01|The Labour Party wins a decisive victory in the United Kingdom general election. With a total of 418 seats to the Conservative Party's 165 and the Liberal Democrat Party's 46, Labour has an overall majority of 179, more than the historic Labour landslide in 1945. Labour's leader, Tony Blair, is 44 years old and the youngest prime minister since the Earl of Liverpool was elected in 1812. The Labour victory ends 18 years of Conservative rule and the former prime minister, John Major, resigns as Conservative leader.|
01|English artist David Hockney's first commercial exhibition for 15 years in London opens at the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery. Called 'Flowers, Faces and Spaces', the show features new paintings of flowers and portraits of himself, his family and his friends. The most internationally famous British artist of his time, Hockney's paintings are examples of colourful pop art.|
02|United States President Bill Clinton and congressional leaders agree a plan to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. The five-year spending programme includes Democrat-backed proposals for more money for college education as well as expanding health insurance to cover the estimated five million children who are uninsured. Republican-backed provisions include tax reductions, such as capital gains and estate taxes, and cuts in public spending.|
02|Egypt is brought to a standstill by a massive sandstorm. Winds of 100 kph sweep through the country and the sky turns from blue to grey, red, and white because of the sand. Visibility is reduced to zero in many places and Cairo International airport is closed. At least 8 people are killed and 10 others injured by falling debris and traffic accidents caused by the storm.|
03|London Zoo opens a new enclosure exhibiting bears to the public for the first time in 12 years. Bear Mountain replaces the Mappin Terrace, built in 1913 and closed as unsafe in 1985. On show in the new 2,300 square-metre enclosure are two Sri Lankan sloth bears, imported from Warsaw Zoo in Poland. However, animal welfare campaigners complain that keeping bears in captivity is cruel.|
03|London's Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is badly damaged by fire, but all its major works of art are saved. The fire, which began at night, destroys the roof of the building in Piccadilly, but is rapidly brought under control by more than 100 firemen. At the moment, the RA houses nearly 1,000 paintings, mostly submissions for its annual summer exhibition, as well as paintings by Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and J.M.W. Turner.|
04|Hundreds of Albanians fleeing unrest in their country arrive in the port of Bari in southern Italy. As their overcrowded and rusty vessel, called 'Irini', docks after the 220-kilometre voyage across the Adriatic Sea, it is met by Italian police as well as Red Cross workers. Two pregnant women are rushed to hospital. An estimated 1,500 other passengers must now convince immigration authorities to let them stay.|
04|About 100 Hutu refugees die in a train carrying them home to Rwanda from a camp in Zaire. Aid workers see dozens of bodies fall from the open railway carriages as the train from Biaro camp pulls into Kisangani station. The deaths result from suffocation due to severe overcrowding after thousands of people were packed into six carriages.|
05|The biggest claimed discovery of gold this century turns out to be a hoax. Mining consultants Strathcona Mineral Services report that samples taken from the Busang site in the mountainous jungle of East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia, were tampered with to make them appear to be rich in gold. In February 1997, the Canadian company Bre-X claimed that their site contained 2 million kilograms of gold. News of the fraud means that shares in Bre-X on the Toronto stock market are suspended.|
05|The secretary-general of Yemen's ruling General People's Congress (GPC), Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, claims his party has won 187 seats in elections to the 301-member parliament. The Islamist Islah Party, the GPC's coalition partner, wins 54 seats. About 39 independent MPs also support the GPC.|
06|Gordon Brown, chancellor in the United Kingdom's new Labour government, gives the Bank of England freedom to set interest rates. It immediately raises the loan rate by a quarter percentage point to 6.25 per cent. Once the prerogative of the chancellor, the setting of interest rates determines the level of bank loans and mortgage payments. As such, it is an important tool of economic policy and is used to control inflation.|
06|Divers believe they have found the oldest ship in the world in Hampshire, in the United Kingdom. Carbon dating shows that wood found on the seabed near Hayling Island, off the south coast of England, is about 6,000 years old. It was discovered by members of the same team that found the Tudor warship 'Mary Rose', which was raised in 1982. If the wood is proved to be part of a boat, the wreck would date from the Bronze Age, and be older than Stonehenge, an ancient English monument.|
