Today in History - May 16







For Asian History:





942 May 16, Saadiah Gaon, head of Talmudic Academy of Sura, died.

(MC, 5/16/02)



955 May 16, Alberich II, (bastard?) son of Octavianus, was elected pope.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1527 May 16, Florence expelled the Medici nephews of the Pope and reverted to a republic.

(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(MC, 5/16/02)



1532 May 16, Sir Thomas More resigned as English Lord Chancellor.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1568 May 16, Mary Queen of Scotland fled to England.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Langside)



1691 May 16, Jacob Leisler, 1st American colonist, was hanged for treason.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1763 May 16, The English lexicographer, author and wit Samuel Johnson first met his future biographer, James Boswell.

(AP, 5/16/97)



1770 May 16, Marie Antoinette (14), married the future King Louis XVI of France (15).

(AP, 5/16/97)(HN, 5/16/98)



1777 May 16, Button Gwinnet, US revolutionary leader, died from wounds.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1791 May 16, James Boswell’s celebrated 2-volume work, "The Life of Samuel Johnson," was published. In 2001 Adam Sisman authored "Boswell’s Presumptuous Task," an account of how Boswell came to write the Johnson biography.

(WSJ, 8/24/01, p.W8)(ON, 11/06, p.10)



1792 May 16, Denmark abolished slave trade.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1801 May 16, William Henry Seward was born. He was later Gov. of New York and the American Sec. of State from 1861-1869. Under Pres. Lincoln he purchased Alaska for the United States at 2 cents per acre.

(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1187)(HN, 5/16/99)(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)(MC, 5/16/02)



1804 May 16, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, founder of the first U.S. kindergarten, was born.

(HN, 5/16/98)



1824 May 16, Edmund Kirby-Smith, educator and soldier, was born. He was a Confederate general in the western theater.

(HN, 5/16/99)



1828 May 16, Sir William Congreve (b.1772), British artillerist and inventor, died. In 1805 he developed the Congreve Rocket.

(MC, 5/16/02)(WUD, 1994 p.310)



1831 May 16, David Edward Hughes, inventor (microphone, teleprinter), was born.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1850 May 16, Johannes von Mikulica-Radecki, Polish surgical pioneer, was born.

(HN, 5/16/01)



1860 May 16, The Republican convention operned in Chicago.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Republican_National_Convention)



1861 May 16, Pres. Lincoln commissioned Benjamin F. Butler, a Massachusetts politician, as a major general of volunteers in the US Army.

(ON, 2/12, p.1)

1861 May 16, Confederate government offered war volunteers a $10 premium.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1861 May 16, Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality. [see May 20]

(MC, 5/16/02)



1863 May 16, At the Battle of Champion's Hill, in Mississippi, the bloodiest action of the Vicksburg Campaign, Union General Ulysses S. Grant repulsed the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.

(HN, 5/16/99)



1864 May 16, In the Atlanta Campaign, the battle of Resaca, begun May 13, ended.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1864 May 16, Platt Rogers Spencer (b.1800), the originator of Spencerian penmanship, a popular system of cursive handwriting, died in Geneva, Ohio.

(WSJ, 1/24/09, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Rogers_Spencer)



1866 May 16, US Congress authorized the minting of the first five-cent piece, also known as the "Shield nickel." The Shield nickel was quite effective in replacing the half dime, as its base metal composition discouraged hoarding and caused it to circulate very widely.

(AP, 5/16/07)(http://en.allexperts.com/q/Coin-Collecting-2297/dime-small.htm)

1866 May 16, Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1868 May 16, Bedrich Smetana's opera "Dalibor," premiered in Prague.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1868 May 16, The U.S. Senate failed by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross, to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. Johnson, who came to office on Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, was an honest but tactless man who made many enemies in the Radical Republican Congress. In response to Johnson's recurrent interference with Radical Reconstruction, the U.S. House of Representatives drew up 11 articles of impeachment against the chief executive in March 1868. Although the charges against him were weak, Johnson was tried by the Senate as the Constitution provides.

(AP, 5/16/97)(HNPD, 5/16/99)



1879 May 16, Antonin Dvorak's "Slavonic Dances" premiered.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1879 May 16, Wallace Wilkerson was executed by firing squad in Utah. It was so disgraceful that one newspaper, the Ogden Junction, sarcastically reminded the state that "the French guillotine never fails." It was 27 minutes before he could be pronounced dead.

(http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/012896.html)

1879 May 16, Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England set up the state of Afghanistan.

(HN, 5/16/98)



1881 May 16, World's 1st electric tram went into service in Lichterfelder near Berlin.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1886 May 16, Douglas Southall Freeman, journalist, historian, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, was born.

(HN, 5/16/01)



1892 May 16, Richard Tauber, [Ernst Seiffert], Austria-British, tenor, conductor ("Deine ist mein ganzes Herz"), was born.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1905 May 16, Henry Fonda (d.1982), actor, was born in Grand Island, Nebraska. He starred in "Grapes of Wrath" and "On Golden Pond."

(HN, 5/16/99)(AP, 5/16/07)



1911 May 16, Remains of a Neanderthal man were found in Jersey, UK.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1911 May 16, Zeppelin "Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1912 May 16, Studs Terkel American author, was born. He wrote The 'Good War.' "Take it easy, but take it."

(AP, 5/16/98)(HN, 5/16/99)



1913 May 16, Woody Herman (d.1987), jazz bandleader, was born.

(HN, 5/16/01)



1919 May 16, Liberace (d.1987), pianist, was born in a Milwaukee suburb as Wladziu Valentino Liberace. At 17 he debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He later averaged an income of $5 million for over 35 years.

(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.22)



1920 May 16, Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV.

(AP, 5/16/97)(HN, 5/16/98)



1924 May 16, Frank F. Mankiewicz, columnist (Perfectly Clear), was born in NYC.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1926 May 16, In Ireland Eamon de Valera founded the Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny) party. It emerged from a split among those in the Sinn Fein Party, who had rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna_F%C3%A1il)



1927 May 16, US Supreme Court ruled that bootleggers must pay income tax.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1929 May 16, Betty Carter, jazz singer, was born.

(HN, 5/16/01)

1929 May 16, Adrienne Rich, poet (Diving into the Wreck), was born.

(HN, 5/16/01)

1929 May 16, Hollywood staged an experimental publicity stunt for the movie industry at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel that grew to become the Academy Awards extravaganza. The first Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The movie "Wings" won best production while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named best actor and best actress. The first ceremony gave out a 2nd best award that went to F.W. Murnau’s "Sunrise." The dog Rin Tin Tin received the most votes for best actor, but the academy decided it would be a more auspicious precedent to grant the award to a human.

(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 3/23/97, DB p.54)(AP, 5/16/97)(Econ, 2/4/12, p.86)



1936 May 16, San Francisco Municipal Judge Lazarus condemned dance hall operators who made white girls dance with Filipinos. He had just held Terry Santiago (22) to answer a charge of assault with intent to murder for stabbing Norma Kompisch (22) 22 times with an 8-inch butcher knife, despite her cries for mercy. Lazarus had recently call Filipinos “savages."

(SSFC, 5/15/11, DB p.46)



1939 May 16, US food stamps were 1st issued.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1940 May 16, Bernardo Bertolucci, director (1900, Last Emperor), was born in Parma, Italy.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1940 May 16, Jacques Goudstikker, Dutch art dealer, fell on a staircase of the SS Bodegraven as the ship was refused entry at Dover. He died from a broken neck. His inventory in Amsterdam totaled some 1,400 works, which Reichsmarschall Herman Goring, Hitler’s 2nd in command, soon snapped up.

