01| The Chinese People's Liberation Army enters Hong Kong as Chris Patten, the last governor of the former United Kingdom colony, leaves on board the royal yacht 'Britannia'. About 4,000 Chinese soldiers receive a warm welcome from Hong Kong residents living near the border with China.|
01| Robert Mitchum, the Hollywood film actor, dies aged 79. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.A., in 1917, Mitchum took a series of low-paid jobs before moving to California and becoming a film extra in 1943. By the mid-1950's, he was playing distinctive 'tough guy' roles in films such as 'The Night of the Hunter' (1955), 'Heaven Knows, Mr Allison' (1957), and 'Cape Fear' (1962).|
02| Hollywood film actor James Stewart dies, aged 89. Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., he became an actor while at Princeton University. Stewart then appeared in light comedy films, before serving as a bomber pilot in World War II. After the war, he appeared in more than 70 films, including 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946), 'Vertigo' (1958), and 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962). Often seen as a symbol of all-American decency, Stewart won a best actor Academy Award for 'The Philadelphia Story' (1940).|
02| The 'Diamond Grace' supertanker hits a reef in Tokyo Bay, causing an oil spill in Japan's coastal waters. The accident happens about six kilometres off Yokohama and the tanker leaks an estimated 1,340 metric tons of crude oil. Naval divers avert a worse disaster by sealing the tanker's fractured hull. The Diamond Grace was carrying about 260,000 metric tons of crude oil.|
03|In Ottawa, Canada, an official inquiry into the conduct of the peacekeeping mission in Somalia criticises the way in which it was led. The inquiry's report, 'Dishonoured Legacy', is based on 116 witness statements. It concludes that Canadian officers displayed poor leadership, and lied in an attempt to conceal the actions of their men. Canadian soldiers shot two unarmed Somalis and tortured a 16-year-old boy to death in March 1993.|
03| A demonstration led by Leka Zog in the Albanian capital, Tirana, ends in violence. Supporters of Zog, the son of the last king of Albania, were protesting against the results of the June 29 referendum, in which Albanians voted against restoring the monarchy.|
04| The United States 'Pathfinder' space ship lands on the planet Mars. The ship carries a 10-kilogram remote-controlled vehicle called 'Sojourner', which will explore the planet, and is the first visitor to Mars for 21 years. About six hours after landing, 'Pathfinder' begins sending back pictures of the planet to the mission control centre at Pasadena, in California, U.S.A., about 497 million kilometres away.|
04| A first-time skydiver who survived a 3,000-metre fall leaves hospital in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. On June 22, Gareth Griffiths made his skydive strapped to an instructor. When the main and reserve parachutes became entangled at about 1,500 metres altitude on the 4,500-metre jump, both men plummeted to the ground. The instructor was killed, but saved Griffiths' life by cushioning his fall. Griffiths, a 27-year-old London businessman, returns to the United Kingdom today.|
05| Swiss Martina Hingis wins the women's championship in the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London. At 16 years old, she is the youngest winner this century, and probably the greatest player of her age the world has ever seen. Hingis beat her opponent, the Czech Jana Novotna, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.|
05| The 'Gay Pride' march in London draws the biggest crowd ever. More than 100,000 people, many in highly colourful costumes, attend the march and festival which celebrates the lifestyles of homosexuals.|
06| 'Sojourner' becomes the first vehicle operated from Earth to explore another planet. The six-wheeled 'Sojourner' was landed on Mars by the 'Pathfinder' space ship two days ago. The vehicle travels 40 centimetres to examine a rock which has been called 'Barnacle Bill' by mission control in Pasadena, California, U.S.A.|
06| A march by the Portadown Orange Order through a mainly Catholic area in Drumcree, Northern Ireland, results in riots. The violence happens after the Protestant Orangemen follow the traditional route of their annual march, which is a prelude to the July 12 celebrations. Catholics in the Garvaghy Road area see the march as an affront. Heavy policing prevents much trouble during the march, but riots by Catholics occur later.|
