Looted Billions: Ex-Ministers Scared, To Meet Jonathan Today

Some former ministers that served under Goodluck Jonathan’s administration will meet the ex-president today (Sunday) for a serious engagement with regards to looting revelations.

It was learnt that ongoing investigations of the former President’s aides and calls for his own probe would form part of the discussion at the meeting.

It was gathered that many of the former ministers were not only disturbed, but also jittery by the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies probe of those who served under Jonathan.

Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, in a report on Friday had said Buhari should authorise the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to probe and prosecute Jonathan.

Ndume had said, “Nobody is supposed to be above the law. If Jonathan is a culprit, he should face the law. If there is evidence that the former President should face the law, then, he should. After all, he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

Also in his response to an enquiry from PUNCH, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had said, “The President does not tele-guide the EFCC in any way.”

A top member of the Peoples Democratic Party, who confided in PUNCH, said the pressure on Buhari to probe Jonathan would form part of the discussion when they meet hi today (Sunday).

Probing ex-President Jonathan will be bad precedent — PDP
Some PDP leaders have called on Buhari not to succumb to pressure on him to probe Jonathan. They said doing so would amount to laying a bad precedent.

A PDP Board of Trustees member, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, urged the Buhari-led Federal Government not to probe Jonathan, adding that doing so would humiliate the PDP leader.

On his part, Femi Fani-Kayode said that Jonathan had done nothing to warrant being arrested and that those calling for his arrest and interrogation should understand the implications of doing so.

“For example, Senator Ndume called for Jonathan’s arrest. This is a shameful and unnecessary contribution and if Ndume feels that Jonathan has done anything wrong, he should present the evidence to the authorities and the public, rather than try to demonise the man.

“Even where mistakes have been made, I am a strong believer in loyalty and I will stand by the man that I campaigned for during the presidential election, who is also now the leader of our party. Jonathan should be treated with respect and dignity at all times.”

Jonathan’s kinsmen kick
Jonathan’s kinsmen have also expressed dissatisfaction over calls for the probe of the former President.

The spokesman for the Ijaw National Congress, Mr. Victor Burubo, told SUNDAY PUNCH that it was wrong for anybody to begin to plot the investigation of the former President.

Burubo argued that since some of the ministers who served under Jonathan were already being investigated, Jonathan should be allowed to enjoy his retirement.

Gospel: What Happens When You Commit Suicide?

Last fall, my uncle committed suicide. He was a devout Christian, but he felt suicide was the only way to solve his problems. I've heard that if you commit suicide you won't go to heaven. My uncle was a good man. It hurts me to think of him in hell. Will he really go there?

I'm so sorry about your uncle's death. It's always hard to lose someone you love, but suicide seems to make the loss even harder. It raises so many questions, like the one you've asked. I've spoken to youth workers around the country on the subject of suicide prevention. When I ask them what question students ask most about suicide, they all say the same thing: "Do you go to hell if you commit suicide?" I am by no means a biblical scholar, and there are Christians who will disgree with me, but I just don't see a clear answer to this question in the Bible.

Please hear me when I say I don't believe the best option for your uncle was suicide. And it's not the best option for the 7,000 teenagers who commit suicide each year, or the 2 million who attempt suicide every year. There are much better ways to deal with life's problems. I hope and pray that people who consider suicide as an option would continue to look at other, more positive options.

So what does happen to people who commit suicide? As I said, I don't find an answer in the Bible. But there are several scripture passages that can help us understand the eternal nature of our relationship with God:

"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

As we look to the Bible for answers, I believe it's clear that those who give their lives to God will spend eternity with him. I wish people like your uncle could find comfort in that promise instead of giving in to their pain.

Sunday Story: Why I Believe in Jesus - Shamitha "Sam" Yapa

Shamitha "Sam" Yapa
 

I didn't always feel that way.

I came to the United States to attend a small state college.

I planned to go on to medical school. My first year of college was perfect. I was getting great grades, and I had a girlfriend and lots of friends. And I was quick to point out to people that I had all of this without relying on anyone but me.

 

I knew plenty of Christians. In fact, I read the Bible often, just so I could argue with Christians. I wanted to know what they believed so I could break down their reasons for believing. For example, my biophysics professor was a Christian. He would tell me about the miracles in his life, the ways he supposedly saw God's work in the world. But I thought he was way off. I'd argue with him, and try to convince him he was foolish to believe in Jesus. His faith was a joke to me.

 

It didn't take long for God to change my mind. During my junior year of college, everything in my world started to fall apart. My girlfriend broke up with me, I ran out of money and I had to drop out of school. So much for having it made. I thought about going back to my family in Sri Lanka, but I didn't want to face them when I'd failed so miserably.

 

One night, I sat in the college library, trying to come up with ways to get out of my situation. The only solution that seemed "reasonable" was suicide. But as I sat there thinking of the best way to kill myself, I heard a voice say, "Have you ever asked me for help?" I looked around and couldn't see anyone. I thought I was going crazy. Then I heard the voice say, "I'm Jesus, and I'm right here next to you."

I know this sounds strange. Believe me, I was pretty freaked out by it, too. But I honestly heard Jesus talking to me. As I listened, I felt something I'd never experienced before.

I felt filled up, not hollow and empty. I knew that what was happening to me was real.

I wanted to talk to someone, but I didn't know who. Suddenly I felt God urging me to go see my biophysics professor. That's right, the same guy I'd been arguing with all year.

 

I walked across campus to the science building and found him working in his office. As I walked in, he said, "I'm so glad you're here. God has put you on my heart and I've been hoping you'd come and talk to me." We talked a long time. I told him how empty my life had become.

 

I told him what I'd experienced in the library. As he talked to me about Jesus' power to change lives, I knew I was ready to follow Jesus. He prayed with me. That was the day I became a Christian.

After that, things started to change. God provided just what I needed, like a rent-free place to stay. But it wasn't just my situation, it was my heart that was really changing.

I wasn't worried about the future because I knew the Lord was in control, not me.

 

The people around me saw the changes too. Before I became a Christian, I was arrogant, selfish and manipulative. I had done things to intentionally turn people away from their Christian faith. But after my conversion, I felt humbled by God's power to change me. I wanted people to see Jesus in my life, not me or my accomplishments. I was almost grateful for my struggles, because I knew God was using them to keep me humble and focused on him. I wanted people to think, "Hey, if God can change the life of someone like Sam, I wonder what he can do in my life."

Even when things in my life are hard, I know God is with me. I feel his presence through the people at my church who pray for me and support me. I see him in the Christian friends he's given me. I try to serve him by counseling at a Bible camp in the summers. And I still hear his voice through his Word and through his answers to my prayers.

 

So why do I believe in Jesus? Because he's real. That night in the library, when I hit the bottom, my New Age thinking didn't help me. Buddha wasn't there for me.

It was Jesus who saved me.

 

Shamitha "Sam" Yapa

75 BIBLICAL REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT DRINK ALCOHOL

1) Genesis 9:20-26 - Noah became drunk; the result was immorality and family trouble.
2) Genesis 19:30-38 - Lot was so drunk he did not know what he was doing; this led to immorality
3) Leviticus 10:9-11 - God commanded priests not to drink so that they could tell the difference between the holy and the unholy.
4) Numbers 6:3 - The Nazarites were told to eat or drink nothing from the grape vine.
5) Deuteronomy 21:20 - A drunken son was stubborn and rebellious.
6) Deuteronomy 29:5-6 - God gave no grape juice to Israel nor did they have intoxicating drink in the wilderness.
7) Deuteronomy 32:33 - Intoxicating wine is like the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.
8) Judges 13:4, 7, 14 - Samson was to be a
Nazarite for life. His mother was told not to drink wine or strong drink.
9) 1 Samuel 1:14-15 - Accused, Hannah said she drank no wine.
10) 1 Samuel 25:32-38 - Nabal died after a
drunken spree.
11) 2 Samuel 11:13 - By getting Uriah drunk, David hoped to cover his sin.
12) 2 Samuel 13:28-29 - Amnon was drunk when he was killed.
13) 1 Kings 16:8-10 - The king was drinking himself into drunkenness when he was assassinated
14) 1 Kings 20:12-21 - Ben-Hadad and 32 other kings were drinking when they were attacked and defeated by the Israelites.
15) Esther 1:5-12 - The king gave each one all the drink he wanted. The king was intoxicated when he commanded the queen to come.
16) Psalm 75:8 - The Lord’s anger is pictured as mixed wine poured out and drunk by the wicked.
17) Proverbs 4:17 - Alcoholic drink is called the wine of violence.
18) Proverbs 20:1 - Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.
19) Proverbs 23:19-20 - A wise person will not be among the drinkers of alcoholic beverages.
20) Proverbs 23:21 - Drunkenness causes
poverty.
21) Proverbs 23:29-30 - Drinking causes woe, sorrow, fighting, babbling, wounds without cause and red eyes.
22) Proverbs 23:31 - God instructs not to look at intoxicating drinks.
23) Proverbs 23:32 - Alcoholic drinks bite like a serpent, sting like an adder.
24) Proverbs 23:33 - Alcohol causes the drinker to have strange and adulterous thoughts, produces willfulness, and prevents reformation.
25) Proverbs 23:34 - Alcohol makes the drinker unstable
26) Proverbs 23:35 - Alcohol makes the drinker insensitive to pain so he does not perceive it as a warning. Alcohol is habit forming.
27) Proverb 31:4-5 - Kings, Princes, and others who rule and judge must not drink alcohol. Alcohol perverts good judgment.
28) Proverbs 31:6-7 - Strong drink could be given to those about to perish or those in pain. Better anesthetics are available today.
29) Ecclesiastes 2:3 - The king tried everything, including intoxicating drink, to see if it satisfied. It did not. (Ecclesiastes 12:8)
30) Ecclesiastes 10:17 - A land is blessed when its leaders do not drink.
31) Isaiah 5:11-12 - Woe to those who get up early to drink and stay up late at night to get drunk.
32) Isaiah 5:22 - Woe to "champion" drinkers and "experts" at mixing drinks.
33) Isaiah 19:14 - Drunken men stagger in their vomit.
34) Isaiah 22:12-13 - The Israelites choose to drink; their future looks hopeless to them.
35) Isaiah 24:9 - Drinkers cannot escape the consequences when God judges.
36) Isaiah 28:1 - God pronounces woe on the drunkards of Ephraim.
37) Isaiah 28:3 - Proud drunkards shall be trodden down.
38) Isaiah 28:7 - Priests and prophets stagger and reel from beer and wine, err in vision, and stumble in judgment.
39) Isaiah 28:8 - Drinkers’ tables are covered with vomit and filth.
40) Isaiah 56:9-12 - Drinkers seek their own gain and expect tomorrow to be just like today.
41) Jeremiah 35:2-14 - The Rechabites drank no grape juice or intoxicating wine and were blessed.
42) Ezekiel 44:21 - Again God instructed the priests not to drink wine.
43) Daniel 1:5-17 - Daniel refused the king’s intoxicating wine and was blessed for it along with his abstaining friends.
44) Daniel 5:1 - Belshazzar, ruler of Babylon; led his people in drinking.
45) Daniel 5:2-3 - The king, along with his
nobles, wives, and concubines, drank from the goblets which had been taken from God’s temple.
46) Daniel 5:4 - Drinking wine was combined with praising false gods.
47) Daniel 5:23 - God sent word to Belshazzar that punishment would be swift for the evil he had committed.
48) Hosea 4:11 - Intoxicating wine takes away intelligence.
49) Hosea 7:5 - God reproves princes for drinking.
50) Joel 1:5 - Drunkards awake to see God’s judgment.
51) Joel 3:3 - The enemy is judged for selling girls for wine.
52) Amos 2:8 - Unrighteous acts of Israel included the drinking of wine which had been taken for the payment of fines.
53) Amos 2:12 - Israel is condemned for forcing Nazarites to drink wine.
54) Micah 2:11 - Israelites are eager to follow false teachers who prophesy plenty of intoxicating drinks.
55) Nahum 1:10 - The drunkards of Nineveh will be destroyed by God.
56) Habakkuk 2:5 - A man is betrayed by wine.
57) Habakkuk 2:15 - Woe to him that gives his neighbor drink.
58) Habakkuk 2:16 - Drinking leads to shame.
59) Matthew 24:48-51 - A drinking servant is unprepared for his Lord’s return.
60) Luke 1:15 - John the Baptist drank neither grape juice nor wine.
61) Luke 12:45 - Christ warned against drunkenness.
62) Luke 21:34 - Drunkenness will cause a person not to be ready for the Lord’s return.
63) Romans 13:13 - Do not walk in drunkenness or immorality.
64) Romans 14:21 - Do not do anything that will hurt your testimony as a believer.
65) 1 Corinthians 5:11 - If a Christian brother is a drinker, do not associate with him.
66) 1 Corinthians 6:10 - Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God
67) Galatians 5:21 - Acts of the sinful nature, such as drunkenness, will prohibit a person from inheriting the kingdom of God.
68) Ephesians 5:18 - In contrast to being drunk with wine, the believer is to be filled with the Spirit.
69) 1 Thessalonians 5:6-7 - Christians are to be alert and self controlled, belonging to the day. Drunkards belong to the night and darkness.
70) 1 Timothy 3:2-3 - Bishops (elders) are to be temperate, sober, and not near any wine.
71) 1 Timothy 3:8 - Deacons are to be worthy of respect and not drinkers.
72) 1 Timothy 3:11 - Deacons’ wives are to be temperate and sober.
73) Titus 1:7-8 - An overseer is to be disciplined.
74) Titus 2:2-3 - The older men and older women of the church are to be temperate and not addicted to wine.
75) 1 Peter 4:3-4 - The past life of drunkenness and carousing has no place in the Christian’s life.
NO DRUNKARD SHALL INHERIT THE KINGDOM
OF GOD

WOMEN OF VIRTUE: Kitchen Tips

Your kitchen is the most important room in your home. Alot  comes out from there, so let's learn some few  tricks. Works wonders.
1. If you happen to over-salt a pot of soup, just drop in a peeled potato. The potato will absorb
the excess salt.