07|Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb reserve policeman, is convicted of war crimes committed during the recent war in former Yugoslavia. In the first such judgment by a multinational court since the Nuremberg Trials (1946-1949), Tadic, aged 41, is found guilty on 11 out of 31 counts by the International War Crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. His crimes include taking part in the murder of 30 people, and the verdict is the first formal condemnation of 'ethnic cleansing' by a judicial body.|
07|The United States accuses Switzerland of having prolonged World War II by dealing in plundered gold on behalf of Nazi Germany. A report compiled by Stuart Eizenstadt, under-secretary for commerce, claims that between 1939 and 1945 Germany transferred 400 million U.S. dollars-worth of gold to the Swiss National Bank in Berne. Some of this gold came from Jewish victims of the Nazi concentration camps.|
08|The world's biggest fraud trial ends at the Old Bailey, London, with the jailing of Abbas Gokal for 14 years. Gokal, a Pakistani shipping magnate aged 61, is guilty of defrauding the Bank of Credit and Commerce International of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars. The bank collapsed in 1992 after the authorities discovered fraud amounting to 20 billion dollars.|
08|Australia's prime minister, John Howard, criticizes an MP whose outspoken racist views threaten relations with neighbouring Asian countries. Pauline Hanson, a former fish-and-chip shop owner, has called for cuts in Asian immigration to Australia and in welfare projects for Aborigines. She was expelled from Howard's Liberal Party in March 1996 and has set up the One Nation party.|
09|Eight armed separatists occupy the bell tower in St. Mark's Square, in Venice, Italy, but are soon arrested by paramilitary police. After driving into the square in a wartime armoured car, the separatists occupied the bell tower at night and broadcast a statement claiming regional autonomy for 'the Most Serene Government of Veneto'. Separatist ideas have been encouraged by the local success of the Northern League, which wants regional independence from the Rome government.|
09|Douglas Peterson, the first ambassador from the United States to Vietnam since the end in 1975 of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, arrives in the capital Hanoi. As a former U.S. fighter pilot, Peterson fought against North Vietnam and, at one point, was taken prisoner. With his appointment, diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. are expected to improve.|
10|At least 1,500 people are killed and about 6,000 others injured when an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale hits eastern Iran. The epicentre is near the town of Qayen, in Khorasan province, which borders Afghanistan. It is estimated that 80 of the region's 150 villages have suffered 80 per cent destruction, making more than 40,000 people homeless. This is the strongest earthquake in Iran since 1990.|
10|Pope John Paul II visits Beirut, Lebanon, on his first trip to a Middle East country. Tens of thousands of people, Muslims as well as Christians, wave papal flags, balloons, and tree branches in welcome. The visit is widely seen as symbolic of Lebanon's recovery after the civil war which tore the country apart between 1975 and 1991.|
11|World chess champion Garry Kasparov is beaten by the computer Deep Blue. After winning the first of the six-game 1.1 million U.S. dollar contest, held in New York, Kasparov resigns after 45 moves in the second game and draws the next three. But in the last game, Kasparov makes a bad mistake and loses after just 19 moves. During the match, Kasparov held his head in his hands as the strain of playing a machine unnerved him. Deep Blue is made by IBM and can compute up to three billion moves a second. Five of its programmers stay with it during the match.|
11|A new investigation suggests that Egyptian King Tutankhamen, who died at the age of nine in 1339 B.C., was murdered. The magazine MAG ('Museums and Galleries'), brings together a 'historic murder squad'. Professor Ian Isherwood, a neuro-radiologist, analyses X-rays of Tutankhamen's skull and concludes that death was caused by a blow to the back of the head. Graham Melvin, a detective inspector, suggests that the culprits were Ay, the king's vizier, and General Horemheb, head of his army.|
12|The Indian and Pakistani prime ministers meet for the first summit between the two countries for four years. India's Inder Kumar Gujral and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan talk for more than an hour during the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in the Maldives and agree to an exchange of about 400 civilian prisoners, mainly fishermen who strayed outside territorial waters.|
12|An Australian woman is the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida, U.S.A. Susie Maroney, aged 22, swims the 193-kilometre wide Florida Straits in 24.5 hours. Maroney left Havana at 11.46am yesterday, arriving at Key West at 12.25pm today. During her crossing, she was enclosed in a 8.5 by 2.4-metre cage attached to a motorboat to protect her from sharks. Her previous attempt in June 1996 ended 19 kilometres short of Florida when she began vomiting and having hallucinations of Father Christmas and a troop of monkeys.|
13|Surgeons unveil a new 'virtual reality' technique for brain operations, which will make them safer and more successful. Displayed at the Institute of Neurological Sciences in the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, the system shows surgeons the exact location of surgical instruments on a 3-D image of the inside of the patient's brain.|