06| The left-wing opposition wins control of the 500-seat lower house in the Mexican parliament. In the first free election in Mexican history, the Revolutionary Democratic Party, led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, wins more seats than the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Cardenas also becomes the first elected mayor of Mexico City.|
07| Kenyan police kill nine demonstrators who were protesting for more democracy. The deaths occur in the capital Nairobi, and in Nyahururu, about 220 kilometres to the northwest. The demonstrators want to limit President Daniel arap Moi's powers. Among those injured by police is the Reverend Timothy Njoya, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and a pro-democracy campaigner.|
07| Three British teenagers are killed and 20 other people injured when a coach carrying them on a school holiday falls 200 metres into a ravine in the French Alps. The accident happens between the villages of Notre Dame du Pre and Longefoy. The children came from the town of Farnworth, near Bolton, northern England.|
08| A holly bush in Tasmania, Australia, is named as the oldest living plant in the world. 'Lomatia tasmanica', also called King's Holly, is a self-propagating bush which scientists believe has been growing for more than 43,000 years. It was discovered 50 years ago in a rainforest in southwest Tasmania.|
08| Ho Sok, a senior Cambodian government official, is executed by order of Hun Sen, who ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Cambodia's first prime minister, in a coup on July 6. Until the coup, Hun Sen was second prime minister, sharing power with Prince Ranariddh. More than 50 people were killed in the capital Phnom Penh during the two-day coup, which marks the failure of the United Nations' 1993 plan to restore democracy to Cambodia after nearly 20 years of war.|
09| Two Albanians are killed and 200 people are injured as Albanians fight the Macedonian army in the town of Gostivar, near Tetovo, in western Macedonia. The violence begins when the Macedonian authorities try to remove an Albanian flag from Gostivar's town hall. Albanian Muslims make up about a quarter of the country's population.|
09| Organizers of the Miss Italy beauty contest change the rules so that future contestants must have at least one 'native-born' Italian parent. Last year, the title was won by Denny Mendez, aged 19, a black woman born in the Dominican Republic. Mendez qualified to enter the contest because, after her birth, her mother married an Italian and thus both mother and daughter acquired Italian citizenship. The rule change is seen by some commentators as racist.|
10| Soldiers of the United Kingdom's Special Air Service (SAS) try to arrest two alleged war criminals in Bosnia. Milan Kovacevic and Simo Drljaca, Bosnian Serbs, were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. When between 20 and 30 SAS members try to capture them in Prijedor, near the Croatian border, Kovacevic is taken into custody, but Drljaca is killed while resisting arrest.|
10| Results of a genetic test on prehistoric remains indicate that humans are not descended from Neanderthal Man. According to the journal 'Cell', scientists have been able for the first time to analyse DNA from a sample of Neanderthal bone. Team leader Svante Paabo, of Munich University, says the results prove that Neanderthal Man, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago, was not closely related to modern man. The story of human evolution may have to be rewritten.|
10| At least 19 people are killed and 15 others injured when a mudslide buries the village of Izumi in south Japan. The disaster happens after soil on a nearby mountain is turned into a huge mudslide by torrential rain. Thirty-two inches of rain falls in four days, more than one third of the area's annual rainfall.|
11| More than 80 people die in a hotel fire at the beach resort of Pattaya, about 190 kilometres southeast of Bangkok in Thailand. The fire at the 16-storey Royal Jomtien Resort hotel is believed to have started in the kitchen. Suchart Pachinman, the provincial governor, calls for an official inquiry after allegations that the hotel's fire alarm and water sprinklers failed to operate.|
11| About 58 people die during floods in Poland and the Czech Republic. Worst hit is the Polish town of Wroclaw, where buildings dating from the 1200's are under threat from the rising waters.|
11| A judge in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A., says that bullets test-fired from a rifle belonging to James Earl Ray have different marks from those on the bullet which killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Judge Joe Brown's conclusion comes during a hearing which may result in a retrial for Ray who, although sentenced to 99 years in prison for King's murder, still protests his innocence.|