 2. When boiling eggs, add a pinch of salt to keep the shells from cracking.

 3. Never put citrus fruits(Oranges,Lemons, limes, etc) or tomatoes in the fridge. The low temperatures degrade the aroma and flavor of  these fruits.(That's why our tomatoes don't last
in the fridge)

 4. To clean iron cookl-ware, don’t use detergents. Just scrub them with salt and a clean, dry paper
towel.

 5. When storing empty airtight containers, throw in a pinch of salt to keep them from getting
stinky.

 6. If you are making gravy(stew) and accidentally burn it, just pour it into a clean pan and continue
cooking it. Add sugar a little at a time, tasting as you go to avoid 'over-sugaring'it. The sugar will
cancel out the burned taste.

 7. Burned a pot of rice? Just place a piece of  white bread on top of the rice for 5-10 minutes to
draw out the burned flavour. Be careful not to scrape the burned pieces off of the bottom of the
pan when serving the rice.

 8. Before you chop fresh red peppers, rub a little vegetable oil into your hands and your skin won’t
absorb the spiciness.

 9. If you aren’t sure how fresh your eggs are, place them in about four inches of water. Eggs
that stay on the bottom are fresh. If only one end tips up, the egg is less fresh and should be used
soon. If it floats, it’s past the fresh stage.

 10. To banish ants from the kitchen, find out where they are coming in and cover the hole with
petroleum jelly(Vaseline). Ants won’t trek through the jelly. If they are coming under a door, draw a
line on the floor with chalk. The little bugs also won’t cross a line of chalk.

 11. Don’t store your bananas in a bunch or in a fruit bowl with other fruits. Separate your
bananas and place each in a different location. Bananas release gases which cause fruits
(including other bananas) to ripen quickly. Separating them will keep them fresh longer.

 12. To keep potatoes from budding in the bag, put an apple in with them.
 13. If you manage to have some leftover wine, cocktail drinks at the end of the evening, freeze it
in ice cube trays for easy addition to sauces (white wine works wonders in sauces, i don't joke
with them) in the future.

 14. After boiling pasta or potatoes, cool the water and use it to water your house plants. The water
contains nutrients that your plants will love.

 15. When defrosting meat from the freezer, pour some vinegar over it. Not only does it tenderize
the meat; it will also bring down the freezing temperature of the meat and cause it to thaw
quicker. # Note every woman should have vinegar in her kitchen.

 16. Do you cry while peeling off onions, then try this. After peeling off your onions, refrigerate the
onions for atleast 5minutes, then dice it. You will be glad you did.

 17. For aluminium pans that are looking dull, just boil some apple peels in them. This will brighten
up the aluminum and make your house smell yummy.

 18. If your salt is becoming lumpy, put a few grains of rice in with it to absorb excess moisture.

 19. Always keep an aloe vera plant in your  kitchen. It’s invaluable when you scrape your arm
or burn your finger. Just break off a leaf and rub the gel from the inside on the injury.

 20. When making a soup, sauce, that ends up too fatty or greasy, drop in an ice cube. The ice will
attract the fat, which you can then scoop out, this works wonders.

 21. To reuse cooking oil without tasting whatever was cooked in the oil previously, cook a 1/4″
piece of ginger in the oil. It will remove any remaining flavors and odors.

 22. If your milk always goes bad before you can finish it, try adding a pinch of salt to the carton
when you first open it. It will stay fresh days longer.

 23. If two drinking glasses become stuck together after stacking, it’s not impossible to unstick
them. Just put ice in the inner glass and dunk the outer glass in warm water. The warm glass will
expand and the cold glass will contract, making the glasses separate easily.

 24. For splinters under the fingernail, soaking the affected finger in a bowl of milk with a piece of
bread in it, it will help to draw out the splinter

HISTORY: Historical Events of 13th March

483        Mar 13, St. Felix began his reign as Catholic Pope.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

607        Mar 13, The 12th recorded passage of Halley's Comet occurred.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1194        Mar 13, Richard I, King of England, landed at Sandwich and immediately prepared to march north to recover his castles.
    (ON, 8/07, p.9)

1401      Mar 13, The 1st Samogitian uprising supported by Vytautas took place against the German knights. (LHC, 3/13/03)

1519        Mar 13, The Spaniards under Cortez landed at Veracruz. Cortez landed in Mexico with 10 stallions, 5 mares and a foal.
    (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T5)(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A3)(HN, 3/13/98)

1564      Mar 13, Zigmantas Augustas gave over to Poland his rights to Lithuania and supported the Warsaw parliament recess and summons for the 1st representatives on talks regarding union.
    (LHC, 3/13/03)

1569        Mar 13, Count of Anjou defeated the Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac. Louis Conde, French prince, co-leader of Huguenots, died in battle.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1599        Mar 13, Johannes Berchmans, Jesuit, saint, was born in Belgium.
    (MC, 3/13/02)(de Winkler Prins encyclopedia)

1610        Mar 13, Galileo published his observations of the night sky under the title “Siderius Nuncius" (Starry Messenger).
    (CW, Spring ‘99, p.36)

1615        Mar 13, Innocent XII, Roman Catholic Pope, was born.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1634        Mar 13, Academie Francaise was established. Its task was to preserve the purity of the French language, which included maintaining a dictionary. Members came to be known as the “immortals" and by 1998 they were struggling with masculine nouns of positions held by women who desired feminine endings.
    (SFC, 1/17/98, p.A12)(MC, 3/13/02)

1639        Mar 13, Cambridge College was re-named Harvard University for clergyman John Harvard.
    (AP, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)

1656        Mar 13, Jews were denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1660        Mar 13, A statute was passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.
    (HN, 3/13/99)

1677        Mar 13, Massachusetts gained title to Maine for $6,000.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1716        Mar 13, Georg Gabriel Schutz (46), composer, died.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1719        Mar 13, German alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger (b.1682) died. He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain. Sources later ascribed this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. Böttger is still credited with the industrial manufacturing process of Meißen porcelain.
    (ON, 8/10, p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_B%C3%B6ttger)

1733        Mar 13, Joseph Priestly (d.1804), English chemist, author and clergyman, was born. He is credited with the discovery of oxygen.
    (HN, 3/13/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1142)

1741        Mar 13, Jozef II, arch duke of Austria, Roman Catholic German emperor (1765-90), was born.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1744        Mar 13, David Allan, Scottish painter, was born.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1752        Mar 13, Josef Reicha, composer, was born.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1764        Mar 13, Charles Earl Grey (Whig), British Prime Minister (1830-1834), was born.
    (HN, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)

1777        Mar 13, Congress ordered its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army.
    (HN, 3/13/99)

1781        Mar 13, Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, which he named 'Georgium Sidus,' in honor of George III. He initially though it was a comet. It is the 7th planet from the sun and revolves around the sun every 84.02 years. It is 14.6 time the size of Earth and has five satellites.
    (AHD, p.1408)(HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/13/98)(HN, 3/13/99)(MC, 3/13/02)

1797        Mar 13, Cherubini's opera "Medee," premiered in Paris.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1798        Mar 13, Abigail Powers Fillmore, First Lady, was born.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1835        Mar 13, Charles Darwin departed Valparaiso for Andes crossing.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1836        Mar 13, Refugees from the Alamo arrived in Gonzales, Texas, and informed Gen. Sam Houston of the March 6 fall of the Alamo. Houston immediately ordered a retreat.
    (ON, 8/10, p.1)

1846        Mar 13, Friedrich Hebbel's "Maria Magdalena," premiered in Konigsberg.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1848        Mar 13, Metternich was overthrown by a mob in Vienna. This ended his career as foreign minister of Austria and Emp. Francis I elevated him to the rank of prince.
    (ON, 5/04, p.4)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)

1852        Mar 13, Uncle Sam made his debut as a cartoon character in the New  York Lantern.
    (AP, 3/13/98)

1855        Mar 13, Percival Lowell (d.1916), astronomer, was born. He predicted the discovery of the planet Pluto. He also wrote “The Soul of the Far East" and “Occult Japan." He predicted the existence of a planet behind Neptune before Pluto was discovered by Tombaugh in 1930.
    (NH, 12/96, p.22)(HN, 3/13/99)

1861        Mar 13, Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1862        Mar 13, The US Congress passed a bill prohibiting the military from returning slaves to their masters.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Prohibiting_the_Return_of_Slaves)

1868        Mar 13, The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(ON, 9/01, p.7)

1869        Mar 13, Arkansas legislature passed anti-Klan law.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1872        Mar 13, Oswald Garrison Villard, American journalist, was born.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1881        Mar 13, Alexander II (b.1818), Tsar of Russia, was assassinated. A bomb was thrown at him near his palace by the anarchist group People’s Will led by Sophia Perovskaya. He was succeeded by his son Alexander III (36). A wave of repression and persecution followed. In 2005 Edvard Radzinsky authored the biography “Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar."
    (PCh, 1992, p.557)(WSJ, 4/17/03, p.D8)(WSJ, 10/27/05, p.D7)

1982        Mar 13, At the Massacre of Rio Negro 130 [177] Achi Maya women and children were killed by Xococ patrolmen. On Nov 30, 1998, three Xococ pro-government fighters, Carlos Chen, Pedro Gonzalez and Fermin Lajuj, were sentenced to death for their war crimes in the massacre. In 2003 the PBS documentary "Discovering Dominga" told the story of a Mayan girl who survived the massacre and her struggle to discover what happened to her family.
    (SFC, 12/1/98, p.A11)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A11)(SFC, 7/14/00, p.A11)(SFC, 7/4/03, p.E3)

1883        Mar 13, Sergei Degaev (26) shot and killed Lt. Col. Georgii Sudeikin, security chief of Czar Alexander III. The 2 men had conspired to undermine both the government and the Revolutionary People’s Will. Degaev fled Russia to the US where he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Johns Hopkins and became the 1st math prof. At the new Univ. of South Dakota, where he taught until he died in 1921. In 2003 Richard Pipes authored “The Degaev Affair."
    (WSJ, 4/17/03, p.D8)

1884        Mar 13, US Congress adopted Eastern Standard Time for the District of Columbia.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
1884        Mar 13, Siege of Khartoum, Sudan, began. Gen. Gordon ordered a counter-attack at Halfaya and troops rescued some 500 from a Mahdist assault.
    (ON, 4/02, p.10)(MC, 3/13/02)

1886        Mar 13, Albert William Stevens, balloonist and photographer, was born.
    (HN, 3/13/01)

1887        Mar 13, Chester Greenwood of Maine patented earmuffs.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1888        Mar 13, Great Blizzard of 1888 raged. During the blizzard a cattle drover killed his biggest ox, gutted it, and crawled inside to survive the freeze.
    (SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 3/13/02)

1892        Mar 13, Janet Flanner, writer ("Letter from Paris"), was born.
    (HN, 3/13/01)

1894        Mar 13, The Dynamite Squadron of ships, purchased and outfitted in the US, steamed into the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. Rebel sailors immediately surrendered in exchange for safe passage to Argentina aboard Portuguese warships. The rebellion ended a weeks later when the rebel flagship, Aquidbada, was captured off Desterro by the American crew of the Nictheroy, the former Morgan steamship El Cid.
    (ON, 12/06, p.12)

1896      Mar 13, The 1st telephone station in Vilnius began operating.
    (LHC, 3/13/03)

1898        Mar 13, The ship New York, built in Philadelphia in 1888 as the T.F. Oaks,  was caught in the surf of Half Moon Bay and broke up after a few days. It was 259 days out of Hong Kong and all 22 aboard under Capt. Thomas Peabody made it to shore. Most of the cargo was lost.
    (Ind, 4/6/02, 5A)

1900        Mar 13, George Seferis (d.1991), Greek poet, was born.
    (HN, 3/13/01)

1901        Mar 13, Benjamin Harrison (67), 23rd president of the United States (1889-1893), died in Indianapolis.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(MC, 3/13/02)

1905        Mar 13, Margaretha Zelle made her debut as the oriental dancer “Mata Hari," in Paris.
    (WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(AP, 3/13/97)

1906        Mar 13, Susan B. Anthony (b.1820), abolitionist and advocate of black suffrage as well as the rights of women to vote, died at age 85. Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that Susan B. Anthony should be added to the four faces of Mount Rushmore.  Eleanor Roosevelt later suggested that social reformer and woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony should be included with the images of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, but her suggestion was not accepted.
    (AP, 3/13/99)(HNQ, 4/17/00)