(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)



1941 May 16, The last great German air attack on Great Britain was at Birmingham.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1943 May 16, "Skipping bombs" were used for the first and only time to breach three massive Ruhr Valley dams--the Eder, the Mohne and the Sorpe--that supplied water and hydroelectric power to Germany's vital armament factories. The bombs were designed to bounce over anti-torpedo nets and explode at the base of the dams. Despite only two months of training, Royal Air Force Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his "Dambusters" breached the Eder and the Mohne dams and damaged the Sorpe. While subsequent flooding in the Ruhr Valley claimed 1,294 lives, German industrial production was affected only briefly while the dams were repaired.

(HNPD, 5/15/99)

1943 May 16, German troops destroyed the synagogue of Warsaw. Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ended after 30 days of fighting.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1944 May 16, The 1st of over 180,000 Hungarian Jews reached Auschwitz.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1944 May 16, Max Brand, [Frederick Schiller Faust], western author, died.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1945 May 16, The Nazi submarine U-234 surrendered to US forces at Portsmouth, NH. It had been bound for Tokyo with 10 containers of uranium oxide. The atomic material ended up in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

(SFC, 9/1/03, p.B4)(www.uboat.net/)



1946 May 16, The Irving Berlin musical "Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway starring Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley. The play closed in 1949 after 1,147 performances.

(AP, 5/16/97)(SFC, 4/24/99, p.A10)



1948 May 16, The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Salonika Harbor in Greece, several days after he'd left his hotel for an interview with the leader of a Communist militia.

(AP, 5/16/99)

1948 May 16, Chaim Weizmann was elected Chairman of the Provisional State Council of Israel. Weizmann, born in Russia in 1874, taught chemistry in England and as a leading Zionist influenced Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Weizmann settled in Palestine in 1934 and served as president of Israel from 1948 until his death in 1952.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann)

1948 May 16, PM David Ben-Gurion appointed Israel Amir (d.2002) to head the fledgling air force of 8 secondhand light aircraft. Amir held the post for 10 weeks and raised the force to 3,000 personnel.

(SFC, 11/2/02, p.A22)



1951 May 16, Chinese Communist Forces launched a second step, fifth-phase offensive [in Korea] and gained up to 20 miles of territory.

(HN, 5/16/99)



1952 May 16, Pierce Brosnan, actor (Remington Steele, Golden Eye), was born in County Meath, Ireland.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1953 May 16, Django Reinhardt (b.1910), Gypsy jazz guitarist, died in France. In 2004 Michael Dregni authored “Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt)(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W12)



1955 May 16, Olga Korbut, Olympic gymnast (2 golds-1972), was born in Grodno, Belorussia.

(HN, 5/16/98)(MC, 5/16/02)

1955 May 16, Rocky Marciano (1923-1969) defeated Don Cocknell in 9 rounds in San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium to retain his world light heavyweight title. This was the 1st international light heavyweight bout in Kezar since 1940.

(SFC, 5/13/05, p.F2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Marciano)

1955 May 16, American author and critic James Agee died in New York.

(AP, 5/16/01)



1957 May 16, Pope Pius XII published his encyclical Invicti Athletae.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1958 May 16, A man endured a record 82.6 G for .04 seconds on a water-braked rocket sled at Holloman Air Force Base. He was hospitalized for 3 days for recovery.

(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)



1960 May 16, A Big Four summit conference in Paris collapsed on its opening day as the Soviet Union leveled spy charges against the United States in the wake of the U-2 incident.

(HN, 5/16/98)(AP, 5/16/99)



1963 May 16, After 22 Earth orbits Gordon Cooper returned to Earth in Friendship Seven, ending Project Mercury.

(HN, 5/16/98)



1965 May 16, The musical play "The Roar of the Greasepaint -- The Smell of the Crowd" opened on Broadway.

(AP, 5/16/98)

1965 May 16, Spaghetti-O's were 1st sold.

(MC, 5/16/02)



1966 May 16, Columbia Records released Bob Dylan’s album "Blonde on Blonde."

(www.ddg.com/LIS/glenn/DYLANWEB.HTM)

1966 May 16, Stokely Carmichael was named chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating.

(MC, 5/16/02)

1966 May 16, Mao exploited his cult status as Communist China's "red, red sun" and urged young Chinese to revolt against traditional culture and leaders. The country descended into the ideological frenzy of the Cultural Revolution. Teenagers armed with red booklets of Mao's speeches battled one another and dispatched millions to the countryside. Many "capitalist roaders" were hounded to death. The Cultural Revolution was a radical upheaval of Chinese society initiated by Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Mao, fearing his influence fading, chose to promote the movement, which amounted to anarchy and terror erupting in China’s urban centers. In doing so, he circumvented his designated successors with individuals committed to his vision, including the Gang of Four.

(WSJ 12/10/93)(HNQ, 6/6/01)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.43)



1969 May 16, Russia’s Venera 5 landed on Venus and returned data on atmosphere.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_5)



1974 May 16, SLA members William and Emily Harris were identified with Patty Hearst in LA during a shoplifting attempt at Mel's Sporting Goods store. They escaped in a stolen van with a 19-year-old kidnapped victim.

(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W23)(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A8)

1974 May 16, Helmut Schmidt (b.1918), head of the Social Democratic Party became the West German chancellor and served until October 1, 1982.

(AP, 11/21/05)(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schmidt)



1975 May 16, Junko Tabei (1939-2016), Japanese mountain climber, became the first woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. In 1992, she also became the first woman to complete the "Seven Summits," reaching the highest peaks of the seven continents.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junko_Tabei)(AP, 5/16/97)

1975 May 16, India annexed the Principality of Sikkim. The people of Sikkim had revolted against the monarchy and Sikkim became India’s 22nd and second smallest state. The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikkim)(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.F5)(AFP, 11/6/11)



1976 May 16, The Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup hockey finals in 4 games over the Philadelphia Flyers.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975-76_Philadelphia_Flyers_season)



1977 May 16, Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling atop the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.

(AP, 5/16/97)

1977 May 16, In Mali former Pres. Modibo Keita (1915-1977) died in prison. His reputation was rehabilitated in 1992 following the overthrow of Moussa Traore and subsequent the election of president Alpha Oumar Konare. A monument for Modibo Keita, was dedicated in Bamako on June 6, 1999.

(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modibo_Ke%C3%AFta)



1978 May 16, Patricia Hearst (24) entered the Federal correctional Institute at Pleasanton, Ca., to resume her 7-year sentence for a SF bank robbery with the SLA.

(SFC, 5/16/03, p.E8)



1979 May 16, Asa Philip Randolph (b.1889), black labor leader and civil rights pioneer, died in NYC. Randolph brought the word of trade unionism to millions of African American households.

(www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/randolph.cfm)



1982 May 16, In the Dominican Republic the Revolutionary Party, under the leadership of Jose Pena Gomez (1937-1998), won the presidential elections. The PRD's presidential candidate, Salvador Jorge Blanco, won, and the PRD gained a majority in both houses of Congress. Jose Pena Gomez served as the mayor of Santo Domingo from 1982-1986.

(http://tinyurl.com/32jvel)(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35639.htm)



1984 May 16, Andy Kaufman (35), comedian, died of cancer. He played Latka Gravas in the TV sitcom Taxi.

(AP, 5/9/04)

1984 May 16, Irwin Shaw (b.1913), US writer (Rich Man, Poor Man), died in Switzerland.

(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ishaw.htm)



1985 May 16, Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls was named NBA Rookie of Year.

(http://tinyurl.com/2tostx)

1985 May 16, Margaret Hamilton (b.1902), American film actress, died. She was best known for her role as the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton)



1986 May 16, Argentine ex-president Galtieri (1926-2003) was sentenced to 12 years.

(www.cnn.com/almanac/9805/16/)



1987 May 16, Kentucky Derby winner Alysheba captured the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Alysheba fell short in the Belmont Stakes, failing to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed.

(AP, 5/16/97)

1987 May 16, "Bobro 400," a barge carrying 3,200 tons of garbage, set sail from NY, beginning an unsuccessful 8-week search for a dumping site.