12| ETA, the Basque separatist group, kills Miguel Angel Blanco, a 29-year-old Basque town councillor who it kidnapped on July 10. The motive for the kidnap was to secure the transfer of about 450 ETA prisoners from Spanish jails to jails nearer the Basque country. When the government refused this demand, Blanco was killed. ETA is campaigning for independence for the Basque region in northern Spain.|
12| A series of marches are held by Protestant Orangemen in Northern Ireland. Tens of thousands of Protestants attend the annual celebrations which mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when the Protestant King William III of England defeated the Catholic ex-King James II. Most of the marches pass peacefully.|
13| President Fidel Castro of Cuba attends the ceremony as the remains of the legendary Ernest 'Che' Guevara are returned to Cuba. The remains, found recently in Bolivia by a scientific team, are flown to Santa Clara, where they will be put in a concrete mausoleum. Guevara was killed by Bolivian troops in October 1967, while trying to start a revolution in Bolivia.|
13| In Naples, southern Italy, more than 400 troops arrive to help police combat a wave of violence caused by feuding criminal clans. The government decided to send in troops after two members of the Camorra, the Naples version of the Mafia, were publicly murdered. About 86 people have been killed in gang violence in Naples this year.|
14| A bomb explosion kills 21 people in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. It happens in a covered market in the suburb of Baraki, where hundreds of people are shopping for goods to mark the birthday of the prophet Muhammad. Most of the victims are women and children and the explosion is blamed on Islamic militants dissatisfied with the results of the June 5 general election.|
14| Vasily Tsibliyev, the 43-year-old Russian commander of the 'Mir' space station, is suffering from a irregular heartbeat. He and his crew have been trying to repair the space station since an accident on June 25 resulted in a loss of power.|
15| Gianni Versace, the 50-year-old Italian fashion designer, is shot dead on the steps of his villa in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.A. The motive for the shooting, which has shocked the fashion world, is unclear, but police believe that the murderer is Andrew Phillip Cunanan, a homosexual serial killer who has been sought since May 1997 for other murders.|
15| Exiled Burmese dissidents publish a book written by Aung Shwe, chairman of the Burmese National League for Democracy. The book comprises 33 letters, urging the generals who head Burma's military government to reform the country's human rights abuses. The letters, which were not answered, were written between December 1995 and March 1997, and are published by dissidents in Thailand to show the constraints under which the democratic opposition in Burma operates.|
16| In the United Kingdom, the Library Association's Carnegie Medal for best children's book is won by 43-year-old Melvin Burgess's 'Junk', a book about teenage heroin addiction and prostitution. The book, aimed at teenagers aged 15 and over, is the 60th to win the annual award, which was first won by Arthur Ransome's 'Pigeon Post' in 1938.|
16| The Eiffel Tower in Paris is closed because of a strike by its employees. The strike is called in protest at the dismissal of an employee who attacked an English tourist yesterday. At this time of year, the Eiffel Tower has 25,000 visitors a day.|
17| Japanese researchers release the first pictures of an artificial womb which has been used to develop 17-week-old goat fetuses. The scientific team at Tokyo's Juntendo University claims that the same technology could be used for humans in 10 years' time.|
17| In New Delhi, Indian politicians elect the country's first 'dalit' ('untouchable') president. Kocheril Raman Narayanan, who has been vice-president for five years, won 4,231 votes from state and federal politicians. His nearest rival, T. N. Seshan, got 240 votes. Narayanan will be sworn in on July 25.|
18| Three jailed ETA guerrillas condemn the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco by other members of the Basque separatist organization on July 13. The statement, made by Jose Manuel Soares Gamboa, Luis Gaston, and Luis Gorriti from a Basque prison in Nanclares de Oca, is seen as evidence of divisions within the separatist movement.|
18| German police confiscate 45,000 copies of CDs containing racist songs recorded by suspected neo-Nazi pop groups. A man from Ulm, in southern Germany, is arrested on suspicion of selling the CDs, which have illegal Nazi symbols on their covers.|