1908        Mar 13, Walter Annenberg (d.2002), publisher (Triangle-TV Guide), Ambassador to GB, was born in Milwaukee, the 6th of 9 children.
    (SFC, 10/2/02, p.A2)(AP, 3/13/08)
1908        Mar 13, Jerusalem's inhabitants saw their first automobile owned by Charles Glidden of Boston.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1911        Mar 13, LaFayette Ron Hubbard (L. Ron Hubbard, d.1986), sci-fi writer, scientologist founder of Scientology (Dyanetics), was born.
    (SFC, 2/12/01, p.A13)(MC, 3/13/02)
1911        Mar 13, The Supreme Court approved the corporate tax law.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1913        Mar 13, William J. Casey, headed CIA during Iran Contra scandal (1981-87), was born.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1913        Mar 13, Kansas legislature approved censorship of motion pictures.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1913        Mar 15, Lewis Robert Wasserman (d.2002) was born in Cleveland. In 1946 Dr. Jules Stein (d.1981), founder of Music Corp. of America hired Lew Wasserman as director of advertising and public relations. Wasserman went on to expand the company as MCA Inc. into a major entertainment conglomerate.
    (SFC, 6/4/02, p.A18)

1915        Mar 13, Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson tried to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, but the pilot substituted a grapefruit.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1915        Mar 13, The Germans repelled a British Expeditionary Force attack at the battle of Neuve Chapelle in France.
    (HN, 3/13/99)

1918        Mar 13, Women were scheduled to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1920        Mar 13, The Kapp Putsch took place, involving a group of Freikorps troops who gained control of Berlin and installed Wolfgang Kapp (a right-wing journalist) as chancellor. The national government fled to Stuttgart and called for a general strike. The strike crippled Germany's ravaged economy and the Kapp government collapsed after only four days on March 17.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic)

1921        Mar 13, Mongolia (formerly Outer Mongolia) declared independence from China.
    (HN, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)

1922        Mar 13, George Bernard Shaw’s "Back to Methusaleh V," premiered in NYC.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1923        Mar 13, Lee de Forest demonstrated his sound-on-film moving pictures in NYC.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1924        Mar 13, The Reichstag was dissolved for the fifth time in German history.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1925        Mar 13, The Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Bill which prohibited the teaching of evolution in the public schools. [see Mar 21,23]
    (Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.74-76)(AP, 3/13/97)

1928        Mar 13, Rudolph Friml's musical "Three Musketeers," premiered in NYC.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1928        Mar 13, In California hundreds of people died when the San Francisquito Valley was inundated with water after the St. Francis Dam burst just before midnight on March 12.
    (AP, 3/13/08)

1930        Mar 13, The Lowell Observatory in Arizona announced Clyde Tombaugh’s Feb 18 discovery of a new planet, later named Pluto.
    (HN, 3/13/98)(NH, 6/03, p.20)

1931        Mar 13, Rosalind Elias, mezzo-soprano, was born in Lowell, Mass.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1932        Mar 13, Hindenburg won 49.6% of the vote in the German presidential election, Hitler won 30.1%, and the rest of the votes went to other candidates. Since Hindenburg did not win a majority, a run-off election was set for April.
    (www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp)

1933        Mar 13, Banks began to re-open after a holiday declared by President Roosevelt.
    (AP, 3/13/97)
1933        Mar 13, In Germany Wagner’s opera “Die Meistersinger" was used to celebrate the first Nazi-dominated Reichstag and became the Third Reich’s national festival opera.
    (WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A10)(AP, 3/13/97)
1933        Mar 13, Josef Goebbels became Nazi minister of Information and Propaganda.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1935        Mar 13, Driving tests were introduced in Great Britain.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1935        Mar 13, Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming biblical history.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1936         Mar 13, The first meeting of the Friday the 13th Club founded by Philip Klein, advertising executive, was held. Klein requested that the club self-destruct before the year 2001.
    (SFEC, 10/13/96, Parade p.19) (AP, 3/13/97)
1936        Mar 13, William Alexander Coulter (b.1849), Irish-born maritime artist, died, in Ca.
    (SFC, 7/4/05, p.B1)(www.edanhughes.com/biography.cfm?ArtistID=145)

1938        Mar 13, Clarence S. Darrow (80), famed attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial, died in Chicago.
    (AP, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)

1940        Mar 13, The 105-day war between Russia and Finland ended with the signing of a treaty in Moscow. Finland capitulated conditionally to Soviet terms, but maintains its independence. Some 27,000 Finnish soldiers were killed and 43,000 wounded in a population of 3.7 million. The Soviet Union put its losses at 217,500 dead or wounded.
    (HN, 3/13/01)(AP, 11/30/09)

1941        Mar 13, Hitler issued an edict calling for an invasion of the USSR
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1942        Mar 13, Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps became the first woman colonel in the U.S. Army.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1943        Mar 13, There was a failed assassination attempt on Hitler during the Smolensk-Rastenburg flight.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1943        Mar 13, Germans closed the Krakow ghetto in Poland.
    (HN, 3/13/98)
1943        Mar 13, Japanese forces ended their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.
    (HN, 3/13/99)

1945        Mar 13, Queen Wilhelmina returned to Netherlands.
    (MC, 3/13/02)
1945        Mar 13, Peru declared war on Germany.
    (HN, 3/13/98)   
   
1947        Mar 13, "The Best Years of Our Lives" won the Academy Award for best picture of 1946; Oscars also went to its director, William Wyler, lead actor Fredric March and supporting actor Harold Russell; Olivia De Havilland won best actress for "To Each His Own"; Anne Baxter won best supporting actress for "The Razor's Edge."
    (SFEC, 3/23/97, DB p.38)(AP, 3/13/97)
1947        Mar 13, The Lerner and Loewe musical "Brigadoon" opened on Broadway for 581 performances.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=1534)

1951        Mar 13, Israel demanded DM 6.2 billion ($1.5 billion) in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees.
    (HN, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)
1951        Mar 13, Alfred Hugenberg, German RC pres-dir of Krupp, media magnate, died.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1954        Mar 13, Viet Minh General Giap opened an assault on French forces at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. In 2010 Ted Morgan (aka Sanche Armand Gabriel de Gramont) authored “Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War."
    (HN, 3/14/98)(Econ, 4/3/04, p.86)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.80)

1957        Mar 13, The FBI arrested Jimmy Hoffa on bribery charges.
    (HN, 3/13/98)
1957        Mar 13, Bloody battles followed an anti-Batista demonstration in Havana, Cuba.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1960        Mar 13, NFL's Chicago Cardinals moved to St Louis.
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1961        Mar 13, Pablo Picasso (79) married his model Jacqueline Rocque (37).
    (MC, 3/13/02)

1962        Mar 13, John F. Kennedy met Cameroon President Ahmadou Ahidjo.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1963        Mar 13, China invited  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to visit Peking.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1964        Mar 13, In a notorious case 38 residents of a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens reportedly failed to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese (28), a gay woman, as she was being stabbed to death. Winston Mosely was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In  2014 Kevin Cook authored “Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America." Here he refutes the story of 38 witnesses and details the what happened.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(AARP Bulletin, 3/14, p. 24)

1965        Mar 13, Corrado Gini (b.1884), Italian statistician, died. He developed the Gini coefficient, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was also a leading fascist theorist and ideologue who wrote “The Scientific Basis of Fascism" in 1927.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrado_Gini)(Economist, 10/13/12, SR p.4)

1968        Mar 13, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope (Prudhoe Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to construct a pipeline, but work was suspended due to environmental concerns.
    (AH, 2/05, p.14)(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)

1969        Mar 13, In Vietnam Navy Lt. John Kerry rescued Jim Rassman on the Bay Hap River while under Viet Cong fire. In 2004 Kerry became the Democratic nominee for President.
    (SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A1)
1969        Mar 13, The Apollo 9 astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the successful testing of the lunar module.
    (AP, 3/13/97)

1970        Mar 13, Cambodia ordered Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1971        Mar 13, Rockwell Kent (b.1882), artist, illustrator and printmaker, died in New York. He was a member of the rugged realist school of landscape painters. In the 1930s he created a set of illustrations for "Moby Dick." In 1935 he authored “Salamina," a memoir of his first Arctic winter (1931–32) painting and exploring while based in the settlement of Igdlorssuit, Greenland. In 1960 he donated 80 paintings and 800 watercolors to the people of the Soviet Union.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_Kent)(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A24)(SFC, 8/25/01, p.D12)

1973        Mar 13, George Norman skipped out of Denver on a 2-year sentence for embezzling more than $500,000 from the now defunct Rocky Mountain Bank. He evaded arrest for 23 years and made millions by legal means until his capture in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1996.
    (SFC, 11/26/96, p.A8)

1974        Mar 13, The Dow Jones dropped to 577.60.
    (WSJ, 7/22/96, p.B1)(http://tinyurl.com/4uu3s9)

1975        Mar 13, Bernard Slade's "Same Time, Next Year," premiered in NYC. In 1978 it was made into a film starring Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda.
    (www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s1314)

1976        Mar 13, In California a jury convicted 4 Black Muslims for 3 murders and 4 assaults out of a total of 23 Bay Area crimes that included 14 murders. Jessie Lee Cooks, Larry Craig Green, Manuel Moore and J.C.X. Simon were given life sentences.
    (SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W22)

1977        Mar 13, Jan Patocka (b.1907), Czech philosophy professor and one of the three founding spokesmen of “Charter 77," died following a grueling 11-hour interrogation.
    (Econ, 12/31/11, p.32)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pato%C4%8Dka)

1979        Mar 13, European Monetary System (EMS) entered into force.
    (http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1961/index_en.htm)

1980        Mar 13, Ford Motor Chairman Henry Ford II announced he was stepping down.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1980        Mar 13, A jury in Winamac, Ind., found Ford Motor Company innocent of reckless homicide in the fiery deaths of three young women riding in a Ford Pinto.
    (AP, 3/13/00)

1981        Mar 13, Pres. Reagan granted Atlanta $1.5 million to search for the murderer of some 20 black children.
    (http://tinyurl.com/3ytusv)
1981        Mar 13, In the Poletown case the Michigan Supreme Court allowed Detroit to take 1,000 homes and 600 businesses to make way for a General Motors Corp. plant. The decision was overturned in 2004 when the court ruled that state and local governments may not take property from one private owner and give it to another purely for the purpose of economic development.
    (WSJ, 7/30/04, p.A6)(www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2920831.html)

1982        Mar 13, In Guatemala at the Massacre of Rio Negro 177 Achi Maya women and children were killed by Xococ patrolmen. On Nov 30, 1998, three Xococ pro-government fighters, Carlos Chen, Pedro Gonzalez and Fermin Lajuj, were sentenced to death for their war crimes in the massacre. In 2003 the PBS documentary "Discovering Dominga" told the story of a Mayan girl who survived the massacre and her struggle to discover what happened to her family. In 2008 5 former paramilitary members were sentenced to 780 years each in prison for massacring 26 people at Rio Negro.
    (SFC, 12/1/98, p.A11)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A11)(SFC, 7/14/00, p.A11)(SFC, 7/4/03, p.E3)(AP, 5/30/08)

1983        Mar 13, "Woman of the Year" closed at Palace Theater NYC after 770 performances.
    (www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4104)

1985        Mar 13, Konstantin Chernenko was buried near the Kremlin Wall in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union. He oversaw the dismantling of the Soviet nuclear arms stockpile and the end of the Soviet Union itself.
    (HN, 3/13/99)

1986        Mar 13, The US submarine Nathaniel Green was severely damaged when it ran aground in the Irish Sea. It was deactivated in May, 1986.
    (http://navysite.de/ssbn/ssbn636.htm)
1986        Mar 13, Ed Balatti (62), a San Francisco used car dealer, was arrested and charged with fencing everything from TVs to vintage wines. This climaxed an 11-month undercover investigation. Balatti had played as an end on the original 49-er football team in 1946-48.
    (SSFC, 3/13/11, DB p.42)
1986        Mar 13, Microsoft Corp., an 11-year-old company, went public and rose from $21 to $28 on opening day. Revenues for the year were $197 million and it employed 1,153 people. At its debut Microsoft was worth $519 mil. with just over $85 mil. in revenue for the prior six months.
    (Wired, 12/98, p.196)(WSJ, 8/9/95, p.C-1)

1987        Mar 13, John Gotti was acquitted of racketeering.
    (HN, 3/13/98)
1987        Mar 13, The president of Ecuador announced his country had suspended payments on its foreign debt after earthquakes killed hundreds of people and ruptured the country's main oil pipeline. The quake destroyed nearly 25 miles of oil pipeline.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(SFC, 5/1/03, A8)
1987        Mar 13, Gerald Moore (b.1899), pianist, died in England. The book: “Am I Too Loud?, Memoirs of Gerald Moore" was published in 1962.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Moore)

1988        Mar 13, Yielding to student protests, the board of trustees of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a liberal arts college for the hearing-impaired, chose I. King Jordan to become the school's first deaf president, replacing Elisabeth Ann Zinser, a hearing woman..
    (AP, 3/13/98)
1988        Mar 13, John Curtis Holmes, former porn star, died of an AIDS-related illness. In 2003 the film "Wonderland" starred Val Kilmer as Holmes.
    (ST, 10/17/03, p.22H)(http://tinyurl.com/4whfj)

1989        Mar 13, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration began a quarantine of all fruit imported from Chile after traces of cyanide were found in two Chilean grapes.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1989        Mar 13, The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a five-day mission.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1989        Mar 13, In Canada a transformer failure on one of the main power transmission lines in the HydroQuebec system precipitated a catastrophic collapse of the entire power grid. The string of events that produced the collapse took only 90 seconds from start to finish. The transformer failure was a direct consequence of ground induced currents from a solar flare. 6 million people lost electrical power for 9 or more hours.
    (www.windows.ucar.edu/spaceweather/blackout.html)(ON, 4/12, p.6)