13|The Japanese government dismisses its ambassador to Peru, blaming him for security lapses which allowed Marxist rebels to occupy his residence and hold hundreds of his high-ranking guests hostage. Ambassador Morihisa Aoki, aged 58, will, however, remain in the diplomatic service. Aoki was hosting an official reception in Lima, Peru, on December 17, 1996, when the rebels attacked. The resulting siege lasted until April 22, 1997.|
14|Germany's Deutsche Bibliothek (national library) opens its new building in Frankfurt. It was conceived in 1981 and houses 15 million books. By historical accident, there are now two major national libraries in Germany. The other is in Leipzig in the east, built while the country was still divided. After German reunification in 1990, the government did not want to close the Leipzig library or stop the Frankfurt project for fear of offending either city. Much of the Frankfurt library's vast database can be accessed on-line.|
14|Barcelona football team wins 1-0 the European Cup-Winners' Cup for a record fourth time. Held in Rotterdam, the match between Barcelona and Paris St-Germain is decided when a French defender is penalised and Barcelona's Brazilian striker, Ronaldo, scores from a penalty.|
15|Hong Kong's incoming government modifies some of its more strict ideas about limiting civil liberties. Tung Chee-hwa, the territory's first chief executive to be chosen by Beijing, says that some of his proposals, such as restrictions on the right to demonstrate, will be changed. He has received more than 5,000 written responses to Beijing's plans for the future administration of Hong Kong, which passes to Chinese control on July 1.|
15|A South African court in Durban convicts a white policeman of the murder of the anti-apartheid lawyer Griffiths Mxenge. Dirk Coetzee, former leader of a secret death squad, and two black accomplices stabbed Mxenge to death in 1981. Coetzee is the first white policeman to reveal in public details of the apartheid government's secret war against the African National Congress (ANC). Between 1960 and 1990, the ANC was an illegal anti-apartheid organization and its members were often defended in court by Mxenge.|
16|United Kingdom (U.K.) prime minister, Tony Blair, visits Belfast in Northern Ireland, and tries to restart the peace process. He announces the reopening of direct talks between the U.K. government and Sinn Fein, the nationalist party closely allied to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mo Mowlam, minister for Northern Ireland, writes to Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president, in an attempt to restore the IRA ceasefire, which ended in 1996.|
16|A leading palaeontologist announces the largest find of dinosaur footprints in the United Kingdom. Professor Bob Savage, of Bristol University, says the 52 circular footprints, the biggest of which is 1.1 metres across, were made 140 million years ago by sauropod dinosaurs. These four-legged herbivores were up 30 metres long, 8 metres tall, and weighed up to 80 metric tons. The prints, in the Worth Matravers limestone quarry in Dorset, south-west England, were first discovered in autumn 1996 by Kevin Keates, a quarry worker.|
17|The son of President Kim Young Sam of South Korea is arrested on suspicion of tax evasion and bribery. Previous attempts to link Kim Hyun Chul, aged 38, with a major financial scandal involving the Hanbo steel company failed. It is alleged that he was the mastermind when the Hanbo Group financed his father's 1992-1993 election campaign in return for money from state-controlled banks.|
17|The Indian government attempts to curb child labour by making it compulsory for all children under the age of 14 to attend school. Under the proposed law, education would be free and all parents would have to send their children to school. The law is expected to be debated in parliament in July, a month before the 50th anniversary of India's independence.|
18|Zaire is renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo as the rebel army of Laurent Kabila takes over in the capital Kinshasa, one day after President Mobutu Sese Seko flees to Togo. Although more than 200 people, mainly soldiers in Mobutu's army, are killed, the predicted massacres of civilians by Mobutu supporters do not happen and the population welcomes Kabila with enthusiasm. Mobutu ruled Zaire for 32 years.|
18|United States president, Bill Clinton, says that finding a vaccine for AIDS in the next 10 years should be a national goal. In a speech at Morgan State University, in Baltimore, Maryland, he predicts that the vaccine will be the 'first great triumph' of the 21st century and sets up a research centre to discover it. AIDS, the final stage of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide since the illness was first identified in 1981.|
19|Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson sets a new record for sailing around the world. De Kersauson wins the Jules Verne Trophy after completing the feat in 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes 8 seconds, more than three days faster than the previous record holder Ed Danby. Kersauson's boat is a 30-metre trimaran Sport-Elec.|