19| In Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announces a cease-fire, due to begin at noon on July 20. The previous cease-fire, called in August 1994 , ended in February 1996 with a bomb explosion in London's Docklands area. The announcement means that Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, will be allowed to participate in peace talks aimed at resolving political problems in Northern Ireland.|
19| Charles Taylor is elected president of Liberia, Africa's oldest republic. Taylor, a former warlord, convicted felon, and the man who started the civil war in Liberia in 1990, received 65 per cent of the votes. The election is seen as marking the end of civil war, during which Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia emerged as the strongest faction.|
20| The Oder River reaches its highest level for 50 years at Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany, with severe flooding affecting large parts of Germany and Poland. Following heavy rains, the flooding has resulted in about 50 deaths in Poland and at least 60,000 people have been made homeless.|
20| English cricketer Graham Gooch retires from the sport. One of the United Kingdom's finest batsmen, Gooch has scored a total of nearly 45,000 runs, including 129 centuries, to finish 10th in the all-time list of batting scores.|
21| The first comprehensive classification of the world's languages is completed by an international network of scholars run from a village in west Wales. The team, headed by David Dalby of Observatoire Linguistique of Hebron, Dyfed, has identified more than 10,000 living languages, about 50 per cent more than previous estimates. The three most widely used languages are Chinese (1,123 million speakers), English (470 million), and Hindi (418 million).|
21| In his annual speech to Taiwan's national assembly, President Lee Teng-hui applauds the package of constitutional reforms passed by the legislature on July 18. The changes include a freeze on elections to the provincial government and the abolition of the legislature's power to confirm the president's appointment of the prime minister.|
22| A military tribunal in Italy sentences two former Nazis for their role in the country's worst World War II atrocity. Former SS officers Erich Priebke and Karl Hans, both aged 84, took part in the 1944 massacre of 335 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine Caves, near Rome. The massacre was a reprisal ordered by the German dictator Adolf Hitler for an Italian partisan attack on an SS unit. Priebke was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Hans to 10 years.|
22| A fire at the Palais de Chaillot in the Trocadero Square in Paris causes extensive damage to the Museum of French Monuments and the Museum of the Cinema, both housed in the building. The blaze, started by welding equipment used for roof repairs, needs more than 100 firefighters to bring it under control.|
22| On Mars, Soujourner's Alpha Proton X-ray spectrometer discovers that the rock 'Yogi' is more primitive than 'Barnacle Bill' which it examined on July 4. 'Yogi" is low in quartz and more like the common basalts found on Earth. Sojourner, a robotic vehicle, is a part of NASA's Pathfinder mission to Mars.|
23| Sali Berisha resigns as Albanian president after five years in power. The move has been widely expected after his Democratic Party won 24 seats to the Socialist Party's 100 in the general election of June 29. Rexhep Mejdani, a Socialist, is expected to replace him.|
24| A Maori group claims the land on which the New Zealand Parliament was built in the capital, Wellington. Leaders of the Ngati Tama tribe have lodged a claim for the site, which they say belonged to them before they were driven off it in the early 1840's by British colonizers.|
24| Newspapers in Algeria report that Antar Zouabri, the leader of Armed Islamic Group (GIA), is dead. Zouabri, aged 26, was apparently trapped and killed by the army together with other militants in an old Roman tunnel near Tipaza, about 99 kilometres east of the capital, Algiers. The GIA has been waging a war against the military-backed government for five years and is responsible for many terrorist attacks.|
25| The Oder River in Germany bursts its banks again after more heavy rainfall. A stretch of dyke is breached south of Frankfurt an der Oder, and many villages are flooded. The death toll rises to more than 100. About 10,000 people have already been evacuated and more than 8,000 soldiers are building extra flood defences.|
25| Three people are shot dead by soldiers in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, during a protest by 1,000 opposition activists. They were protesting against President Laurent Kabila's ban on political activity.|