1990        Mar 13, President Bush lifted trade sanctions against Nicaragua in a show of support for President-elect Violeta Chamorro.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1990        Mar 13, The Soviet Congress of People's Deputies approved Mikhail S. Gorbachev's proposals for a multiparty political system headed by a powerful president.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1990        Mar 13, Bruno Bettelheim (86), Austrian-US psychoanalyst, committed suicide. His books included "The Empty Fortress" (1967), on infantile autism and "the Use of Enchantment" (1976), a study of fairy tales. In 1996 Richard Pollak wrote: "The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim." In 2002 Theron Raines authored "Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno Bettelheim."
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim)(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.1)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.M4)

1991        Mar 13, President Bush, during a visit to Ottawa, Canada, warned Iran against seizing Iraqi territory in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
    (AP, 3/13/01)
1991        Mar 13, Exxon pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay $100 million fine in a $1.1 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The deal fell apart when the Alaska House rejected it. A new settlement was reached later.
    (www.epa.gov/history/topics/valdez/02.htm)(HN, 3/13/98)(AP, 3/13/01)

1992         Mar 13, The U.N. Security Council stood firm in its demand that Iraq comply totally with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions, rebuffing an appeal for leniency from Saddam Hussein's special envoy, deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.
    (AP, 3/13/97)
1992        Mar 13, Some 498 died in an earthquake at Erzincan, Turkey.
    (www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geosciences/qketour/qkexampl/qk990817.html)

1993        Mar 13, A deadly blizzard paralyzed much of the East Coast, leaving more than 100 dead in its wake. Syracuse, NY, was covered with fresh snow 43 inches thick.
    (AP, 3/13/98)(SFC, 3/13/09, p.D8)
1993        Mar 13, The Russian Congress adjourned after a session that seriously weakened President Boris Yeltsin's power.
    (AP, 3/13/98)

1994        Mar 13, The Israeli Cabinet outlawed two Jewish extremist groups, Kach and Kahane Lives, branding them terrorist organizations.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1994        Mar 13, A South African diplomat took over as leader of Bophuthatswana as the black homeland's president, Lucas Mangope, was deposed.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1994        Mar 13, The oil tanker Nassia collided with an empty cargo ship at the entrance of the Bosporus. 27-29 people lost their lives. 9,000 tons of petroleum spilled and 20,000 tons burned for four days long affecting the marine environment.
    (www.bosphorusstrait.com/the-bosporus-strait/incidents/)(AP, 4/27/11)

1995        Mar 13, Two Americans working for U.S. defense contractors in Kuwait, David Daliberti and William Barloon, were seized by Iraq after they strayed across the border; sentenced to eight years in prison, both were freed the following July.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1995        Mar 13, Istanbul police killed at least 15 Alawi (Alevi) demonstrators.
    (http://tinyurl.com/byu4j)

1996        Mar 13, World leaders, including President Clinton, held a summit in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, where they vowed unequivocal support for the Mideast peace process.
    (AP, 3/13/97)
1996        Mar 13, Liggett, the nation's fifth-largest tobacco company, made history by settling a private class-action lawsuit alleging cigarette makers manipulated nicotine to hook smokers. Liggett became the first tobacco company to acknowledge that cigarettes are addictive and cause cancer. In 1997 Bennet LeBow, owner of Liggett, revealed that Philip Morris had agreed to pay $10 million per year in legal fees while he kept silent.
    (AP, 3/15/97)(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A2)
1996        Mar 13, Thomas Hamilton (43) killed 16 kindergarten children, a teacher and himself in a classroom in Dunblane, Scotland.
    (WSJ, 3/14/96, p.A-1)(AP, 3/13/01)

1997        Mar 13, Eddie DeBartolo, owner of the SF 49ers, was awarded a Louisiana casino license one day after paying former Gov. Edwin Edwards $400,000 in cash.
    (SFC, 4/12/00, p.A5)
1997        Mar 13, The UN General Assembly voted 130 to 2 for Israel to abandon its plan to build new Jewish housing on Arab land.
    (SFC, 3/14/97, p.A12)
1997        Mar 13, In Australia it was revealed that the 1995 award-winning autobiography of an Aboriginal woman, “My Own Sweet Time, “ was actually written by a 47-year-old white man in Sidney named Leon Carmen.
    (SFC, 3/14/97, p.A16)
1997        Mar 13, A Jordanian soldier fired on Israeli junior high school girls on a field trip, killing seven of them. The soldier, Cpl. Ahmed Daqamseh, was later sentenced by a military court to life in prison.
    (SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)(AP, 3/13/98)
1997        Mar 13, Four masked, suspected Islamic gunmen opened fire in a Christian village in southern Egypt and killed 14 men before escaping.
    (SFC, 3/14/97, p.A16)(AP, 3/13/98)

1998        Mar 13, US Sergeant Major Gene McKinney (47), once the Army's top enlisted man, was cleared on 18 of 19 charges brought against him by women who said he pressured them for sex. He was convicted for obstruction of justice for trying to persuade his chief accuser to lie. McKinney was reprimanded and demoted by one rank.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/13/99)
1998        Mar 13, U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., announced he would not seek a seventh term.
    (AP, 3/13/99)
1998        Mar 13, Canada legalized the growing of industrial hemp
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A10)
1998        Mar 13, Israeli and Palestinian troops made a joint effort to end four days of protests over the killing of West Bank workers.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A9)
1998        Mar 13, In Korea Pres. Kim Dae-Jung approved an amnesty that cleared the records of 0f 5.5 million Koreans and freed scores of political prisoners. He also planned to release 2,300 prison inmates who spent over 2 decades in jail for supporting North Korea.
    (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A14)
1998        Mar 13, In Kosovo 40,000 ethnic Albanians protested against Serbia.
    (SFC, 3/14/98, p.A8)

1999        Mar 13, Evander Holyfield, the WBA and IBF champion, and Lennox Lewis, the WBC champion, kept their respective titles after fighting to a controversial draw in New York.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1999        Mar 13, It was reported that Nasa measurements showed ice sheets in the low-lying areas of Greenland were melting at the rate of 3-feet per year.
    (SFC, 3/13/99, p.A6)(AP, 3/13/00)
1999        Mar 13, Garson Kanin, playwright and film director, died in New York at age 86.
    (SFEC, 3/14/99, p.D8)
1999        Mar 13, In Indonesia the National Front Party of prime minister Mahathir Mohamad won elections in oil-rich Sabah state with 25 of the 48 seats.
    (SFEC, 3/14/99, p.A8)
1999        Mar 13, In Kosovo 2 bombs struck in Podujevo and 1 in Kosovska Mitrovica killing 6 people and wounding 58. The state TV blamed the Albanians, who in turn blamed the Serbs.
    (SFEC, 3/14/99, p.A17)
1999        Mar 13, Serb government forces destroyed more than 25 homes of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, apparently in retaliation for the killing of Serb civilians.
    (AP, 3/13/00)
1999        Mar 13, In Turkey 13 people were killed in a bomb attack on a shopping center in the Goztepe section of Istanbul.
    (SFEC, 3/14/99, p.A24)
1999        Mar 13, In Zimbabwe three Americans appeared in court on charges of terrorism, espionage and sabotage against Pres. Kabila. They had been tortured and pictures with the names: Gary George Blanchfield, Jona Lamonte-Dixon, and Joseph Pettijohn were displayed. The men were associated with Harvestfield Ministries in Indianapolis.
    (SFC, 3/13/99, p.A13)(SFC, 3/15/99, p.A8)(WSJ, 3/15/99, p.A1)

2000        Mar 13, A quarter century after the end of the Vietnam War, US Defense Secretary William Cohen arrived in Hanoi to push the pace of reconciliation.
    (AP, 3/13/01)
2000        Mar 13, CBS began filming its “Survivor" show on the Malaysian island of Pulau Tiga. Filming lasted to April 20 and the last survivor was to be awarded a $1 million prize.
    (SFC, 6/2/00, p.C15)
2000        Mar 13, The Tribune Co. bought the LA Times in a $6.5 billion merger with the Times Mirror Co. This ended 119 years of ownership of the LA Times by the Otis and Chandler families.
    (SFC, 3/14/00, p.A1)
2000        Mar 13, In Costa Rica 2 American women were found shot to death near Cabhuita. Emily Howell of Kentucky and Emily Eagen of Michigan were attacked while driving an SUV. A 16-year-old boy was later arrested and 2 other suspects were sought. Jorge Alberto Urbina (19) was arrested Mar 28. The 16-year-old was sentenced to 14 ½ years in prison.
    (SFC, 3/15/00, p.A10)(SFC, 3/28/00, p.A12)(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A15)(SFC, 7/28/00, p.A12)
2000        Mar 13, In Japan the government reported that the economy swung back into recession at the end of 1999.
    (SFC, 3/13/00, p.A11)
2000        Mar 13, In Taiwan the Taipei market dropped 617 points in fear of an election win by Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Shui-bian.
    (SFC, 3/14/00, p.A8)
2000        Mar 13, In Mongolia the Red Cross reported that winter blizzards had killed over 1 million head of livestock and that some 300,000 people were short of food. The dead animal number was soon raised to 1.8 million, or 1 in every 15 in the nation.
    (SFC, 3/14/00, p.A10)(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A12)

2001        Mar 13, Pres. Bush backed off from seeking reductions in carbon dioxide emissions due to projected higher energy costs from a shift from coal to natural gas.
    (SFC, 3/14/01, p.A1)
2001        Mar 13, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who was arrested with a carload of explosives just before New Year's Eve 1999, went on trial in Los Angeles on charges of plotting to bomb Seattle and other U.S. cities during the millennium celebrations. He was convicted of terrorism the following month.
    (AP, 3/13/02)
2001        Mar 13, In China four writers were detained a few months after they had formed the New Youth Study Group for discussing political change in China. In 2003 Xu Wei (28) and Jin Haike (26) were sentenced to 10 years in prison for subverting state power. Yang Zili (32) and Zhang Honghai (29) were sentenced to 8 years. Wei and Haike were released On March 12, 2011, after completing their jail terms.
    (SFC, 5/30/03, p.A16)(AP, 3/13/11)
2001        Mar 13, In Costa Rica Shannon Martin (23), a student from Topeka, Kan., was stabbed to death, after she left a nightclub in Golfito, 100 miles south of San Jose. In 2003 Kattia Cruz, 28, and Luis Alberto Castro, 38, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the killing.
    (AP, 11/25/03)
2001        Mar 13, France announced its first case of foot-and-mouth disease, prompting the U.S. Department of Agriculture to suspend imports of livestock and fresh meat from the European Union.
    (SFC, 3/14/01, p.A1)(AP, 3/13/02)
2001        Mar 13, Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average fell 351 to 11,819, a 16-year low.
    (WSJ, 3/14/01, p.A14)
2001        Mar 13, In Indonesia supporters and opponents of Pres. Wahid staged protests as police clashed with students who threw rocks and gasoline bombs in Jakarta.
    (SFC, 3/14/01, p.A9)
2001        Mar 13, North Korea cancelled negotiations with South Korea due to Pres. Bush’s toughened stance on the North.
    (SFC, 3/14/01, p.A10)

2002        Mar 13, President Bush declared at a news conference that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a menace "and we're going to deal with him," and said Osama bin Laden had been reduced to a marginal figure in the war on terrorism.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2002        Mar 13, The US Senate rejected higher fuel economy standards for cars.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A1)
2002        Mar 13, Pres. Mubarek of Egypt said he would press Iraq to readmit UN weapons inspectors and had received indications of agreement.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A6)
2002        Mar 13, In India a high-court panel ruled that no religious ceremony may be held in Ayodhya at the 67-acre site of the former Babri Masjid mosque, destroyed by Hindus in 1992. Mahant Paramhans Ramchandra, head of the Ram temple movement, vowed to defy the court order.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A7)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A16)
2002        Mar 13, In Indonesia Sjahril Sabirin, governor of the central bank, was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 3 years in prison. In 1999 some $80 million intended for the bailout of PT Bank Bali was used to help finance the election campaign of then Pres. Habibie.
    (WSJ, 3/14/02, p.A10)
2002        Mar 13, Palestinians set off a bomb next to an Israeli tank escorting a convoy in Gaza and 3 Israelis were killed. 2 Palestinians stabbed an Israeli husband and wife in Nachliel. An Italian photographer was killed by fire from an Israeli tank.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A6)(WSJ, 3/14/02, p.A1)
2002        Mar 13, In the Philippines Agus Dwikarna (b.1964), a Jemaah Islamiya Terrorist Operations Facilitator, was arrested. In July he was convicted of carrying C-4 plastic explosives and bomb parts at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport as he and two other Indonesians were leaving Manila for Bangkok. He was sentenced to a prison term of 10 to 17 years. In 2014 Dwikarna was deported back to Indonesia.
    (www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/agus_dwikarna.htm)(AP, 3/5/14)
2002        Mar 13, In Zimbabwe Pres. Mugabe was declared the winner with 1.6 million votes to Tsvangirai’s 1.2 mil. The opposition apposed the results and many observers described the process as deeply flawed.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A7)