19|A donkey called Murphy is posthumously decorated for bravery, 82 years after it carried wounded Australian soldiers to safety during World War I. Tim Fischer, Australia's deputy prime minister, gives the Purple Cross Award to a donkey called Simpson, who accepts it on Murphy's behalf. The 1915 Allied landing on the Gallipoli peninsular in the Dardanelles strait resulted in about 250,000 casualties, mainly of troops from Australia and New Zealand.|
19|A severe cyclone hits the coast of Bangladesh. Coming from the Bay of Bengal, the winds blow up to 200 kph, but the official death toll of 112 is low, partly because the cyclone struck at low-tide and did not create a tidal wave and partly because of government preparations. About 1 million people were evacuated after a warning from a meteorological office set up after the 1991 cyclone, in which 140,000 people were killed.|
20|An American survey claims half the homes of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and a quarter of those in the West Bank are empty. The survey, made in February 1997, and now published in the Israeli daily newspaper 'Ha'aretz', contradicts the government's claim that new settlements are built in response to constant demands for new homes by Israelis. Israel occupied these areas after the 1967 war against the Arabs and its claims on them are fiercely contested by the Palestinians.|
20|Ten thousand supporters of the Muslim-backed United Development Party riot in central Java during the Indonesian election campaign. The crowd ransacks an office belonging to the youth wing of the ruling Golkar party in Pekalongan, about 420 kilometres east of Jakarta, claiming that the voting rules favour the government. Police respond with tear gas and five people are hurt. About 20 people are arrested.|
21|A prominent journalist is arrested for criticising the Palestinian Authority, which rules the Palestinian areas of Israel. Daoud Kuttab, an American-Palestinian living in Jerusalem, runs a small television station, the Al-Quds Education Channel, which broadcasts live from the Palestinian Legislative Council, elected in 1996. Members of the legislative council have criticised leader Yasser Arafat's conduct of peace talks with Israel.|
21|The United Kingdom announces a ban on the export of anti-personnel landmines. The ban follows a campaign led by the Red Cross, which estimates that mines kill or maim about 20,000 people a year, mainly in poor countries which have suffered a civil war and cannot afford to clear minefields. The issue was highlighted in 1996 when Diana, Princess of Wales, visited Angola as part of the campaign.|
22|Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, dismisses two top military chiefs because they failed to reform the armed forces. One is the popular defence minister, Igor Rodionov, the other is General Viktor Samsonov, chief of the general staff. Since the 1996 war in Chechnya, the condition of the Russian army has worsened, with increased suicides among officers, malnutrition among the ordinary soldiers, mass draft-dodging, and bribery in the senior ranks. Army reforms are needed because Russia cannot afford to pay for the 3.2 million people currently under arms.|
23|A moderate cleric wins Iran's presidency in the most unexpected political change in the country since the revolution of 1979. Mohammed Khatami, aged 54, wins 69 per cent of the 29.1 million votes cast in today's election and becomes Iran's fifth president since the Shah was deposed. The result is widely seen as reflecting a desire for a more liberal government.|
23|Indonesia's election campaign comes to an official end, five days before polling. In the capital, Jakarta, there is a riot as supporters of the United Development Party (PPP), whose followers come from the majority Muslim population, parade in the streets, throw stones, and burn tyres. They claim that voting rules discriminate against them. Several are injured as police retaliate with tear gas and batons. Twenty thousand armed police are on duty across the country.|
24|Father Emile Puech of Jerusalem's Ecole Biblique (institute for biblical study) finishes translating the most mysterious of the Dead Sea scrolls. Found in 1952 in a cave above the Dead Sea, in Palestine, the Copper Scroll differs from other Dead Sea scrolls, made of leather and papyrus, by being a 2.4-metre sheet of thin copper listing more than 60 hiding places of treasure buried in the area 2,000 years ago. Jordan, which owns the Copper Scroll, asked Puech in 1993 to restore and translate it. None of the listed treasures has ever been found.|
24|Taliban fighters enter Mazar-e-Sharif, in north Afghanistan near the border with Uzbekistan, taking over the stronghold of warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. His defeat is due to the defection of his deputy, Malik Pahlawan, to the Taliban on May 19. Pahlawan enters Mazar-e-Sharif riding on a tank. Now the Taliban, a radical Muslim fundamentalist army, controls most of Afghanistan.|
25|A military coup topples the civilian government of Sierra Leone. Led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, a figure largely unknown inside the country, the takeover involved fierce fighting as President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah resisted the rebels before fleeing from the capital Freetown in a helicopter. Koroma claims that the government failed to keep the peace and that soldiers' grievances have not been met. It is the third coup in Sierra Leone since 1992.|
