emotional distress as a result of an alleged 1991 encounter in a Little Rock hotel room between Jones with President Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas.|
17|Islamic factions waging civil war in Afghanistan agree to a ceasefire, partially brokered by Bill Richardson, the U.S. representative to the United Nations. The agreement calls for an exchange of prisoners and face-to-face talks between the factions, including the Taliban, an ultraconservative, militant group that currently holds two-thirds of Afghanistan. Since taking power in 1996, the Taliban has closed schools to girls, banned women from the workplace, and ordered all men to grow beards and attend daily prayers.|
18|The Protestant Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, warns President Bill Clinton to stay out of Northern Ireland until after the May 22 referendum on the Stormont Agreement, the April 10 plan designed to end the conflict in Northern Ireland between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Trimble, whose endorsement of the agreement was overwhelmingly backed by the Ulster Unionist Council, notes that any foreign intervention could galvanize opposition to the plan. President Clinton has announced that he would like to visit Northern Ireland during his stay in Great Britain for the G8 summit in May.|
19|Forty people are injured when 65 vehicles pile up in a single accident on a mountain highway in Virginia, 95 miles (153 kilometers) west of Richmond, the state capital. State police blame the accident on dense fog and note that the highway, Interstate 64, has a fog warning system, which authorities recently spent $5 million to upgrade.|
20|Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and U.S. State Department spokesperson James Rubin announce in Jerusalem that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat have agreed to travel to London and meet, separately, with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in an effort to revive the stalled peace process.|
20|In Chicago, a U.S. District Court jury, consisting of two men and four women, rules that three antiabortion movement leaders--who had conducted a nationwide campaign to intimidate abortion providers and patients--are guilty of 21 violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, a 1970 federal law designed to fight organized crime.|
21|Michael Werner, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reports at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration news conference in Washington, D.C., that astronomers, working separately in Hawaii and Chile, observed planets being formed from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a young star. According to Werner, these observations suggest that planetary systems may be common in the universe, increasing the possibility of life existing beyond Earth.|
22|The Irish Parliament in Dublin votes overwhelmingly to approve the Northern Ireland peace accord, which was agreed to in Belfast on April 10. Drawn up by leaders representing Northern Ireland's Protestant majority and Roman Catholic minority, the accord is designed to settle centuries of violent conflict over whether the British or Irish enjoy sovereignty over the island of Ireland. Among its other provisions, the agreement calls on Great Britain to formally renounce claims over that part of the island that is now the Irish Republic. It calls on the Irish Republic to amend its constitution to renounce claims of sovereignty over Northern Ireland. The vote in the Irish Parliament clears the way for the accord to be presented as a referendum to the people of the Irish Republic on May 22, the same day it is to be voted on by the people of Northern Ireland.|
23|James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr., dies in prison in Nashville, Tennessee, while serving a 99-year sentence. Ray confessed to the April 4, 1968, assassination and pleaded guilty to murder. However, he later recanted that confession, claiming that he was merely an errand boy who had been set up by shadowy group of conspirators whose involvement in the murder was covered up by federal agents. The assassination spawned racial conflicts and riots in more than 100 U.S. cities.|
24|The Communist-dominated Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, approves President Boris Yeltsin's candidate for prime minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, by a vote of 251 to 25. Nearly 175 members abstain from the balloting. After the Duma had twice refused to confirm Kiriyenko, Yeltsin threatened to use his constitutional prerogative to dissolve the body, which political experts believe would have cost many members their seats. Legislators as well as Russian business leaders claimed that the 35-year-old, reform-minded Kiriyenko, who Yeltsin plucked from obscurity, was not qualified for the position.|
25|A 10-mile (16-kilometer) stretch of the Mississippi River, running south from St. Louis, Missouri, is closed to all boat traffic after at least 130 barges break loose from their moorings and float free down the river. The giant breakaway is believed to have begun when some two dozen barges, moored together at an assembly area near St. Louis's giant Bush Brewery, south of downtown, broke loose en masse. Floating down river, the 24 barges repeatedly crashed into other barges, setting them free as well. Of the 130 vessels, 13 remain unaccounted for.|
26|The German People's Union (DVU) wins 12.9 percent of the vote in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, qualifying DVU, which has links to Germany's neo-Nazi movement, for seats in the state assembly. The DVU vote is the highest tallied by an extreme-right party in Germany's post-World War II history. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's governing Christian Democratic Party receives 22 percent of the vote, down more than 12 percent from the last state elections in 1994. Saxony-Anhalt, in eastern Germany, has the slowest economic growth and highest rate of unemployment of any German state. A quarter of its voters under 30, a group particularly hard hit by unemployment, cast ballots for DVU, which preaches nationalism and intolerance of foreigners.|
26|The Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City, Juan Gerardi Conedera, is murdered in his residence two days after issuing a scathing report on human rights violations during Guatemala's civil war, which ended in December 1996. Bishop Gerardi, who headed the Guatemala City archdiocese's human rights office, had cited the Guatemalan army as being responsible for 80 percent of all abuses that took place during the country's 36 years of internal warfare.|
27|The Security Council of the United Nations votes to extend sanctions against Iraq because of the failure of Saddam Hussein's government to fully comply with UN demands for evidence of disarmament. Before the vote, Iraq threatened to disrupt future arms inspections if the sanctions, set into place after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, were not lifted. The United States vowed to veto any rescinding of sanctions if Iraq does not fully verify the disarmament of banned weapons. The United States also demands that Iraq return all Kuwaiti prisoners of war and property seized during the war and improve its record on human rights.|
28|Richard Butler, United Nations (UN) chief arms inspector for Iraq, announces that inspectors in March discovered mustard gas in 155-millimeter artillery shells that were placed in storage at an Iraqi ammunitions depot in 1996. Iraq has claimed that it destroyed all prohibited weapons in 1991. Mustard gas, known to cause mouth, throat, and respiratory-tract cancers, burns the eyes and blisters the skins and lungs of human beings on contact. Butler reports that Iraq has been unwilling or unable to account for between 500 to 700 such shells that are known to exist. Inspectors have also been unable to discover the whereabouts of hundreds of canisters, bombs, and rockets designed to deliver chemical and biological weapons, which are also know to exist.|
29|The largest beef-processing company in the United States, IBP Inc., recalls 280,000 pounds (127,000 kilograms) of ground beef after U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors detected bacteria in beef samples from IBP's plant in Joslin, Illinois. Most of the meat from which the contaminated samples were taken had been shipped to retail and food service customers around the United States. There have been no reports of illness resulting from eating beef originating from the Joslin plant.|
30|Millions of Israelis take to the streets to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Israel. Public events marking the anniversary began on April 29 at sundown with a nationally televised ceremony, staged on Mount Herzl, followed by fireworks that drew thousands into the streets of Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, playing host to Vice President Al Gore, presides over the concluding ceremony, a three-hour outdoor gala celebrating events of the last half century, which climaxes in a second spectacular fireworks display in the night sky over the Israeli capital.|