2003        Mar 13, Forced into a diplomatic retreat, U.S. officials said President Bush might delay a vote on his troubled United Nations resolution or even drop it, and fight Iraq without the international body's backing.
    (AP, 3/13/04)
2003        Mar 13, The Senate voted 64-33 to ban a procedure that critics called partial birth abortion.
    (AP, 3/13/04)
2003        Mar 13, In Alaska Robert Sorlie of Norway won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race in nine days, 15 hours, 47 minutes.
    (AP, 3/13/04)
2004        Mar 13 Iran froze inspections of its nuclear facilities after the U.N. atomic agency censured Tehran for hiding suspect activities. Tehran relented two days later.
    (AP, 3/12/05)
2003        Mar 13, Israeli soldiers mistakenly killed 2 Israeli security guards.
    (SFC, 3/14/03, p.A13)
2003        Mar 13, Nepal and Maoist rebels agreed to release all prisoners of war and set guidelines for peace.
    (WSJ, 3/14/03, p.A1)
2003        Mar 13, The UN Human Rights chief excoriated the US Guantanamo policy. He said the world shouldn't have territory "where no law applies."
    (WSJ, 3/14/03, p.A1)

2004        Mar 13, In the first DARPA Grand Challenge robotic vehicles began a 200-mile road race near Barstow, California. The Pentagon sponsored race ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel farther than 7 miles from the starting line.
    (SFC, 3/13/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/14/04)
2004        Mar 13, In Afghanistan Taliban armed with rockets and heavy machine guns attacked a government office near the Afghan-Pakistan border, sparking a firefight that killed one Afghan soldier and three Taliban.
    (AP, 3/14/04)
2004        Mar 13 Iran froze inspections of its nuclear facilities after the U.N. atomic agency censured Tehran for hiding suspect activities. Tehran relented two days later.
    (AP, 3/12/05)
2004        Mar 13, In Tikrit, Iraq, a roadside bomb killed two American soldiers and wounded three. 3 American soldiers died in two bomb explosions in Baghdad. A 4th died from his injuries the next morning.
    (AP, 3/13/04)(AP, 3/14/04)
2004        Mar 13, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinian militants in an off-limits military zone between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
    (AP, 3/13/04)
2004        Mar 13, In Pakistan the India cricket team beat a Pakistan team at Karachi's National Stadium in a match that came down to the final ball.
    (SSFC, 3/14/04, p.A15)

2005        Mar 13, The Disney Corp. board of directors named Robert Iger to succeed Michael Eisner in October.
    (WSJ, 3/14/05, p.A1)
2005        Mar 13, In southern Brazil a tourist-filled bus crashed into a logging truck, killing seven people and injuring at least 20.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, Paul Schaefer (83), former head of a secretive German colony in southern Chile, was flown to Santiago after his arrest in Argentina. Schaefer founded Colonia Dignidad, or Dignity Colony, a commune-like enclave in 1961, and is accused in the disappearance of a dissident under dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, In India at least 19 people were killed and 15 injured when a bus skidded off a mountain road into a deep gorge in Uttaranchal.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, Israel's Cabinet adopted a report on the state's complicity in setting up 105 illegal West Bank settlement outposts and decided to dismantle 24 of them.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, Kyrgyzstan held parliamentary runoff elections amid rising tension over signs the longtime leader plans to extend his rule beyond constitutional limits. President Askar Akayev (60) won an overwhelmingly loyal Parliament in runoff elections. The opposition won 6 of 75 seats and said the vote was riddled with abuses.
    (AP, 3/14/05)(SFC, 3/15/05, p.A3)
2005        Mar 13, Vigilantes in Oaxaca, Mexico, killed a state police officer setting him on fire in revenge for the shooting of a taxi driver in a barroom brawl.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, Saudi police killed an alleged Islamic militant and arrested three others in a shootout at a suspected terror cell hideout in the Red Sea city of Jiddah.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, In Musina, South Africa, thousands of protesters held an 18-hour vigil on the border with Zimbabwe to demonstrate against mounting repression in the neighboring country two weeks before a key parliamentary election there.
    (AP, 3/13/05)
2005        Mar 13, Pope John Paul II was released from the hospital and returned to his Vatican apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2005        Mar 13, Venezuela announced that it would seize parts of 4 large estates, some 270,000 acres of farmland, after finding irregularities in their ownership status.
    (WSJ, 3/15/05, p.A18)

2006        Mar 13, The US Agriculture Dept. confirmed that a cow in Alabama had tested positive for mad cow disease. The animal had not entered the food supply for people of animals. This case of the disease, as well as one from Texas in 2005, was later reported as atypical.
    (SFC, 3/14/06, p.A3)(SFC, 6/12/06, p.A6)
2006        Mar 13, The 47 lacrosse players at Duke Univ., North Carolina, paid a couple of strippers to entertain them. Events this night led to the arrest of 2 players on April 18. In 2014 William Cohan authored “The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities."
    (Econ, 9/15/07, p.46)(Econ, 4/12/14, p.83)
2006        Mar 13, Deadly tornadoes raked the Midwest while wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2006        Mar 13, The Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Black Sabboth, Blondie, Miles Davis, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Sex Pistols at a ceremony in NYC.
    (SFC, 3/14/06, p.A2)
2006        Mar 13, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced a merger with the Institute for Welcoming Resources, a religious group representing 1,400 Protestant organizations that unconditionally welcome gays and lesbians.
    (SFC, 3/14/06, p.A2)
2006        Mar 13, US Credit-card issuer Capital One Financial Corp. said it has agreed to buy North Fork Bancorp. Inc. in a stock and cash deal worth about $14.6 billion.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, The McClatchy Co. said it has reached a deal to buy Knight Ridder Inc., the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock. McClatchy will also assume about $2 billion in Knight Ridder's debt.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, South Korea’s Kia Motors Corp. said it will build a $1.2 billion factory in West Point, Ga., its first in the US. Toyota said it will build a plant in Lafayette, Ind.
    (SFC, 3/14/06, p.D3)
2006        Mar 13, Heart researchers said clogging of arteries by plaque was reversed through aggressive use of an anticholesterol statin.
    (WSJ, 3/14/06, p.A1)
2006        Mar 13, Peter Tomarken (63), former host of the 1980s TV game show "Press Your Luck," and his wife, Kathleen Abigail Tomarken (41), were killed along with 2 others when their small plane crashed into Santa Monica Bay, Ca.
    (www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,18559,00.html?fdnews)
2006        Mar 13, Maureen Stapleton (b.1925), film and stage actress, died in Lenox, Mass.
    (SFC, 3/14/06, p.B5)
2006        Mar 13, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan's defense minister, said the national army will be fully operational within four to five years and ready to take over more responsibility for security from international troops.
    (Reuters, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, A UN agency said bird flu has been found at two sites in Afghanistan and there's a high risk that tests could prove it to be the deadly H5N1 strain.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Bangladesh riot police fired tear gas in Dhaka to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing activists who tried to march in support of a general strike.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Rana Abdel Rahim Koleilat (39), a fugitive bank executive wanted for questioning in the U.N. probe of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination, was arrested in Brazil on an unrelated charge. She offered officers up to $200,000 to release her and was arrested on a charge of attempted bribery. In 2003 Koleilat made headlines in Lebanon and Europe in connection with questions about her role in the disappearance of $300 million from the private Medina Bank where she worked. The funds' disappearance was the worst financial scandal at a Lebanese bank since the country's 1975-90 civil war.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Defense Secretary John Reid said Britain will cut its forces in Iraq by 10 percent, a reduction of about 800 troops, by May because Iraqi security forces are becoming more capable of handling security.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, In London 6 men participated in a drug trial and soon became seriously ill. The men had been given does of TGN1412, a monoclonal antibody developed by TeGenero AG of Wuerzburg, Germany, for treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and leukemia.
    (AP, 3/16/06)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.78)
2006        Mar 13, Newly inaugurated President Michelle Bachelet said that all Chileans older than 60 will immediately begin receiving free care at public hospitals.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, News reports said the world industrial-standards association has rejected China's controversial wireless encryption standard for global use.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Liu Zhijun, China’s minister of railways, announced $25 billion plans to build two new high-speed train lines linking Shanghai with Beijing (1320km) and another linking Shanghai and Hangzhou (175km). Plans included the use of magnetic levitation technology that can reach speeds of 260 mph.
    (AP, 3/13/06)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.69)
2006        Mar 13, Germany's public sector strikes entered their sixth week developing into a test of union strength and exposing cracks between the parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Merck KGaA, a maker of pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals, launched a 15-billion-euro (18-billion-dollar) hostile takeover bid for Berlin-based rival Schering, opening the way for a bitter bidding battle.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Indonesia's state-run oil and gas company Pertamina and Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to jointly operate the country's largest untapped oil field, ending a five-year dispute that had shaken foreign investors' confidence in the sprawling archipelago.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Iranian lawmakers approved spending $15 million to investigate alleged American intervention in the country.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Iraqi officials received a report alleging that American soldiers had killed a family of 4 in the Khasir Abyad area, about 6 miles north of Mahmoudiya. Police found four hanged men dangling from electricity pylons in a Baghdad Shiite slum, hours after car bombs and mortars shells ripped through teeming market streets, killing at least 58 people and wounding more than 200. An armed group that says it was created with government backing to drive al-Qaida fighters out of a restive Iraqi province claimed that it had killed five top members of the terrorist group. 2 US soldiers assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, were killed in fighting in Anbar province.
    (AP, 3/13/06)(AP, 3/15/06)(AP, 7/1/06)
2006        Mar 13, The Tokyo Stock Exchange said shares of disgraced Japanese Internet startup Livedoor Co. will be delisted from the exchange next month over alleged securities law violations.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Leaders of Lebanon's rival factions resumed talks after a weeklong break in an attempt to agree on the biggest issues that divide the country, the fate of the pro-Syrian president and the U.N. call for Hezbollah's disarmament.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Mexico’s attorney general said he will close a special prosecutor's office dedicated to investigating atrocities committed by the government during its two-decade campaign to weed out suspected guerrillas and leftists.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Myanmar reported its first case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Nepal's royal government offered amnesty, cash, jobs and land to communist rebels who surrender in the next three months.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, In Nigeria and official report said ethnic and religious fighting, land disputes and communal conflicts have driven more than three million Nigerians from their homes since the return to democracy in 1999.
    (Reuters, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, A Spanish judge indicted 32 people for allegedly plotting to drive a truck packed with explosives into a courthouse that has been the hub for anti-terrorism investigations. Authorities suspected that Mohamed Achraf was planning to ram a truck loaded with 1,100 pounds of explosives into the court in downtown Madrid.
    (AP, 3/21/06)
2006        Mar 13, Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief, said increasing violence has left hundreds of thousands of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region without food and facing the prospect of widespread disease and death within weeks.
    (AP, 3/13/06)
2006        Mar 13, Pope Benedict XVI and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held talks at the Vatican about Iran, Iraq and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East.
    (AP, 3/13/06)

2007        Mar 13, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted mistakes in how the Justice Department handled the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors but said he wouldn't resign.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2007        Mar 13, Federal agents in Connecticut raided New Haven police headquarters and charged the head of the narcotics division with stealing thousands of dollars planted by the FBI during sting operations.
    (AP, 3/14/07)
2007        Mar 13, In Alaska Lance Mackey won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, in nine days, five hours, eight minutes.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2007        Mar 13, New Mexico got an official state neckwear, a real Western icon, the bolo tie.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, The US Mortgage Bankers Association reported that 13% of subprime borrowers were behind in their payments. It was estimated that 13% of all adjustable rate mortgages originated between 2004 and 2006 and were headed for repossession in the next few years.
    (Econ, 3/24/07, p.79)
2007        Mar 13, Viacom filed a $1 billion suit against YouTube and parent company Google, to stop the publication of Viacom videos without authorization.
    (SFC, 3/14/07, p.A1)
2007        Mar 13, Environmental group Greenpeace launched a fresh attack on genetically modified maize developed by US biotech giant Monsanto, saying that rats fed on one version developed liver and kidney problems.
    (Reuters, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Scientists reported the discovery of what appear to be sea-size bodies of liquid, probably methane or ethane, on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, with one about as big as Montana.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Entrepreneur Marc Hodosh (34) was named senior director of the Archon Genomics X Prize. His job was to offer $10 million to the first team of researchers that can accurately map the genetic codes of 100 people in 10 days for a cost of $10,000 or less per genome. The competition was launched in 2006 year by the nonprofit X Prize Foundation of Santa Monica, Calif., which also has sponsored races to build commercial spacecraft and fuel-efficient cars.
    (http://tinyurl.com/2vfp9b)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.94)
2007        Mar 13, In Boston Raymond Echavarria (23) dragged his ex-girlfriend, Xiomara Rhodes (21) into an elevator in the office building where she worked and ignited a can of gasoline. Investigators treated the slaying as a murder-suicide.
    (SFC, 3/16/07, p.A8)
2007        Mar 13, A suicide bomber crossed the border from Pakistan into southern Afghanistan and blew himself up in a crowded pedestrian area, killing three civilians and wounding eight.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Australia and Japan signed a groundbreaking defense pact in Tokyo that the leaders of both countries stressed was not aimed at reining in China, but the road ahead for a two-way trade deal looked rougher.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, The British government published its climate-change bill.
    (Econ, 3/17/07, p.60)
2007        Mar 13, Brazil announced that it will build a wall on a small portion of its border with Paraguay in an effort to combat contraband and smuggling.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Canada said it had the highest population growth rate among G-8 industrialized nations between 2001 and 2006, thanks to the arrival of 1.2 million immigrants.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, In Colombia Trino Luna, the governor of Magdalena province, surrendered to federal prosecutors, becoming the first opposition politician arrested as part of the widening scandal over links between the country's political elite and far-right militias.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Some 20 lawmakers fired last week by Ecuador's top electoral court for allegedly interfering with plans for a constitutional referendum forced their way past dozens of police guarding Congress and took up their seats.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Five Europeans, kidnapped in Ethiopia and held captive for 13 days, were released in good health in Eritrea. 8 Ethiopians kidnapped with the group were still missing.
    (AP, 3/14/07)(WSJ, 3/14/07, p.A1)
2007        Mar 13, France's highest court rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in France, annulling the union of the two men.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Iraq's Shiite prime minister made a groundbreaking and unannounced visit to Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold in Anbar province. A roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying Industry Ministry employees in northern Baghdad, killing two workers and wounding six. In Suwayrah police dragged two bodies out of Tigris River. The bodies showed signs of torture. In Kut gunmen killed Ibrahim Sasa, an interpreter working for coalition troops.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, In Jamaica Cricket’s World Cup began with the 1st match between Pakistan  and the West Indies. The ICC Cricket World Cup was hosted by the West Indies from March 13 to April 28, 2007.
    (http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SPORT/03/12/cricket.schedule/index.html)
2007        Mar 13, In Mexico Pres. Bush met with Pres. Felipe Calderon in Merida. Bush sought to soothe strained ties by promising to prod Congress to overhaul tough US immigration policies, but Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized US plans for a 700-mile border fence. Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the US Embassy in Mexico City, attacking riot police with concrete blocks, metal bars and tearing down barricades to protest Bush's visit.
    (AP, 3/14/07)(AP, 3/13/08)
2007        Mar 13, A Hamas military commander was killed in a shootout with Fatah gunmen shortly before the leaders of the two groups met to try to bridge their differences over a power-sharing deal.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI met for the highest-level Kremlin-Vatican talks in more than three years, focusing on easing tension between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians and finding common ground in denouncing intolerance and extremism.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, In Serbia former customs chief Mihalj Kertes, a key aide to late President Slobodan Milosevic, was charged for allegedly siphoning off millions of dollars of state money.
    (AP, 3/17/07)
2007        Mar 13, Somalia's president came under mortar attack in his palace, hours after arriving for a rare visit to the increasingly violent capital, witnesses said. A 12-year-old boy was killed and three of his siblings were wounded in the shelling.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Alice Amafo, Suriname's youngest-ever Cabinet member, resigned amid reports she used thousands of dollars in government funds to pay for her 30th birthday party.
    (AP, 3/13/07)
2007        Mar 13, Vietnam's former deputy trade minister and his son went on trial for accepting bribes for quotas to export textiles to the US, in a major graft case with 14 defendants.
    (AP, 3/13/07)