(www.440.com/twtd/archives/may16.html)



1988 May 16, US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine.

(AP, 5/16/98)

1988 May 16, The US Supreme Court ruled that police can search discarded garbage without a search warrant.

(AP, 5/16/98)



1989 May 16, During his visit to Beijing, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, formally ending a 30-year rift between the two Communist powers.

(AP, 5/16/99)



1990 May 16, Sammy Davis Jr. (64), entertainer, died in Los Angeles. Davis owed the IRS $5 million at his death. A settlement was later reached for $300,000. In 2003 Wil Haygood authored "In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr."

(AP, 5/16/00)(SSFC, 1/21/01, Par p.2)(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.W9)

1990 May 16, Jim Henson (53), "Muppets" creator, died in NYC. In 2013 Brian Jay Jones authored “Jim Henson: The Biography."

(AP, 5/16/00)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0001345/)(SSFC, 10/20/12, p.F5)



1991 May 16, US Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third wrapped up his latest Mideast visit in Israel without an agreement for Arab-Israeli peace talks.

(AP, 5/16/01)

1991 May 16 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

(AP, 5/16/97)



1992 May 16, America3, skippered by Bill Koch, won the 28th defense of the America's Cup.

(AP, 5/16/97)

1992 May 16, The space shuttle Endeavour completed its maiden voyage with a safe landing in the California desert.

(AP, 5/16/97)



1993 May 16, A two-day Bosnian Serb referendum on a U.N.-backed peace plan ended, with voters rejecting the proposal by a wide margin.

(AP, 5/16/98)



1994 May 16, Israel began its final withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, shutting down the prison and military headquarters where Israeli soldiers had been in charge since the 1967 Middle East War.

(AP, 5/16/99)



1995 May 16, The Clinton administration threatened punitive tariffs that would double the prices for Japan's most popular luxury cars.

(AP, 5/16/00)

1995 May 16, Some $10 million worth of computer microprocessors were stolen from Centon, a chip firm in Irvine, Ca. The massive “Bytes Dust" task force investigation resulted in the 2000 racketeering trial of the 4 men who masterminded the heist. Mady Chan, Hoang Ai Le, John That Luong and Hui Chi Luong were found guilty. 15 more defendants of “The Company" awaited trial. In 2001 John That Luong was sentenced to 88 years in prison.

(SFC, 3/1/00, p.A26)(SFC, 6/23/00, p.A14)(SFC, 8/14/01, p.C4)

1995 May 16, Aum Shinri Kyo cult leader Shoko Asahara was found hiding in a secret room at a cult compound in Kamikuishiki and arrested. A letter bomb exploded in Tokyo’s city hall and injured an aid of the governor who had advocated withdrawing Aum’s religious permit. His teachings declared that he was Christ, that meditation was required for enlightenment, and that Armageddon is imminent.

(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A13)



1996 May 16, The US Treasury Dept. announced planned to issue a new type of government bond that would protect investors from inflation and help government finance the national debt. The new bond would offer returns that would rise and fall in line with inflation.

(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-1)

1996 May 16, The government announced a plan to pay debt-strapped home-owners up to 30% of their monthly mortgage payments thus easing the pressure on the country’s bleeding banks.

(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-15)

1996 May 16, GM was expected to pick Thailand over the Philippines for a $1 billion vehicle assembly plant.

(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)

1996 May 16, US Navy Admiral Jeremy "Mike" Boorda (57), the nation’s top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question. Boorda committed suicide shortly before answering questions from Newsweek Magazine about his right to wear certain combat pins.

(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A3)(AP, 5/16/97)

1996 May 16, Michael Lyons, (8) of Yuba City, Ca., was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered. Robert Rhoades (45) was arrested the next day near the boy’s body. In 1998 Rhoades was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. In 2007 Rhoades faced another trial for the 1984 rape and murder of Julie Connell (18) in Hayward, Ca.

(http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABOLISH/may98/0531.html)(SFC, 3/13/07, p.B3)

1996 May 16, French unions scheduled a series of strikes to protest Prime Minister Juppe’s plans to eliminate thousands of civil service jobs.

(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)

1996 May 16, Indonesian commandos rescued 9 hostages, members of a scientific team, seized by separatists in Irian Jaya 4 months ago. 2 Indonesian hostages were hacked to death during the raid.

(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-16)

1996 May 16, Romano Prodi was named head of the center-left Olive Branch alliance that won April elections. PM Prodi led Italy’s 55th postwar government with the leftists in power for the first time in 50 years.

(WSJ, 5/17/96, p.A-1)(Econ, 11/26/05, Survey p.10)

1996 May 16, Chevron said it spilled as much as 17,000 gallons of oil into Pearl Harbor after a pipeline sprang a leak.

(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-4)

1996 May 16, The US federal government set aside 3.9 million acres of land in California, Oregon and Washington state for the endangered marbled murrelet.

(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-14)

1996 May 16, UN and Iraqi officials reached a tentative agreement to resume oil sales of $4 billion a year to buy food and medicine. The oil for food program mandated that 13% of the UN resources go to northern Kurdish areas. In 2004 it was reported that illicit trade agreements with neighbors netted Iraq nearly $11 billion between 1990 and 2003. In 2004 the estimate for illicit trade was raised to $21.3 billion. In 2008 Michael Soussan authored “Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy," in which he tells of his 3-year close-up experience in the UN’s Oil for Food program beginning in 1997.

(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A9)(SFC, 10/9/04, p.A15)(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A9)(WSJ, 11/14/08, p.A15)

1996 May 16, In Iraq a team of Iranian agents were captured in Baghdad. They were on a mission to assassinate Iranian guerilla leader Massoud Rajavi. Hassan Nedham al-Malki, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the team was armed with rocket launchers and a mortar and had infiltrated through the marshes of southern Iraq.

(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-16)

1996 May 16, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, Burundi’s Hutu president, has called his army “paralyzed and useless" and given it a week to stop ethnic violence between Tutsi armed forces and Hutu rebels.

(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-10)



1997 May 16, Pres. Clinton spoke an apology for the government’s Tuskegee syphilis study from 1932-1972, in which 399 black men were kept untreated by government scientists in order to study the progression of the disease.

(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)

1997 May 16, The space shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia's Mir station.

(AP, 5/16/98)

1997 May 16, It was reported that researchers have found the gene that controls the sleep/wake cycles in mammals.

(USAT, 5/16/97, p.1A)

1997 May 16, Some 2,500 barrels of oil leaked near a coastal marsh in Louisiana at lake Barre in Terrebonne Parish.

(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A3)

1997 May 16, In Croatia southwest of Zagreb mobs of Croat refugees rampaged through at least 4 Serbian villages during the week and forced dozens of Serbs to flee. A campaign was growing to drive out of the country some 100,000 Serbs who have remained since the end of the Balkan war and to block returning Serbs from re-settling.

(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A13)

1997 May 16, The new 60-story, Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany, by English architect Sir Norman Foster opened.

(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.B1)

1997 May 16, From Hong Kong Fei Long (Fat Dragon) was described as a local celebrity for his articles on prostitution on Portland St., the heart of the red-light district. His columns have been compiled as the “Fat Dragon Handbook."

(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)

1997 May 16, In Italy Giuseppe De Santis, film director, died at 80. His films included “Bitter Rice" (1949), “Obsession," “Tragic Hunt," “Under the Olive Tree," and “Rome 11 O’Clock."

(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)

1997 May 16, In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko ended 32 years of autocratic rule, giving control of the country to rebel forces.

(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)



1998 May 16, "Real Quiet" won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. Real Quiet later failed to capture the Triple Crown, losing the Belmont Stakes to Victory Gallop by a nose.