26| Nine people are killed and about 37 others injured when an aeroplane crashes at an international air show held at Ostend airport, in Belgium. Captain Omar Hani Bilal, of the Royal Jordanian Falcons aerobatics team, loses control of his single-seat aeroplane, which crashes next to a crowd of spectators.|
26| Three villages north of Marseilles in southern France are evacuated after a forest fire, burning along a five-kilometre front, threatens the inhabitants. High winds are making the fire difficult to control.|
26| The Kenyan government allows opposition parties to hold the first rally since reform campaigners began mass action in June. A peaceful crowd of several thousand in Mombasa hears speeches demanding constitutional reforms to reduce the power of the president, Daniel arap Moi, who has been in power for 19 years.|
27| United States immigration officials take 16 Mexican immigrants, most of them deaf, into custody in Sanford, North Carolina. The raid follows the discovery on July 20 that 60 deaf and mute Mexicans were being held captive in New York, and made to work selling trinkets on the streets.|
27| A Malaysian snake charmer claims a new world record after staying in a glass booth with thousands of deadly scorpions for 21 days. Ali Khan Shamsuddin, known as 'Snake King' and 'Scorpion King' in Malaysia, began his feat on July 5 with 5,000 scorpions, later adding a further 1,280 scorpions when a spectator doubted their deadliness. Shamsuddin was stung 99 times.|
28| In Cyprus, Greek and Turkish community leaders meet to discuss human rights issues arising from the conflict which has split the island. The meeting between Glafcos Clerides, the president of Cyprus and head of the Greek Cypriots, and Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, takes place in the capital Nicosia. Since 1974, when Turkey invaded Cyprus, the country has been split into a Turkish north and a Greek south.|
28| As delegates from 150 nations gather in Bonn, Germany, ready to resume international negotiations on greenhouse gas reduction later this week, the environmental group Greenpeace gives a dramatic example of a changing climate. Their report, based on work in conjunction with the US Geological Survey, documents the retreat of the 191-kilometre long Bering glacier in Alaska, U.S.A. The glacier has shrunk by 10 to 12 kilometres in length over the past century, losing more than 130 square kilometres in area. Sections of the glacier have thinned by up to 180 metres (20-25 per cent of its depth.).|
29| In Ankara, Turkey, a demonstration by thousands of Islamists is broken up by police. The demonstrators were protesting against Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz's plans to curtail religious education. Yilmaz wants Turkey to remain a secular state but the demonstrators want it to become an Islamic state.|
29| The leader of an aid agency says that at least five million people in North Korea are facing death by starvation. Ted Yamamori, president of Food for the Hungry International, visited North Korea last week and saw widespread signs of malnutrition. The governments of North and South Korea are trying to set up a peace process to end the conflict which has split the country since 1948.|
30| Israel suspends peace talks with the Palestinians after two bomb explosions kill 15 people and injure more than 150 others in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, Israel. The militant Islamic group, Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack, which was condemned by both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.|
30| In Guatemala, President Alvaro Arzu reopens army bases which were closed under the terms of the peace treaty, signed in December 1996, between the government and left-wing rebels. The treaty ended 36 years of civil war and the government agreed to stop using the army as a police force. Arzu now claims it is necessary to use the army against criminal gangs because their illegal activities have increased.|
31| Robert Ballard reports on his latest marine archaeology project in the Mediterranean Sea. Ballard, an explorer who found the wrecks of the British ocean liner 'Titanic' and the German battleship 'Bismarck', used an underwater robot and a small nuclear submarine to investigate the trading route which linked ancient Rome and Carthage. In June 1997, Ballard's team found eight ships and thousands of artifacts on the Mediterranean sea-bed.|
31| In Larnaca, Cyprus, Pavlos Georgiou, a local fisherman, is sentenced to 15 months in jail for knowingly infecting Janette Pink, a British woman, with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Georgiou and Pink, who had a relationship lasting more than two years, are seriously ill with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).|