2008        Mar 13, The US House Republicans’ campaign committee said it is missing several hundred thousand dollars, and possibly more, after discovering suspected fraudulent activity by former treasurer Christopher Ward, who was dismissed on Jan 28.
    (WSJ, 3/14/08, p.A1)
2008        Mar 13, US gold futures rallied to a record high of $1,000 an ounce, fueled by a combination of a weakening dollar, strong investment demand and inflation fears due to rising crude oil prices.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, The Florida Senate passed a bill that could mean suspensions for students with droopy britches. Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin, a Democrat, has said the fashion statement has a back-story -- it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.
    (Reuters, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, AOL said it will acquire Bebo, a social Web site, for $850 million.
    (SFC, 3/14/08, p.C1)
2008        Mar 13, In Afghanistan a remote-controlled bomb hit a police vehicle in Saydabad district of Wardak province, killing one policeman and wounding four others. A suicide bomber in Kabul targeting US troops killed 6 Afghan civilians.
    (AP, 3/13/08)(SFC, 3/14/08, p.A17)
2008        Mar 13, Canada’s Parliament voted to extend its mission in Afghanistan to 2011, provided NATO supplies more troops and equipment to back up its forces in the volatile south.
    (AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, Chad accused Sudan of sending anti-government rebels across their border into its territory as international mediators struggled to broker a fresh peace accord between the two neighbors. The presidents of Chad and Sudan signed a non-aggression pact, vowing not to support rebel attacks against each other, many of which were launched from troubled Darfur.
    (AP, 3/13/08)(AFP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, Chile said it has agreed to receive 117 Palestine refugees from Iraq who have spent months living in tents along the desert border with Syria.
    (AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, In China an avalanche buried 12 workers at a mountainous construction site for a pipeline in the far northwest.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, A human rights group said Chinese sales of assault rifles and other small arms to its ally Sudan have grown rapidly during the Darfur conflict despite a UN arms embargo.
    (Reuters, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, A deployment of 100 Sudanese soldiers arrived in Comoros, ahead of a likely African Union-backed operation against the rebel island of Anjouan.
    (AFP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, Cuba and Mexico declared their once-chilly relations fully restored, and Cuba's foreign minister said he will soon deliver a formal invitation for Mexico's president to visit the island.
    (AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, In Egypt A Muslim Brotherhood leader said more than 90 percent of Egyptian Islamist candidates have been prevented from registering for April local elections due to a crackdown by the regime and a campaign of obstruction.
    (AFP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, In Ethiopia a bus hit a landmine near the disputed Ethiopian-Eritrean border, killing at least eight people and wounding 27 others.
    (AFP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, Volkswagen, the biggest European car maker, vowed to become "the best auto manufacturer in the world" and welcomed a looming takeover by luxury sports car maker Porsche.
    (AFP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, Indian police arrested 100 Tibetan exiles trying to walk to their homeland as part of a major protest ahead of the Beijing Olympics, although the demonstrators vowed the march would go on.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, A parked car bomb exploded in a commercial district of central Baghdad, killing 18 people and wounding 57. 5 members of an Awakening Council were killed when gunmen attacked two separate checkpoints near Tikrit. A female suicide bomber attacked an Awakening Council gathering in the village of Zab outside Kirkuk and 3 people were killed with seven others wounded.
    (AP, 3/13/08)(AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, The militant Islamic Jihad group in Gaza fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel after Israeli undercover forces killed one of its West Bank leaders, shattering a recent lull in Gaza fighting.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, In central Mexico 6 people were shot and killed inside a private law office in Guadalajara.
    (AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, The Dutch parliament voted unanimously to outlaw bestiality and pornography involving animals.
    (AP, 3/14/08)
2008        Mar 13, In Pakistan more than 1,000 tribesmen protested against the killing of eight civilians by Pakistani forces this week in the lawless Bajaur tribal region.
    (AP, 3/13/08)
2008        Mar 13, Serbian President Boris Tadic disbanded parliament and called an early general election for May 11.
    (AP, 3/13/08)

2009        Mar 13, The Obama administration dropped the use of the term “enemy combatant" for suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay and slightly modified the legal standard used to justify their continued imprisonment.
    (WSJ, 3/14/09, p.A3)
2009        Mar 13, California said it faced a new $8 billion shortfall by July 2010 due to declining tax revenues.
    (WSJ, 3/14/09, p.A1)
2009        Mar 13, Alan W. Livingston (91), the music executive who created Bozo the Clown and signed the Beatles during his tenure as president of Capitol Records, died ion Beverly Hills. He came up with the Bozo the Clown character for the 1946 album "Bozo at the Circus," which became a hit and spawned a cottage industry of merchandise and the television series featuring the wing-haired clown.
    (AP, 3/15/09)
2009        Mar 13, Betsy Blair (85), Oscar-nominated actress and teenage bride (1941-1957) of Gene Kelly, died in London. In the late 1940s Blair took parts in "The Guilt of Janet Ames," and "A Double Life." But her movie career stalled after her enthusiasm for leftist causes landed her on Hollywood's blacklist. The New Jersey-born actress later married film director Karel Reisz.
    (AP, 3/20/09)
2009        Mar 13, Dozens of popular tourist beaches on Australia's northeast coast were declared a disaster zone, with their once-pristine sands fouled by a massive oil and chemical slick. Queensland state's marine safety authority said up to 100 tons of fuel, 250,000 liters, were now believed to have spilled from the Hong Kong-flagged ship Pacific Adventurer amid cyclonic conditions on March 11.
    (AP, 3/13/09)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.45)
2009        Mar 13, Terra Firma, a London-based private equity firm, announced it would buy 90% of Consolidated pastoral Company, the Australian cattle holdings of the Packer family, which encompass 12 million acres of land.
    (Econ, 3/21/09, p.67)
2009        Mar 13, In Bangladesh a fire at Dhaka’s 22-story Bashundhara City mall killed at least 7 people as helicopters plucked survivors from the roof.
    (SFC, 3/14/09, p.A2)
2009        Mar 13, Thousands of people across Britain took part in events for Red Nose Day, with money going towards helping the disadvantaged in Africa and Britain.
    (AFP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, John Worboys (b.1957), a London cab driver, was found guilty of raping or assaulting 12 women, often after persuading them to drink champagne spiked with sedatives. On April 21 he was sentenced  to at least 8 years in prison. In 2010 Scotland Yard said 102 women have come forward to accuse Worboys of sexually motivated crimes since his highly publicized trial.
    (AP, 10/26/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys)
2009        Mar 13, In Burundi an albino man was murdered and dismembered overnight by suspected smugglers with links to Tanzanian witch doctors, the fourth such case in a month in the central African nation.
    (AFP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing is willing to hold talks with the Dalai Lama if Tibet's exiled spiritual leader abandons his separatist cause, as he defended his government's hard-line policies toward the region.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, In Greece dozens of youths carrying sledgehammers and iron bars smashed cars, banks and storefronts in an upscale district of central Athens. Leaflets identified the attackers as members of local anarchist groups. A similar attack also occurred in the northern city of Thessaloniki, leaving three banks damaged.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, Japan said it could shoot down any threatening object falling toward its territory, after North Korea said a planned rocket launch would send it across Japanese territory.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, In Kyrgyzstan Medet Sadyrkulov, a key opposition figure to Pres. Bakiyev, was killed in an alleged car crash that left him and 2 passengers burned beyond recognition.
    (WSJ, 3/14/09, p.A6)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.45)
2009        Mar 13,  In southern Nigeria an attack took place on Chevron Nigeria Limited’s 16-inch Makaraba-Utonana pipeline. The attack forced Chevron cut its crude oil production by 11,500 barrels per day.
    (AFP, 3/17/09)
2009        Mar 13, Pakistani officials appealed to the opposition to join talks aimed at resolving the country's political crisis, even as police stepped up a crackdown on activists trying to reach the capital for a planned anti-government protest.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, Tristan Anderson (38) of Oakland, Calif., was wounded in the West Bank village of Naalin, during a protest against Israel's separation barrier. He remained in serious condition after undergoing surgery.
    (AP, 3/14/09)
2009        Mar 13, Russia’s Kontinental Management said it has closed for good its Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, located on the southern edge of Lake Baikal. It halted production in October. The plant has polluted the world's largest freshwater lake with chemical effluent for decades.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders says 35 of its foreign staff are leaving Darfur after the abduction of three colleagues.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, The Swiss government said it would cooperate on cases of international tax evasion, breaking with a long-standing tradition of protecting wealthy foreigners accused of hiding billions of dollars in the Alpine nation.
    (AP, 3/13/09)
2009        Mar 13, Taiwan’s economic stimulus package was reported to include a $104 shopping voucher for every one of the island’s 23 million people to be used between the Chinese New year and the end of April. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin added $150 food vouchers for the poor along with job training programs, financial incentives for new hires and loan guarantees for small businesses.
    (SFC, 3/13/09, p.C1)
2009        Mar 13, In Thailand suspected Muslim militants killed 3 soldiers in an ambush in southern Narathiwat province.
    (SFC, 3/14/09, p.A2)
2009        Mar 13, In Uganda a building collapsed in the capital, Kampala, when nearby construction loosened the foundation. At least five people were killed and dozens remained trapped under the rubble.
    (AP, 3/13/09)