(AP, 5/16/08)

1998 May 16, Israeli soldiers in Hebron wounded 10 Palestinians in the 3rd straight day of clashes.

(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.A23)

1998 May 16, In the Philippines a fire at the Lung Center of the Philippines, in a suburb of Manila, killed at least 8 people and another 14 were presumed dead.

(SFC, 5/16/98, p.A11)

1998 May 16, Rwanda’s former interior minister Seth Sendashonga (b.1951), a Hutu, was shot dead in Nairobi, Kenya.

(Econ, 6/26/10, p.49)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Sendashonga)



1999 May 16, The Justice Department said preliminary figures from the FBI indicated a decline in serious crime in 1998 for the seventh consecutive year.

(AP, 5/16/00)

1999 May 16, Tornadoes swept through western Iowa and 2 people were killed.

(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A3)

1999 May 16, NATO admitted to some 100 casualties from its air strikes but cited executions by Serb forces of at least 4,600 ethnic Albanians.

(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A1)

1999 May 16, In Belarus an unofficial presidential election drew to a close after 10 days of door-to-door vote getting. One of the 2 candidates withdrew and the other was in prison and the affair was denounced by Pres. Lukashenko.

(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A10)

1999 May 16, In Guatemala a referendum was scheduled on a package of 50 constitutional reforms that included recognition of the rights of the Indian majority and modernization of the army. Voters rejected the referendum 77% to 23%.

(SFC, 5/14/99, p.D5)(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A10)

1999 May 16, In Kuwait the Cabinet voted to give women the right to vote in the 2003 general elections.

(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A12)

1999 May 16, The 1956 Picasso painting, "Woman Nude Before Garden," was slashed by a mental patient in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum.

(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A20)

1999 May 16, In Pakistan a gasoline truck overturned and exploded while people attempted to salvage leaking fuel in Adda Rodu Sultan. Some 65 people were killed and at least 75 injured.

(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A12)



2000 May 16, The Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate by one-half point, the biggest increase in five years.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/01)

2000 May 16, The New York Democratic Party, meeting in Albany, nominated first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for the US Senate.

(AP, 5/16/01)

2000 May 16, In Oregon ballots were counted in the nation’s first regular primary election conducted by mail. Estimated response was 47%.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A8)

2000 May 16, Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas resigned from United Press International, a day after the wire service was sold to the parent firm of The Washington Times.

(AP, 5/16/01)

2000 May 16, The 3M Co. announced that it would stop making many Scotchguard stain repellent products. The company found that the compound perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOA), one of the ingredients, tended to persist in the environment and in the bloodstream of people worldwide. The US market was left to DuPont.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A7)(SFC, 4/15/03, p.A5)

2000 May 16, In China some 5,000 retired or laid-off workers in Liaoyang clashed with police following protests over non-payment of pensions and wages.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A18)

2000 May 16, In Congo an immediate pullout from Kisangani of forces from Rwanda and Uganda was agreed to in a bid to avert a wider war.

(WSJ, 5/17/00, p.A1)

2000 May 16, Ethiopian troops penetrated into western Eritrea and attempted to cut off retreating forces.

(WSJ, 5/17/00, p.A1)

2000 May 16, In Iran the Hammihan daily, a major reformist newspaper, was shut down on 17 counts of press law violations.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A18)

2000 May 16, Palestinian demonstrators continued to fight Israeli forces for a 5th day but Palestinian authorities appeared to contain most of the violence.

(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A14)



2001 May 16, The US State Dept. decided to designate the Real IRA as a terrorist organization and banned fund raising by the group and its supporting organizations.

(SFC, 5/18/01, p.D4)

2001 May 16, Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen was indicted on charges of spying for Moscow. Hanssen later pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

(AP, 5/16/02)

2001 May 16, Nathaniel Brazill, a 14-year-old boy who shot his English teacher to death on the last day of the school year, was convicted of second-degree murder in West Palm Beach, Fla. Brazill was later sentenced to 28 years in prison.

(AP, 5/16/02)

2001 May 16, Timothy McVeigh was scheduled for execution by injection and the event was set to show on closed-circuit TV at an Oklahoma City site restricted to 200 people. The execution was postponed to June 11.

(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)

2001 May 16, The DJIA rose 342 to 11,215. The Nasdaq rose 80 to 2,166.

(SFC, 5/17/01, p.B1)

2001 May 16, In Colombia Ronald de Jesus Arrollave, a La Terraza leader, was dragged from his Medellin home and shot to death by 15 hooded gunmen. FARC rebels kidnapped Lothar Hintze, a German businessman, at a tourist complex that he was building in Prado. He was released April 5, 2006.

(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A12)(AP, 4/6/06)

2001 May 16, In Sierra Leone rebels and pro-government militias agreed to end hostilities and begin disarmament.

(SFC, 5/17/01, p.A12)

2001 May 16, In Turkey a Casa CN-235 military transport plane crashed and killed 34 people, mostly special-forces soldiers returning from a Kurdish region.

(SFC, 5/17/01, p.A12)



2002 May 16, The White House defended President Bush for not disclosing intelligence before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden wanted to hijack U.S. airplanes, saying there had been no specific threat.

(AP, 5/16/03)

2002 May 16, David Berg (81), Mad magazine artist, died. He began his “The Lighter Side of" comic strips for Mad Magazine in 1961 and continued for 365 subsequent issues. He also wrote and drew 17 Mad books along with “My Friend God and “Roger Kaputnik and God."

(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

2002 May 16, Astronomers announced the discovery of 11 more moons orbiting Jupiter bringing the total number to 39.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A9)

2002 May 16, In Afghanistan coalition forces came under fire in eastern Paktia province. Some enemy fighters were reported killed. Fire from an AC-130 gunship killed about 10 people, possibly local tribe members.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A11)(SSFC, 5/19/02, p.A4)

2002 May 16, In Belgium the parliament approved a euthanasia bill that would give terminally ill patients the right to die under limited conditions.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)

2002 May 16, In China the state phone industry was divided into 2 competing parts: China Telecom and China Netcom.

(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A12)

2002 May 16, In Cuba former US Pres. Jimmy Carter met with over 20 dissidents and urged them to continue fighting for democratic change and human rights.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A14)

2002 May 16, In the Dominican Republic legislative and municipal elections were held. The ruling Dominican Revolutionary Party of Pres. Hipolito Mejia claimed victory.

(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A13)

2002 May 16, A military court convicted Toujan Faisal, Jordan's 1st female lawmaker, of harming the government's reputation in an open letter accusing the PM of financial wrongdoing. She was sentenced to 1 ½ years in prison.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)

2002 May 16, Liberian forces claimed to have stopped the rebel offensive to have killed 100 in the process.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)

2002 May 16, In Karachi, Pakistan, police uncovered a body believed to be WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A11)

2002 May 16, PLO Pres. Yasser Arafat agreed to revamp his cabinet and hold elections within 6 months.

(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A1)



2003 May 16, President Bush launched his re-election campaign.

(AP, 5/16/04)

2003 May 16, The US Senate committed $15 billion to fight global AIDS. Congress approved the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In his Jan 28, State of the Union address Pres. George W. Bush had made a commitment to substantially increase US support for addressing HIV/AIDS worldwide.

(AP, 5/16/04)(www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/115411.pdf)

2003 May 16, Bosnia signed an agreement with the United States on Friday that exempts Americans from prosecution by a new international criminal court.

(AP, 5/17/03)

2003 May 16, In northeastern Congo rival tribes fighting signed a cease-fire. There were over 100 confirmed killings and evidence of cannibalism.

(AP, 5/16/03)(SFC, 5/20/03, p.A8)

2003 May 16, Slovak voters began a two-day referendum to reaffirm their nation's top foreign policy goal to be membership in the European Union.