25|Neo-Nazi arsonists burn down a Catholic church in the north German port of Lubeck. Firefighters find swastika symbols scrawled in the aisle of St. Vicelin church. Alongside these, the arsonists have also daubed the name of a local priest who has campaigned to stop Algerian asylum-seekers being deported.|
26|Celebrations to mark the 1,400th anniversary of St. Augustine's mission to convert the English to Christianity reach a climax as Charles, Prince of Wales, attends a special service at Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, southern England. To mark the anniversary, the Canterbury Gospels, a book believed to have been carried by St Augustine when he landed in 597, has been brought to Canterbury from its home at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The book is normally only taken to Canterbury when a new archbishop is enthroned.|
27|Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) agree a pact which formally ends the Cold War. Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets NATO leaders, including Bill Clinton (U.S.), Tony Blair (U.K.), Jacques Chirac (France), and Helmut Kohl (Germany), in Paris and signs the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Co-operation and Security. This allows Russia to send representatives to NATO and smooths the way to admit former Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to the alliance. It is seen as ending half a century of division in Europe.|
27|Japan's parliament votes in favour of gambling on football. A lottery, based on the results of professional football matches in the five-year-old J-League, will start in 1999. Supporters of the scheme believe it will raise 1.5 billion U.S. dollars a year, half of which will be spent on prize-money, while 17.5 per cent will be spent on promoting sport.|
28|Australian doctors urge Prime Minister John Howard to improve the health of Aborigines, which they claim is the worst of any ethnic group in the world. As the Aboriginal Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne, attended by Howard, ends, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Keith Woollard, presents research which shows that the death rate among middle-aged Australian Aborigines is up to eight times as high as that of other middle-aged Australians.|
28|The Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, attacks the government for revaluing its gold reserves. The revaluation is condemned as a way of making Germany's economy look more healthy than it is. Under the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, only healthy economies can join the proposed common European currency, due to begin in 1999.|
29|President Suharto's Golkar party wins a record 74 per cent of the vote in the Indonesian elections. After a campaign marred by violence as youths from both the ruling Golkar party and the Muslim United Development Party (PPP) fight in the streets, the opposition claims that the voting rules favour the government. With more than 250 deaths, this has been the most violent election since Suharto took power in 1966.|
29|A Singapore court orders an opposition politician to pay 3.5 million pounds compensation to members of the ruling party. Tang Liang Hong, aged 61 and a candidate in the general election of January 2, 1997, was sued by the prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, and other leaders of the People's Action Party when he denied their accusation of being a Chinese nationalist bigot.|
30|Archaeologists claim that the oldest Europeans were cannibals. Newly discovered remains, in a cave at Atapuerca, near Burgos, in northern Spain, are 800,000 years old and belong to two women and four children. Marks on their bones are similar to those on the bones of animal remains found in the same place, which suggests that the humans were eaten. The report, published in 'Science', also argues that the remains belong to a previously unknown species, Homo antecessor, from which evolved both Neanderthal Man and present-day man.|
30|More than 900 civilians are airlifted to safety from Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, by U.S. Marines, as the country's soldiers loot houses. The army, whose leaders came to power in a coup on May 25, is now under pressure to restore civilian rule. A Nigerian-led peacekeeping force has occupied Sierra Leone's main airport.|
31|The United Kingdom (UK) prime minister, Tony Blair, apologises to the Irish government for the UK government's failure to alleviate the potato famine 150 years ago. When, in 1845, the Irish potato crop failed due to a plant disease, more than 1 million people starved to death and the population of the island halved as 1.25 million emigrated. At the time, Ireland was a UK colony and, as thousands went hungry, food grown there was exported to England under armed guard.|
31|A Palestinian who sold land to Jews is shot dead near the West Bank city of Ram Allah, Israel. Ali Mohammed Jumhour, aged 34, is the third land dealer to be killed in the West Bank since Palestinian justice minister Freih Abu Medeen said on May 4 that Palestinians who sold land to Jews would be 'executed'. The ownership of land in areas of Israel now run by the Palestinians is a controversial issue, with both Israelis and Palestinians wanting to live there.|