2010        Mar 13, A storm battered parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut with gusts of up to 70 mph.
    (AP, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, Afghanistan's Pres. Karzai backed off from a much-criticized move to control the previously independent monitoring body for upcoming parliamentary elections, offering to allow two foreigners on the commission. Afghanistan rowed back from a total ban on media broadcasts of "disturbing" images from insurgent attacks or live pictures of security operations.  Police reported four explosions in Kandahar. Multiple bomb attacks in Kandahar killed 35 people, but failed to free insurgents from the city prison. The blasts included two car bombs, six suicide attackers on motorbikes and bicycles, and homemade bombs. The attackers targeted the city's prison, police headquarters, a wedding hall next door and other areas on roads leading to the prison.
    (AP, 3/13/10)(Reuters, 3/13/10)(AP, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Canada 2 people were killed and 30 hurt by an avalanche near Revelstoke, British Columbia, when the slide hit a snowmobile rally.
    (Reuters, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, Cyclone Tomas began battering island groups off Fiji's northern coast, causing flooding, pounding seas and one death. Officials said the storm likely would only sideswipe the main islands of the South Pacific nation. At least 2 people were killed by the storm.
    (AP, 3/15/10)(AP, 3/19/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Georgia a hoax television broadcast said Russia had invaded and the president had been killed. It sparked wide anxiety in the country still traumatized by the August 2008 war in which Russian troops advanced deep into the country.
    (AP, 3/15/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Honduras Nahum Palacios (36), director of a TV station in Tocoa near the Caribbean coast, was shot to death as he drove home and was intercepted by two other vehicles. This was the third such slaying in two weeks.
    (AP, 3/15/10)
2010        Mar 13, In India Abdul Latif Rashid and Riyaz Ali were arrested late in the day in Mumbai's Matunga suburb. Police said the two men were preparing to attack several targets in the city, the country's financial and entertainment hub. Police said the men had links with terror groups in Pakistan and were acting on directions from handlers there.
    (AP, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, Iran’s Fars the news agency said Iran has busted what it says was a US-funded cyber network group linked to an exiled opposition movement that collected data on its nuclear scientists. 30 members of the network with links to the outlawed People's Mujahedeen and monarchists were said to have been arrested.
    (AFP, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Mexico a series of shootings killed 24 people in a Pacific coast state plagued by drug gang violence. Nearly half died in one shootout between soldiers and armed men. Suspected drug gang hit men separately ambushed two cars carrying families with ties to the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, killing an American couple and a Mexican man. Three young children survived, although two suffered wounds. On March 26 suspect Ricardo Valles de la Rosa (45), a member of the Barrio Azteca gang, was arrested for the US consulate linked killings. A confession by de la Rosa suggested that El Paso jail officer Arthur H. Redelfs was targeted in the Ciudad Juarez shootings that also killed his wife, Lesley A. Enriquez, an employee of the US consulate. The husband of another consulate worker was killed in the other vehicle attacked. In April Mexico arrested a 2nd suspect, a member of the Los Aztecas gang, who confessed to taking part in the killing of a US consulate official. In September Jesus Ernesto Chavez, was extradited to the US, for ordering the killing of Lesley A. Enriquez.
    (AP, 3/14/10)(AP, 3/15/10)(AP, 3/29/10)(AP, 3/31/10)(AFP, 4/23/10)(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.A10)
2010        Mar 13, Mozambique's health ministry spokesman said the country's cholera outbreak has now killed 42 people in the northern and central parts of the southern African country.
    (AP, 3/13/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Myanmar ethnic rebels in Nam Zam township, Shan State, killed 20 government  troops in an ambush aimed at deterring the military government from launching an offensive against them ahead of elections this year.
    (Reuters, 3/19/10)
2010        Mar 13, Several dozen Palestinian women scuffled with Israeli troops on the outskirts of Jerusalem amid rising religious and political tensions in the disputed city.
    (AP, 3/13/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Pakistan a renewed wave of violence struck Saidu Sharif, the administrative capital of the Swat Valley, when a suicide bomber on a motorized rickshaw killed 13 people at a security checkpoint, raising fears the nation is sliding back into a period of relentless bloodletting.
    (AP, 3/13/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Qatar a two week UN conference opened with a focus on the Atlantic bluefin tuna and other marine life in the world's overfished oceans. The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) discussed new proposals on regulating the trade in number of plant and animal species.
    (AP, 3/13/10)
2010        Mar 13, In Somalia a fight over land rights between two rival clans in northern Amara village killed at least 15 people.
    (AP, 3/14/10)
2010        Mar 13, The Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung quoted Swiss Abbot Martin Werlen saying around 60 people over the last 15 years have reported being victims of abuse by Catholic priests in Switzerland.
    (AP, 3/13/10)
2010        Mar 13, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called for regulation of the Internet while demanding authorities crack down on a critical news Web site that he accused of spreading false information. A Venezuelan police official said security forces have seized two tons of cocaine hidden in two bulldozers at a port in the central state of Carabobo. The cocaine was intended to be smuggled to the Netherlands.
    (AP, 3/14/10)

2011        Mar 13, In Vansant, Virginia, a gunman opened fire on sheriff’s deputies investigating a possible robbery. Two officers were killed and two injured before the gunman was shot dead.
    (SFC, 3/14/11, p.A4)
2011        Mar 13, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed four Afghan civilians in a car in Kandahar province's Shorabak district. Two NATO service members were killed this weekend. One died in an insurgent attack in the east and another in a bomb attack in the south.
    (AP, 3/13/11)(SFC, 3/14/11, p.A2)
2011        Mar 13, In Australia Owsley Stanley (b.1935), counterculture maker of LSD and Grateful Dead associate, died in a car crash. His Bear Research Group reputedly made over 1.25 million doses of LSD from 1965-1967.
    (SFC, 3/14/11, p.A1)
2011        Mar 13, In Bahrain riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at anti-government demonstrators blocking the highway into the capital's financial district and surrounded the protesters' main camp in the capital. More than 200 people were injured there in clashes between riot police and demonstrators.
    (AP, 3/13/11)(AFP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, Benin opened polls for a twice-delayed presidential election after a last-minute scramble to register hundreds of thousands of eligible voters left off voter rolls. Pres. Boni Yayi sought a 2nd term against 13 candidates. Partial and unofficial results indicated President Boni Yayi and his main challenger, Adrien Houngbedji, may be headed for a run-off. On March 18 the country's electoral commission announced that President Thomas Boni Yayi had received more than 53 percent of the vote, giving him an absolute majority.
    (AP, 3/13/11)(SFC, 3/14/11, p.A2)(AFP, 3/15/11)(AP, 3/19/11)
2011        Mar 13, Broadway import "Legally Blonde The Musical," based on the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film, picked up this year’s Olivier Award for Best New Musical, in the Society of London Theatre's prize-giving ceremony at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
    (AFP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, In the Central African Republic at least six people were killed and dozens abducted during an attack on Nzako village by Lord's Resistance Army rebels. They had crossed into the CAR last year after being routed from their bases in Uganda.
    (AFP, 3/15/11)
2011        Mar 13, The Indian navy captured 61 pirates who jumped into the Arabian Sea to flee a gunfight and fire on the hijacked ship from which they had staged several attacks. Two Indian navy ships also rescued 13 crew members from the Mozambique-flagged Vega 5, a fishing boat seized in December.
    (AP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Iraq 22 people, including 15 guards, were injured in a melee that started after officials found holes in the prison's steel fence and discovered an escape plan by inmates linked to al-Qaida in Salahuddin province. One inmate was killed by jumping off the roof in an effort to escape from prison during a riot.
    (AP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, Israel said it has approved the building of 300 to 500 apartments and settler homes. They would take place in major West Bank settlement blocs that Israel expects to hold on to in any final peace deal.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, People across a devastated swath of Japan suffered for a third day without water, electricity and proper food, as the country grappled with the enormity of a massive earthquake and tsunami that left more than 10,000 people dead in one area alone. Japanese officials raised their estimate of the quake's magnitude to 9.0. Japan also fought to avert a meltdown at three earthquake-crippled nuclear reactors.
    (AP, 3/13/11)(Reuters, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Lebanon tens of thousands filled a central Beirut square to mark the 2005 protests that ended Syria's 30-year domination of the country and to demand that the militant group Hezbollah, seen as a proxy of Syria, give up its weapons.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, Libyan rebels abandoned Brega, another key town under heavy shelling from advancing government forces, as international backing grew only slowly for a no-fly zone over the country. In Benghazi, 240km east of Brega, all mobile telephone services were suddenly cut for an unknown reason. State television said Libya has asked foreign firms to resume oil exports, saying its ports are safe despite a deadly month-long conflict. Libya's de facto oil minister said the country's crude production has fallen "drastically" and that he has reached out to Italian oil giant Eni SpA for help in extinguishing a blaze at Ras Lanouf.
    (AFP, 3/13/11)(AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Mexico nine people were shot dead in the resort city of Acapulco.
    (AP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Morocco security forces prevented about 100 people from holding a pro-reform demonstration in Casablanca, leaving several people wounded.
    (AFP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Maputo, Mozambique, 2 people suffocated to death in a crowd of 10,000 at the weekend opening of the new Universal Church of the Reign of God, a Brazilian-based evangelical church.
    (AFP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, In central Nigeria 6 people died in attacks on two villages near Jos.
    (SFC, 3/15/11, p.A2)
2011        Mar 13, Oman's ruler granted lawmaking powers to officials outside the royal family in the boldest reforms yet aimed at quelling protests for jobs and a greater public role in politics.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Pakistan two suspected US missile strikes killed 7 militants in Spalgah village near Miran Shah, North Waziristan. The strikes also wounded five militants. Gunmen ambushed a van and killed 9 civilians in a stretch of the northwest covered by a new peace deal among tribes from rival Muslim sects. Security forces responding to the attack killed three alleged gunmen. A suspected US missile strike missed a target in Azam Warsak, South Waziristan.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In the Philippines police commandos raided a house in Lamitan town on southern Basilan island in search of the former mayor linked to the 2007 bombing that killed a lawmaker but they instead captured Nawaf Jainuddin. He was allegedly one of several Abu Sayyaf gunmen who seized several hostages and staged deadly attacks in 2001 in Lamitan.
    (AP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, Russians from the Bering Strait to the Baltic voted in regional elections, testing Vladimir Putin's ruling party before December parliamentary polls and a presidential vote next March. Russia's ruling party swept the local elections.
    (Reuters, 3/13/11)(AP, 3/14/11)
2011        Mar 13, More than 200 Saudis were allowed to protest outside the Interior Ministry to demand the release of detainees in the largest demonstration in the capital since the regional outbreak of pro-democracy unrest.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, A top Southern Sudanese official said Southern Sudan is suspending talks and diplomatic contact with northern Sudan over claims that the northern government is funding militias in the south.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, Tunisia’s TAP news agency said that a 7 pm to 5 am curfew has been imposed on the mining town of Metlaoui, where clashes 2 days earlier left 2 people dead and 20 injured. Protests had begun amid rumors that a regional phosphate mining company was secretly recruiting in a specific tribal area, instead of opening its jobs to the entire local population.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, In Turkey hundreds of journalists, joined by members of some non-governmental organizations, protested the detention of reporters that the authorities allege were involved in an attempt to bring the government down in 2003.
    (AP, 3/13/11)
2011        Mar 13, Yemeni police on rooftops fired live bullets and tear gas at protesters, injuring more than 100 people who were camping near Sanaa University. A protester in Aden died from wounds he suffered a day earlier bringing that total to seven. Violence left 2 people dead in a southern province. Security officials said two Americans and two Britons have been detained by authorities for illegally entering the country.
    (AP, 3/13/11)(AP, 3/14/11)(SFC, 3/14/11, p.A3)

2012        Mar 13, Republican presidential primaries were held in Alabama and Mississippi. Rick Santorum won both state. Newt Gingrich placed second in both contests with narrow leads over Mitt Romney.
    (SFC, 3/14/12, p.A6)
2012        Mar 13, It was reported that the chytrid fungus has spread to nearly 600 species of frog and has probably driven over 200 species to extinction. SF State Univ. biologist Vance T. Vredenburg called it the “worst population crash of animals in history."
    (SFC, 3/13/12, p.A10)
2012        Mar 13, In Afghanistan gunmen attacked a memorial service for 16 villagers killed by a US soldier, shooting dead a member of the Afghan military and wounding a policeman in a hail of gunfire. About 400 university students chanting "Death to America -- Death to Obama" took to the streets of Jalalabad, in the first protest against the US army sergeant's killing spree.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, An Algerian court sentenced the head of Al-Qaeda's north African offshoot to death in absentia for a string of 2007 attacks, including a deadly bombing at the prime minister's office. Abdelmalek Droukdel, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), and eight co-defendants were sentenced to death for premeditated murder, membership of a terrorist group and attacks using explosives.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that any rape victim can get an abortion.
    (SFC, 3/14/12, p.A2)
2012        Mar 13, In Bahrain vandals smashed the windows of one of country’s oldest Shiite mosques and ransacked offices and prayer areas, making sure to pull down some framed parchments with Quranic verses. Shiite clerics claim at least 38 mosques and affiliated sites, such as charity offices, have been destroyed since the revolt began in February 2011.
    (AP, 3/21/12)
2012        Mar 13, In Bangladesh a ferry packed with about 200 people collided with a cargo boat and capsized in the Meghna River, killing 142 people and over a dozen more missing.
    (AP, 3/13/12)(AP, 3/14/12)(AP, 3/16/12)
2012        Mar 13, In Belgium an arsonist attack on a Shiite mosque left imam Abdallah Dadou (46) dead. Authorities attributed the attack to tensions between Shiite and Sunni communities.
    (SFC, 3/14/12, p.A2)
2012        Mar 13, In Brazil federal prosecutors said that they are filing criminal charges for the first time related to crimes committed by government representatives during the 1964-1985 military dictatorship. Prosecutors argued that kidnappings and the hiding of bodies so the victims were never found are "permanent crimes." Since such crimes continue to the present, they fall outside the 1961-79 period covered by the amnesty law.
    (SFC, 3/14/12, p.A2)(AP, 3/16/12)
2012        Mar 13, Some 3,000 people gathered in Liverpool, England, for the annual Global Entrepreneurship Congress.
    (Econ, 3/17/12, p.79)
2012        Mar 13, British chip designer ARM unveiled what it said was the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor design that will help devices ranging from fridges to medical equipment to parking meters to communicate with other devices.
    (Reuters, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, In Colombia oil tankers carrying oil from the Ombu field in Caqueta came under fire from guerrillas leaving 2 civilians dead.
    (Econ, 3/17/12, p.44)
2012        Mar 13, Israel halted its airstrikes against Gaza Strip militants and rocket fire from the Palestinian territory ebbed as an Egyptian-mediated cease-fire ending 4 days of clashes appeared to be taking effect. At least 24 Palestinians, including at least four civilians, died in cross-border fighting since March 9.
    (AP, 3/13/12)(SFC, 3/13/12, p.A2)
2012        Mar 13, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara named Jeannot Ahoussou-Kouadio as prime minister, a prominent member of a rival party which had backed his 2010 election bid.
    (AP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, Japan said it had won approval from Beijing to buy Chinese government bonds for the first time, in a move aimed at binding Asia's two biggest economies and traditional rivals closer together.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, Japan, the EU and the US brought a case to the World Trade Organization (WTO) alleging that China was exporting too little of tungsten, molybdenum and 17 rare earth elements.
    (Econ, 3/17/12, p.86)
2012        Mar 13, In northern Nigeria suspected sect members shot dead two policemen in Kano. Soldiers killed one of the assailants during the attack.
    (AP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, In Pakistan American drone-fired missiles hit a vehicle traveling on the Afghan border, killing six militants from a group known to have signed a nonaggression pact with the Pakistani army. Two commanders from the network led by Maulvi Nazir were among the dead in the attack in the Birmal district of South Waziristan.
    (AP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, A Pakistani court jailed Naseem Ahmed (42) for life for burning a Koran. The Muslim man said he would appeal the sentence, professing his innocence and saying he had no idea that a Koran was among a pile of books he set alight.
    (AP, 3/15/12)
2012        Mar 13, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Russia will abide by existing contracts to deliver weapons to Syria despite Pres. Assad's yearlong crackdown on the opposition.
    (AP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, Russian and South Korean scientists signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, Somalia's Shebab rebels banned the aid group Save the Children from operating in regions under their control. It accused Save the Children of distributing expired porridge to children, as well as corruption and failing to comply with the rules laid down by the Al Qaeda-linked group.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, South African wildlife dealer Jacques Els (39) was sentenced to eight years in jail over 38 horns cut off sedated rhinos. Els was arrested in 2010 after buying the horns for 760,000 rands ($100,000, 77,000 euros) from game farm manager Tommie Fourie who drugged the animals and cut off their trademark spikes. Els claimed the horns were removed from the animals "to protect them from poaching."
    (AFP, 3/14/12)
2012        Mar 13, In Switzerland a bus carrying Belgian students returning from a ski holiday crashed into a wall in a tunnel near Sierre, killing 22 Belgian 12-year-olds and six adults. Another 24 students were hospitalized with injuries.
    (AP, 3/14/12)
2012        Mar 13, The Syrian army recaptured the northern rebel stronghold of Idlib near the Turkish border, a major base that military defectors had held for months. An international rights group, meanwhile, said the regime was mining the border with Turkey. The LCC and the Observatory said that bodies of six people were found today near the village of Maaret Shoureen in Idlib province.
    (AP, 3/13/12)
2012        Mar 13, The Zimbabwean government and mining firm Zimplats reached an agreement to transfer a 51 percent stake to local investors, as required by the country's controversial "indigenization" policy.
    (AFP, 3/13/12)