(AP, 5/16/03)

2003 May 16, In Morocco suicide attackers set 5 nearly simultaneous explosions in the heart of Casablanca, killing 33 people and a dozen suicide bombers at a Jewish community center, the Belgian consulate, a Spanish social club and a major hotel. The attackers all came from the shantytown of Carriere Thomas. In 2007 a Paris court convicted eight people of supporting the suicide bombers.

(AP, 5/17/04)(SFCM, 3/27/05, p.10)(AP, 7/12/07)



2004 May 16, The United States announced a new initiative to speed up the approval process for new combination AIDS drugs that was designed to bring cheap, easy-to-use treatment to millions of people in Africa and the Caribbean.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2004 May 16, Dominican Republic President Hipolito Mejia sought a second term in an election. Leonel Fernandez, former Dominican leader (1996-2000), reclaimed the presidency in a vote that reflected frustration with the nation's worst economic crisis in decades. A polling-station shooting left 3 people dead.

(AP, 5/16/04)(AP, 5/17/04)(WSJ, 5/17/04, p.A1)

2004 May 16, Gunmen In Baghdad fired on a minibus, killing two Iraqi women who worked for the U.S.-led coalition. Assailants in a southern city killed a coalition translator and critically injured another.

(AP, 5/16/04)

2004 May 16, It was reported that a Scottish bus firm had begun issuing DNA “spit kits" help drivers verify assault charges on passengers spitting at drivers.

(SSFC, 5/16/04, p.A2)

2004 May 16, Pope John Paul II named six new saints, including Gianna Beretta Molla, revered by abortion foes because she'd refused to end her pregnancy despite warnings it could kill her. Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician, died in 1962 at age 39, a week after giving birth to her fourth child.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2004 May 16, In Uganda rebels killed 22 civilians during a raid on a Gulu district camp set up for refugees.

(AP, 5/22/04)



2005 May 16, A US Senate report detailing alleged misuse of the program said almost one third of the oil allocations granted under the United Nations' 1996 to 2003 Iraqi Oil-for-Food program went to Russian parties or individuals.

(AFP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, The US Supreme Court in Swedenburg v. Kelly ruled 5-4 that wine lovers may buy directly from out-of-state vineyards if those states allow direct shipments from in-state wineries. Vintner Juanita Swedenburg (1925-2007) had filed her suit against a New York state law in 2000.

(AP, 5/16/05)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.A6)

2005 May 16, Army Specialist Sabrina Harman was convicted at Fort Hood, Texas, of six of the seven charges she faced for her role in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. She was sentenced to six months in prison after testimony about her acts of kindness toward Iraqis before she became an Abu Ghraib guard.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2005 May 16, Newsweek magazine retracted its Quran abuse story that sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan that left about 15 people dead and scores injured.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2005 May 16, In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, police found Mark McKenzie (37), Brenda (40) and Slade Groene (13) bound and slain. Shasta Groene (8) and Dylan Groene (9) were missing. Shasta was found alive July 2.

(AP, 5/18/05)(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.A18)

2005 May 16, In Afghanistan 4 armed men kidnapped Clementina Cantoni (32), an Italian relief worker, from her car in Kabul. Authorities described the group as thieves.

(AP, 5/17/05)

2005 May 16, In Brazil thousands of landless farmers, organized as the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), swarmed into Brasilia.

(Econ, 5/21/05, p.39)

2005 May 16, In Brazil the Indian rights group Survival International said logging companies were cutting down the forest in the Rio Pardo area, about 1,400 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, despite repeated reports that there were isolated Indians in the region.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, Many French workers ignored the new national "Day of Solidarity," an extra work day in place of the annual Pentecost holiday, that was part of the government's response to a 2003 heat wave that killed 15,000 people. Under a new law workers give up a holiday, while their employers pay into a government fund to improve health care for the aged and handicapped.

(AP, 5/15/05)(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A10)

2005 May 16, In southern India firecrackers illegally stored in a home in Hassan exploded, killing eight people.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, In Iraq 8 more bodies were found executed by insurgents. Attacks left at least 24 Iraqis dead.

(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A1)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A1)

2005 May 16, The Kuwait Parliament extended political rights to women, but religious fundamentalists who opposed women's suffrage succeeded in attaching a clause requiring future female politicians and voters to abide by Islamic law.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, Mexican President Vicente Fox regretted any hurt feelings for saying that Mexicans in the United States were doing the work that even blacks wouldn't.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2005 May 16, Nepalese troops resumed their search for hundreds of children taken hostage by Maoist insurgents in the mountains of western Nepal. In the latest fighting, 4 rebels, 3 army soldiers and a policeman were killed in Sandheni area, about 100 miles southeast of Kathmandu. Meanwhile, Nepal's anti-corruption agency charged former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and five others with embezzling $53 million.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, Senior Russian officials said Russia is prepared to reduce its strategic nuclear arsenal below 1,500 warheads, less than the level agreed to with the United States, but Moscow is concerned about nuclear threats on its border.

(AP, 5/17/05)

2005 May 16, In Sri Lanka at least one man was killed and four wounded in fresh violence, as international aid donors tried to nudge the island's warring parties to revive peace talks.

(AFP, 5/17/05)

2005 May 16, In Turkey 2 Kurdish guerillas trying to attack the home of a Turkish governor were killed after police fired on them as they approached the building.

(AP, 5/16/05)

2005 May 16, Gunfire persisted in the eastern city of Andijan where Uzbek security forces fired on protesters last week, a clash that reportedly left several hundred dead. New accounts emerged that violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more.

(AP, 5/16/05)



2006 May 16, The Pentagon released the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the military headquarters building and killing 189 people on 9/11.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2006 May 16, The US State Department apologized to Bangladesh's national carrier, Biman, after a flight was barred from landing at New York's JFK Airport on May 13. The airline said that it would seek compensation for the financial losses it suffered due to the FAA decision.

(AFP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Seven African-American members of the US Congress were arrested at the Embassy of Sudan, where they were protesting atrocities in that country's Darfur region.

(AP, 5/17/06)

2006 May 16, The US Postal Service approved a one-year trial that allows businesses to purchase custom postage from private companies that contract with the Postal Service.

(SFC, 6/1/06, p.A1)

2006 May 16, After months of intense pressure, the director of Los Angeles' J. Paul Getty Museum agreed to recommend to the museum's board to return ancient artifacts in its collections that Greece claims were illegally spirited out of the country.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Richard Hatch, who had won $1 million in the debut season of "Survivor," was sentenced in Providence, R.I., to more than four years in prison for failing to pay taxes on his reality TV prize and other income.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2006 May 16, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden, the winningest coaches in Division I-A football, were elected to the college football Hall of Fame.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2006 May 16, Militants attacked a police post and a government office near Afghanistan's rugged eastern border with Pakistan and a gunbattle killed four people and wounded seven.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Bolivia's leftist government outlined its plan to redistribute idle land to poor peasants, ruling out mass expropriations and proposing instead the distribution of state-owned property.

(Reuters, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, In Brazil an unprecedented crime wave, that killed at least 97 people and terrified the 18 million residents of Sao Paulo, seemed to be waning as stores reopened and bus service was fully restored. Police struck back at gangs that rampaged through Sao Paulo, killing 33 suspected gang members in less than 24 hours and frisking motorists at roadblocks while reporting only one death of their own.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Colombian-born Pablo Rayo Montano, one of the world's most hunted drug traffickers was arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as part of an international crackdown. He was accused of shipping more than 70 tons of cocaine to the United States.

(AP, 5/17/06)

2006 May 16, Yang Tianshui, a freelance writer, was sentenced to 12 years in prison amid one of China's most severe media crackdowns since the 1980s. Yang was convicted after being accused of posting articles on foreign Web sites, receiving money from abroad and helping a would-be opposition party.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, In Colombia farmers and members of indigenous tribes clashed with police during protests against a free-trade agreement with the US and the re-election of President Alvaro Uribe, and protest leaders said an Indian farmer was killed.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, The UN mission Congo said Innocent Kaina, one of the founding members of a militia group in northeastern Congo, has been wounded and captured in fighting with the Congolese army.

(Reuters, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Scientists warned that tropical forests, which house El Salvador's famed coffee plantations and provide habitat for migrating birds, are being depleted at an alarming rate.

(Reuters, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Fiji's indigenous-dominated governing party led the Indian-dominated opposition after a second day of general election vote-counting, with voters polarized along racial lines.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, France's PM Dominique de Villepin was in the firing line as parliament debated a no confidence motion filed by the opposition over the Clearstream dirty tricks scandal. Jean-Luis Gergorin, a senior executive at EADS, was later identified as the anonymous informer who tried to link important politicians to secret bank accounts in Luxembourg.

(AP, 5/16/06)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.63)

2006 May 16, Militants raided a parking lot in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. The shot dead 5 militiamen working as guards and left behind a car bomb that killed 18 would-be rescuers. A roadside bomb near Rasheed airfield killed a US soldier. Suspected insurgents attacked a police patrol in Kirkuk, killing two policeman. Gunmen in eastern Baghdad killed police 1st Sgt. Latif Abdullah, who worked in Interior Ministry intelligence.

(AP, 5/16/06)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A8)

2006 May 16, In Iraq gunmen kidnapped UAR diplomat Naji Rashid al-Nuaimi (28) as he left the home of the United Arab Emirates' cultural affairs attache in Baghdad's Mansour district. On May 30 it was reported that Al-Nuaimi was released.

(AP, 5/17/06)(AP, 5/31/06)

2006 May 16, Irish rock star Bono began a new African tour in Lesotho where he planned to unveil a new initiative to fight AIDS in its ailing textile industry.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Italy’s top sporting body put the national football federation under emergency rule as prosecutors looked into a match-fixing scandal involving the Juventus team of Turin in 19 games in the 2004-05 season.

(Econ, 5/20/06, p.53)

2006 May 16, Electronics giant Sony Corp said it will launch the world's first notebook personal computer equipped with a next-generation Blu-ray optical disk drive on June 24.

(AFP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of Parliament, said she will resign and leave Holland after the government said she was improperly granted citizenship. She became an internationally known opponent of some violent types of Islam.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake occurred deep under the South Pacific near an uninhabited chain of islands north of New Zealand.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, The Nigerian Senate rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in office in 2007.

(AFP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, In northwestern Pakistan suspected Islamic militants ambushed a convoy of security forces, setting off a shootout that left at least 7 militants and one security official dead.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Shooting attacks in the Gaza Strip left one Hamas member dead and two others wounded.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Saudi newspapers reported that King Abdullah has told Saudi editors to stop publishing pictures of women as they could make young men go astray.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, In Somalia fighting between Islamic militias and rival secular fighters killed two people on the outskirts of Mogadishu, despite a weekend cease-fire ending days of bloodshed in the capital.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, South Korean prosecutors indicted Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo in an embezzlement and slush fund scandal. He was later convicted of embezzling $90 million from his company. In August, 2008, he was pardoned by Pres. Lee Myung-bak.

(AP, 5/16/06)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.13)

2006 May 16, The UN Security Council passed a resolution pressing Sudan to cooperate with the United Nations as it prepares take over peacekeeping in Darfur from an underfunded African Union force.

(AP, 5/16/06)

2006 May 16, Vietnam's PM Phan Van Khai (70) said he has nominated Deputy PM Nguyen Tan Dung (56) as his successor.

(AP, 5/16/06)



2007 May 16, Anti-war Democrats in the US Senate failed in an attempt to cut off funds for the Iraq war.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2007 May 16, British PM Tony Blair paid a farewell visit to President Bush at the White House.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2007 May 16, Paul Wolfowitz began to negotiate the terms under which he would resign from the World Bank.

(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A3)

2007 May 16, The DJIA rose 103.69 to a record 13,487.53. Nasdaq rose 22.13 to 2,547.

(SFC, 5/17/07, p.C1)

2007 May 16, The journal Nature said that a bird count had found common US species, like robins, crows and bluebirds, in sharp decline due to West Nile virus. A US Geological survey in June found that populations of 20 common American bird species have dropped by half in the last 40 years.

(WSJ, 5/17/07, p.A1)(SFC, 6/15/07, p.A11)

2007 May 16, In Algeria bombs killed a police officer and wounded five other people on the eve of parliamentary elections, prompting fears of renewed Islamist extremism.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, British army chief of staff, announced that Prince Harry would not go to Iraq because of "specific threats" to his life that would expose the prince and his fellow soldiers to unacceptable risk. The prince did end up serving in Afghanistan for 10 weeks, until word of his deployment got out.

(AP, 5/17/07)(AP, 5/16/08)

2007 May 16, In Canada some 3,200 track workers at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. began a national strike over failed talks on wages and other issues.

(Reuters, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Zheng Xiaoyu, China's former top drug regulator, went on trial accused of taking bribes to approve untested medicine, including an antibiotic that killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market. Zheng was fired in 2005 on charges he took up to $780,000 in bribes to approve medicine that had not been tested to ensure its safety. He was expelled earlier this year from the ruling Communist Party.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In northern Colombia Diana Patricia Pena (36) was abducted by armed men with her husband, Roland Erik Larson (68), at their farm. Pena soon escaped but Larson was still missing.

(AP, 5/20/07)

2007 May 16, Following a six-decade wait, Estonia's 3,000-strong Jewish community inaugurated its new and only synagogue in Tallinn in the presence of top Israeli dignitaries.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Nicolas Sarkozy took office as France's president.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In northwestern Haiti gunmen killed journalist Alix Joseph (38), shooting him 11 times outside his fiancé’s house.

(AP, 5/17/07)

2007 May 16, Indian company United Spirits bought Scottish liquor maker Whyte and Mackay for more than one billion dollars, emphasizing India's growing economic clout abroad.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In southern Iraq clashes broke out in the mostly Shiite city of Nasiriyah, when a militia fought with police there after they arrested two wanted militia members, police said. Nine Iraqis were killed and 75 wounded. At least nine apparent mortar rounds slammed into the US-controlled Green Zone, wounding at least six people, the second such attack in as many days.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Council Meeting in Paris approved a decision to open accession discussions with Israel.

(Econ, 4/5/08, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/2h2frt)

2007 May 16, An Israeli helicopter launched missiles at a Hamas command center in the southern Gaza Strip, after Hamas fired rocket barrages into Israel in an apparent attempt to draw Israel into increasingly violent Palestinian infighting. At least 19 people were killed in factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas.

(AP, 5/16/07)(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A12)

2007 May 16, Japanese officials said the landlocked nation of Laos has agreed to join the International Whaling Commission at Japan's request and is highly likely to support Tokyo's high-profile pro-whaling campaign.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed limited political reforms in the oil-rich country he has headed since the Soviet era, including shortening the presidential term from seven years to five and strengthening the powers of parliament.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In Mexico over 40 armed men abducted and killed 4 police officers south of the Arizona border.

(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A3)

2007 May 16, Thomas Frank White, a US businessman, was convicted of raping a teenage boy and sentenced to more than 7 years in jail in Mexico. White, who founded the brokerage firm Thomas White & Co. in 1978, was arrested in Thailand in 2003 at the behest of Mexican officials and later extradited.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Nigerian militants used dynamite to blow up a home of vice president-elect Goodluck Jonathan, killing two police officers.

(AFP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In northwestern Pakistan suspected pro-Taliban militants firing mortars and machine guns attacked a police checkpoint, and at least five civilians were killed in the ensuing gunbattle.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond was elected to become first minister of the devolved Edinburgh parliament, after the pro-independence party's historic election victory this month.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, In Somalia a roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying African Union peacekeepers, killing four Ugandan peacekeepers in one of the deadliest attacks on the troops since they arrived in March.