2013        Mar 13, Ken Salazar, US Interior Sec., announced plans for two large federal solar projects in the California desert.
    (Econ, 3/16/13, p.30)
2013        Mar 13, Shares of Silver Spring Networks (SSNI) of Redwood City, Ca., closed at $22 in an IPO of 4.75 million shares on the NYSE. The maker of smart meter technology jumped nearly 30% from the $17 offer.
    (SFC, 3/14/13, p.C1)
2013        Mar 13, The 2012 A.M Turing Award for computer scientists was awarded to Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali of MIT.
    (Econ, 3/23/13, p.84)
2013        Mar 13, In New York Kurt Myers (64) started a fire in his apartment in Mohawk and then killed two customers in a nearby barbershop. He then drove to nearby Herkimer and killed two more people before holing up in an abandoned building. Myers was killed the next day in an exchange of gunfire with police.
    (SFC, 3/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 3/15/13, p.A6)
2013        Mar 13, Afghan intelligence agents killed five suspected suicide bombers and arrested two others, all members of the militant Haqqani network, during a raid in which a truck was seized with 7,200 pounds of explosive on the outskirts of Kabul.
    (AP, 3/15/13)
2013        Mar 13, In Afghanistan several people were killed and injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of sports fans watching a buzkashi game in Kunduz province.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Bahrain’s public prosecutor's office said six people have been detained over the last couple of days for allegedly defaming the country's ruler on Twitter.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Chile officially opened the $1.3 billion Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the world’s most powerful radio telescope. It consisted of 66 dishes.
    (Econ, 3/16/13, p.81)
2013        Mar 13, Croatia's parliament approved the withdrawal of some 100 peacekeeping troops from the Golan Heights amid fears they could be targeted by Syrian government troops fighting the rebels.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, In Egypt a leaked report concluded that police were behind the killing of nearly 900 protesters in Tahrir Square during the 18-day uprising that began on Jan 25, 2011.
    (SFC, 3/14/13, p.A4)
2013        Mar 13, German authorities banned three ultraconservative Islamic groups, including one whose Internet propaganda videos helped inspire the extremist who killed two American airmen at Frankfurt airport in 2011.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Aleqa Hammond looked set to be Greenland's first female prime minister after winning 42 percent of votes in elections on a platform of greater control and heavier taxation of foreign mining.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq freed eight captured Turkish soldiers and officials as part of peace efforts between Turkey and the rebel group aimed at ending a decades-long conflict.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Scientists said that the number of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped by 59% this year, falling to its lowest level since record keeping began 20 years ago.
    (SFC, 3/14/13, p.A2)
2013        Mar 13, New Zealand lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill allowing same-sex marriage, all but assuring that it will soon become law.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, In Nigeria a strike at Aero Contractors Co. of Nigeria Ltd., halted flights "temporarily."
    (AP, 3/16/13)
2013        Mar 13, In Karachi, Pakistan, gunmen shot and killed pioneering activist Perween Rahman (54), the director of the Orangi Pilot Project, who helped bring services like sewer and water to the city's poorest neighborhoods.
    (AP, 3/14/13)
2013        Mar 13, In southwest Pakistan gunmen abducted two female Czech tourists and their police guard as they were traveling on a bus through troubled Baluchistan province.
    (AP, 3/14/13)
2013        Mar 13, In Saudi Arabia 7 men convicted of theft, looting and armed robbery were beheaded, more than a week after their families and a rights group appealed to the king for clemency. One of the men told The Associated Press in early March that he was only 15 when he was arrested as part of a ring that stole jewelry in 2004 and 2005. Nasser al-Qahtani said he was tortured to confess and had no access to lawyers.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Syrian government troops fought fierce battles with rebels for control of key neighborhoods in the north of Damascus. A European Union staff member was killed in a rocket attack in an opposition stronghold south of the capital. Fighting also raged in other cities, including in Homs, where the regime pounded rebel positions with artillery and carried out several airstrikes on the Baba Amr district.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Tunisian vendor Adel Khedhri (27) died of full-body burns a day after setting himself ablaze. He was from a poor town in northwestern Tunisia and had struggled to find a steady job to support his mother and siblings.
    (AP, 3/13/13)
2013        Mar 13, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (76), known for his work with the poor in Buenos Aires' slums, was elected as the 266th Pope. He became the first Jesuit pope and first non-European since the Middle Ages and decided to call himself Francis after St. Francis of Assisi.
    (AP, 3/14/13)
2013        Mar 13, Zimbabwe's official election body said it will not back down on its ban preventing a leading human rights group from monitoring a referendum o0n a new constitution on March 16.
    (AP, 3/13/13)

 2014        Mar 13, President Obama signed the first congressionally passed public lands bill in five years, and called on Congress to do more to protect the wilderness. The law officially expanded the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Glen Arbor, Mich., a move that will protect an additional 32,500 acres of Lake Michigan coastline.
    (http://tinyurl.com/pkuv6nl)(SFC, 3/21/14, p.A7)
2014        Mar 13, US authorities said Ahmed Bel Bacha (44), held for 12 years without charge at Guantanamo Bay, has been turned over to the Algerian government. This reduced the Gitmo prisoner population to 154.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, The Colorado Court of Appeals said people whose cases were under appeal when Amendment 64 took effect in Dec 1012, are eligible to have their convictions for possessing small amount of marijuana dismissed. The amendment allowed adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
    (SFC, 3/14/14, p.A6)
2014        Mar 13, In Texas Rashad Charjuan Owens (21) drove drunk into a crowd at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin leaving 2 people dead and 23 injured. 9 remained hospitalized in critical condition. A 3rd person died of her injuries on March 17.
    (AFP, 3/13/14)(SFC, 3/15/14, p.A11)(SFC, 3/18/14, p.A7)
2014        Mar 13, US border agent Esteban Manzanares (32) committed suicide. He was accused of kidnapping and assaulting an immigrant woman, her daughter and another girl a day earlier in Mission, Texas.
    (SFC, 3/15/14, p.A10)(AP, 3/17/14)
2014        Mar 13, Bosnian police said the driver of a city bus was killed when a man threw a hand grenade into the vehicle as it stood at a bus stop in Banja Luka.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Edward Haughey (70), Northern Ireland's wealthiest man, died after his helicopter crashed in thick fog in eastern England. He had founded Norbrook Laboratories, a world-leading veterinary drugs company.
    (AP, 3/14/14)
2014        Mar 13, The Toronto National Post reported that a new generation of mutant lice have become immune to poisons of decades past and constituted 97.1% of all Canadian head lice cases.
    (SSFC, 3/16/14, p.A4)
2014        Mar 13, Police in southwestern China took away veteran activist Huang Qi, who runs a rights monitoring website, and seized his computers and mobile phones in Chengdu.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Czech priest and intellectual Tomas Halik (65) won the 2014 Templeton Prize. Halik pushed for religious and cultural freedoms after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and became a leading advocate of dialogue among different faiths and non-believers.
    (AFP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, East African heads of state met in Addis Ababa in the latest push for peace in war-torn South Sudan, where almost three months of raging conflict has left thousands dead.
    (AFP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Egypt brokered a ceasefire aimed at ending a flare-up of rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli towns and Israeli air strikes in the Palestinian enclave.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, In Egypt an attack on an army bus killed one officer and wounded three others in Cairo. The army blamed the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who in turn strongly condemned the attack.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, El Salvador’s electoral court said Sanchez Ceren (69), the leftist candidate of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), won the March 9 presidential election with got 50.1% of the votes.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, The Paris-based OECD said it has postponed all activities related to Russia's accession to the organization following a request from its 34 members.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Germany's Angela Merkel warned Moscow that it risked "massive" political and economic damage if it refused to change course on Ukraine.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, In Germany Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness was found guilty and sentenced to 3½ years in prison for evading millions of euros (dollars) in tax through an undeclared Swiss bank account.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Israeli warplanes pounded 29 Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip  in response to heavy Palestinian rocket fire into the Jewish state as Gaza militants resumed rocket fire. Israel’s defense ministry shut down the Kerem Shalom goods crossing into southern Gaza following rocket fire over the border.
    (AFP, 3/13/14)(AP, 3/13/14)(AFP, 3/16/14)
2014        Mar 13, In Lebanon clashes broke out in Tripoli after gunmen fatally shot a Sunni man who had Alawite relatives and lived in a mostly Alawite area of the city.
    (Reuters, 3/16/14)
2014        Mar 13, Madagascar said it has restored ties with the International Monetary Fund for the first time since a coup in 2009.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Malaysian police arrested 62 people who had illegally crossed the porous border between Thailand and Malaysia.
    (Reuters, 3/14/14)
2014        Mar 13, In Mexico a top leader of the self-defense movement in Michoacan state was charged in the murder of two members of a rival vigilante faction.
    (SSFC, 3/16/14, p.A10)
2014        Mar 13, New Zealand's Reserve Bank raised its benchmark interest rate by quarter of a percentage point to 2.75 percent after holding it at a record low for three years.
    (AP, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, In northern Nigeria attackers returned to Marabar Kindo village in Katsina state and gunned down another 7 villagers.
    (SFC, 3/14/14, p.A2)
2014        Mar 13, Russia said it will impose symmetrical sanctions if the United States and European Union impose their own.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014        Mar 13, Sri Lanka's police arrested Balendran Jeyakumari and referred her daughter Vithushaini (13) to child care officials. Jeyakumari had been vocal in calling for the release of her 15-year-old son, a child recruit of the Tamil Tiger rebels, whom she had handed to the military as fighting ended in 2009.
    (AP, 3/14/14)(SFC, 3/15/14, p.A2)
2014        Mar 13, A court in Sudan sentenced former governor of the southern Blue Nile State and leader of the opposition group Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North Malik Agar and 17 other members of the group to death by hanging. 47 others were given life sentences in a hearing. All but one were tried in absentia.
    (AP, 3/14/14)
2014        Mar 13, Syria's parliament unanimously approved a new election law  allowing multiple candidates to run for president, opening the door — at least in theory — to other potential contenders besides President Assad. However only candidates who have lived in Syria for 10 consecutive prior to nomination can run.
    (AP, 3/13/14)(SFC, 3/14/14, p.A4)
2014        Mar 13, Ukraine's parliament appealed to the UN to discuss the occupation by Russian forces of its Crimea peninsula and said it reserved the right to ask individual countries for help in resolving the issue. A man (22) was stabbed to death in Donetsk in clashes between pro-Russian protesters and a crowd favoring European integration and denouncing Russian forces' seizure of Crimea.
    (Reuters, 3/13/14)(Reuters, 3/14/14)
2014        Mar 13, In Yemen 6 Shiite rebels and 2 soldiers were killed in a firefight near Sanaa. Eight of the Huthi rebels, also known as Ansarullah (Partisans of God), were wounded in the clash in Qaratel.