(AP, 5/16/07)

2007 May 16, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend its peacekeeping mission in Congo until the end of the year while calling for a timetable to gradually withdraw the nearly 18,000-member force.

(AP, 5/16/07)



2008 May 16, Under pressure from Congress the US Energy Dept. said it would temporarily suspend filling the US strategic oil stocks. Oil futures rose to a record $126.29 on the NY Mercantile Exchange. Pres. Bush signed a bill to stop the filling on May 19.

(SFC, 5/17/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/20/08, p.A1)

2008 May 16, Robert Mondavi (b.1913), the pioneering vintner who helped put California wine country on the map, died at his Napa Valley home. He was 52 and a winemaking veteran in 1966, when he opened the winery that would help turn the Napa Valley into a world center of the industry.

(AP, 5/16/08)(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A1)

2008 May 16, Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez (17), a pregnant Mexican migrant worker, died after succumbing to heat stroke from laboring more than 9 hours in a San Joaquin County, Ca., vineyard.

(AP, 3/9/11)

2008 May 16, Osama bin Laden said in a new audio recording that al-Qaida will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, A bomb hit a group of Afghan soldiers during a foot patrol in southern Kandahar province. One soldier was killed and three were wounded. In eastern Khost province, joint Afghan and foreign forces attacked insurgents as they were planting roadside bombs before dawn. A brief gun battle left two militants dead. Another wounded insurgent later died at a military hospital. US-led coalition and Afghan troops called in airstrikes during the raid on a compound suspected of housing militants involved in bomb making activities. Afghan and foreign troops in western Farah province bombed a Taliban hideout where two hostages were being held, leaving eight militants dead.

(AP, 5/16/08)(AP, 5/17/08)

2008 May 16, In Australia protesting pensioners brought traffic to a stand still in Melbourne when some stripped to demand more money from the government.

(AFP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, In Canada Nancy Michaud (37), a political aide in Quebec, was disappeared from her home in Riviere-Ouelle. Her body was found the next day in an abandoned home. Francis Proulx was charged with her murder.

(www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/427352)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A4)

2008 May 16, In China a strong aftershock sparked landslides near the epicenter of this week's powerful earthquake, while some survivors were pulled from rubble after being buried for four days. The official death toll rose to about 22,069, and another 14,000 still were buried in Sichuan.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez was favored to win a third term, despite concerns over long-serving politicians in this Caribbean nation with a painful history of rule by strongmen.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki offered members of armed groups in Mosul an amnesty in exchange for surrendering their weapons. Ali Mansour Mohammed, an Iraqi detainee, was shot and killed by US soldiers at or near their forward operating base, Summerall, near Beiji. 1st Lt. Michael C. Behenna and Staff Sgt. Hal M. Warner were later charged with the shooting.

(AP, 5/16/08)(AP, 9/21/08)

2008 May 16, The EU aid chief said that Myanmar's junta still would not budge on accepting foreign relief workers, two weeks after the cyclone tragedy. State media said the death toll had risen to nearly 78,000.

(AP, 5/16/08)(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.A1)

2008 May 16, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan was freed unharmed three months after he vanished in a tribal area in the border region. Tariq Azizuddin had disappeared Feb. 11 along with his driver and bodyguard as they drove from Peshawar toward the border.

(AP, 5/17/08)(SSFC, 5/18/08, p.A9)

2008 May 16, In Peru European and Latin American leaders concluded their 5th summit in a decade and pledged to fight poverty, global warming and high food prices, presenting a show of unity amid a festering conflict between two South American nations.

(AP, 5/17/08)

2008 May 16, In the Philippines at least 8 bank employees and a security guard were lined up and shot dead in the head in a bloody bank robbery in Cabuyao, Laguna province. Another employee was in critical condition at a hospital. On May 30 Ricardo Gomolon (38), a former soldier, was among three people arrested over the murder of 10 people in one of the Philippines' deadliest bank robberies. 2 suspects were still at large.

(AP, 5/16/08)(AFP, 5/30/08)

2008 May 16, Pres. Bush arrived in Saudi Arabia and appealed for increased oil production just as prices hit another record high.

(AP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, Sri Lankan ground troops killed at least 16 Tamil Tiger rebels while air force fighter jets bombed guerrilla targets in the island's north. The offensive came hours after a suicide bomber rammed into a police bus in the capital of Colombo, killing 11 people and injuring more than 80.

(AFP, 5/17/08)

2008 May 16, London-based Tullow Oil Plc announced the discovery of oil reserves in western Uganda, boosting hopes for the energy-starved east African nation.

(AFP, 5/16/08)

2008 May 16, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe acknowledged he had suffered an electoral disaster in losing a first round against arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai, as the date for a run-off was fixed for June 27.

(AFP, 5/16/08)



2009 May 16, President Barack Obama reached across the political divide and named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2012, to the sensitive diplomatic post of US ambassador to China.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, In Maryland Rachel Alexandra won the second leg of the Triple Crown. She joined an impressive list when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness.

(AP, 5/17/09)

2009 May 16, In North Oakland, Ca., motorist Anthony Perea (27) and pedestrian Floyd Ross (41) were killed when 4 suspects in a Berkeley homicide fled police and crashed. Stephon Anthony and Anthony Price were arrested. 2 other suspects, later identified as Rafael Campbell (27) and Samuel Flowers (21), escaped. The suspected gang members had just killed Charles Davis (25) in West Berkeley. Flowers was arrested on May 25 in Florida. Campbell was arrested in Sacramento on Nov 17.

(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.B1)(SFC, 5/20/09, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.B2)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.B5)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.C5)

2009 May 16, In Afghanistan 6 militants, including a "foreign national," were killed in a clash with troops in Uruzgan province. 5 Taliban insurgents who were preparing suicide vests in a house in central Ghazni province were killed when some of the explosives detonated.

(AP, 5/17/09)

2009 May 16, In Britain David Chaytor, a ruling party lawmaker, became the latest casualty of a growing row over MPs' expenses when he was suspended, as police said they would examine whether the issue merited an investigation. He was reprimanded after The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he claimed 13,000 pounds (14,500 euros, 19,700 dollars) for mortgage interest on a loan that had already been paid off. He has said he will repay the amount.

(AFP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, In Cuba President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance to draw attention to gay rights on the island.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, In Egypt 13 factory workers were killed when their small pickup truck crashed head on into a large lorry in southern Egypt.

(AFP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, In Germany tens of thousands of workers from across the country marched through downtown Berlin to call for increased government measures to protect their jobs.

(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.A6)

2009 May 16, In Hong Kong two bottles of acid were thrown into a crowd in a popular downtown shopping district. 30 people suffered burns but none was seriously injured. On the same street in December, 46 people suffered burns when two plastic bottles filled with acid were thrown at pedestrians.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh's ruling coalition won an overwhelming election victory, boosting hopes of a stable government as the emerging Asian power faces economic downturn and tensions with Pakistan. The Congress party won 206 seats, short of the 272 needed for a parliamentary majority. The BJP won just 116 of 545 seats.

(Reuters, 5/16/09)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.48)

2009 May 16, A joint US-Iraqi force targeted an al-Qaida cell involved in funneling arms and weapons into Iraq from Syria, arresting three people over the last 24 hours near Mosul. A mortar round crashed into a house in the eastern part of Baghdad, killing a 2-year-old child and wounding three others. Two policemen were killed west of Baghdad by a roadside bomb that went off near their patrol. In southern Iraq an American soldier was killed during combat.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which hopes to take control of the country in elections later this year, chose Yukio Hatoyama, the grandson of a former prime minister, as its chief.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Japan said 8 high school students had tested positive for swine flu amid fears the virus was spreading in at least two cities where scores of students said they felt ill.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Kuwaitis voted in the second parliamentary election in a year. 210 candidates for the 50-seat parliament included 16 women. Kuwaiti women won political rights in 2005, and practiced them for the third time. Kuwait’s population of about 3.4 million people included 2.3 million foreign workers. Kuwaitis elected 4 women and rejected a number of Islamic fundamentalist candidates. 21 incumbents lost their seats.

(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.50)

2009 May 16, Ziad al-Homsi, a mayor of a Lebanese village, was arrested by Lebanese special forces and later jailed for 15 years for spying for Mossad. He served three years.

(AP, 5/7/13)

2009 May 16, In central Mexico an armed gang freed 53 inmates from the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas state, including two dozen with ties to a powerful drug cartel, in a daring raid that took just five minutes. Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina said footage from the security cameras inside and outside the prison indicates that guards helped the armed gang. The bodies of two men were found shot to death in central Michoacan state. Federal police came under fire as they raided a Cuernavaca building where four of suspects were arrested, including 3 police officers. A fifth suspect was also arrested as an alleged hit man.

(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)

2009 May 16, Norway’s fiddle-wielding Alexander Rybak (23), dubbed 'Alexander the Great' by Norwegian media, won a landslide victory in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow for his song "Fairytale," gaining the most points in Eurovision's 53-year history.

(AP, 5/17/09)

2009 May 16, In Pakistan a suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles at militants in the North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region. Pakistani intelligence agents said the militants were preparing to cross into Afghanistan to fight there and among the 28 dead were two Arabs. A car packed with mortar bombs blew up in the city of Peshawar, killing 11 people including four children passing in a school bus.

(Reuters, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, In Russia riot police violently broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the Russian capital hosted the major Eurovision international pop music competition.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, The gay community in tightly controlled Singapore held its first-ever rally, taking advantage of looser laws on public gatherings to call for equality.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Sri Lankan forces seized control of the island's entire coastline for the first time in decades, sealing the Tamil Tigers in a tiny pocket of territory and cutting off the possibility of a sea escape by the rebels' top leaders.

(AP, 5/16/09)

2009 May 16, Sudan accused Chad of mounting a second series of air strikes on its territory and said the conflict between the African neighbors must be resolved politically.

(AFP, 5/16/09)



2010 May 16, In San Francisco some 60,000 people participated in the 99th Bay to Breakers run. Lineth Chepkurui (22) of Kenya broke her record in the 12-km run with a time of 38 min. and 7 sec. Sammy Kitwara was the winner for the men.

(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A1)

2010 May 16, In San Francisco Pearla Louis (52) was last seen alive at the Harcourt Hotel on Larkin St. Later this month her body washed up in a suitcase along the Embarcadero. On June 15, 2017, her boyfriend Lee Bell (55) was convicted of first-degree murder. On April 26, 2018, Bell was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

(SFC, 6/13/17, p.C2)(SFC, 6/16/17, p.D1)(SFC, 4/27/18, p.D1)

2010 May 16, Rima Fakih (b.1986), a Lebanese-born immigrant and crowned as Miss Michigan, became the first Arab-American woman to win the Miss USA pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rima_Fakih)

2010 May 16, In Detroit, Michigan, Aiyana Jones (7) was killed by a Detroit police officer during a raid at the girl's home. State police were brought in to investigate the shooting. Detroit police were searching for a homicide suspect when they burst in and an officer's gun went off, fatally striking the girl in the neck. The police were being shadowed by a reality television crew. In Oct 2011 officer Joseph Weekley was indicted for involuntary manslaughter. On Jan 30, 2015, the last charges against Weekly were dismissed after two trials ended without verdicts.

(AP, 5/17/10)(SFC, 10/5/11, p.A7)(SFC, 1/31/15, p.A7)

2010 May 16, In NYC 2 off-duty police officers were killed and 4 women injured when their car hit a guardrail in the Bronx.

(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A4)

2010 May 16, Scientists said oil from a blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 10 miles long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, as BP wrestled for a third day with its latest contraption for slowing the nearly month-old gusher.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, An Afghan official said a mystery disease infecting opium poppies in Afghanistan could cut this year's illicit crop in some areas by up to 70 percent. A US service member was killed following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan. 2 militants on a motorbike opened fire on a car belonging to a National Security Directorate official who was on his way to work. The intelligence official's driver was killed. The appellate court of the Afghan Criminal Justice Task Force reported that drug-traffickers from the provinces of Nangarhar, Herat, Kapisa, Helmand, Panjshir, Kunar, Kandahar and Wardak were fined and sentenced to prison last week. Militants shot and killed Rahman Gul, a prominent Muslim cleric who had called for peace, along with two members of his family in Kunar province. 2 US service members died in southern Afghanistan. One was killed in an insurgent attack, and the other died of injuries sustained a day earlier.

(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/17/10)

2010 May 16, In eastern Bangladesh a speeding bus plunged off a bridge after slamming into another bus, killing 11 people and injuring 32 others.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, In Brazil Marina Silva, former rubber tapper turned environmentalist, joined the presidential race as candidate for the small Green Party on Sunday, pledging clean government and sustainable development.

(Reuters, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Aviation officials closed airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland due to a drifting, dense cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, About 20 armed pirates boarded the MV North Spirit, a cargo ship carrying fertilizer and soya beans, as it docked off Cameroon's commercial capital of Douala. Pirates kidnapped two Russian sailors during the attack.

(AP, 5/19/10)

2010 May 16, In China Xie Yulin (20), a cleaver-wielding man, attacked and wounded 6 women before jumping to his death in the southern city of Foshan. One of the women died the next day.

(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/18/10)

2010 May 16, In Cuba the government said private farmers will purchase supplies directly in future instead of having them allocated by the state, in the latest concession to their demands for more autonomy.

(Reuters, 5/17/10)

2010 May 16, Dominicans were expected to expand the ruling party's strong congressional majority elections that could strengthen President Leonel Fernandez's grip over the legislature.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese migrant as he attempted to cross the border illegally into neighboring Israel.

(AFP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Clotilde Reiss (24), a young French academic who battled spying charges in Iran for more than 10 months, returned to France and thanked President Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials for insisting on her innocence and pressing for her release.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Hong Kong held by-elections triggered by pro-democracy lawmakers seeking to pressure Beijing into speeding up the pace of electoral reform in the territory. Most Hong Kongers stayed away from special elections that five opposition lawmakers had triggered. A low turnout returned five opposition legislators who had resigned. Beijing loyalists called the engineered election a failure.

(AFP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/17/10)

2010 May 16, In India at least two people died in a stampede at a railway station in New Delhi as thousands of passengers waited to board trains.

(AFP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, In Iran Brazil's Pres. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva met with Iranian leaders to try to broker a compromise in the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, even as the US says new sanctions are the only way to force Iran's cooperation.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, In Iran acclaimed filmmaker and opposition supporter Jafar Panahi went on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. He was this month freed on a bail of around 200,000 US dollars. Panahi is known for his gritty, socially critical movies such as the "Circle," which bagged the 2000 Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold," and "Offside," winner of the 2006 Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival.

(AP, 5/19/10)(AP, 1/19/11)

2010 May 16, Iran arrested Mohsen Armin, a senior member of the banned reformist party, the Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution. He was released from Tehran's Evin prison in July after posting a bail of $200,000.

(AFP, 7/25/10)

2010 May 16, Honduran strongman Oswaldo Lopez Arellano (89) died. He led two military coups and served as president from 1963-1971 and 1972-1975.

(AP, 5/17/10)

2010 May 16, Israel inaugurated a huge new desalination facility on its Mediterranean seashore, with a network of pipes beneath the beach reaching far into the ocean. The $425 million Hadera plant is the world's largest using reverse osmosis technology.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Thousands of Japanese linked hands and encircled a Marine Corps base in Okinawa to protest its presence on the island, putting more pressure on Tokyo to resolve an impasse over the base's future.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Pakistan’s military killed 58 suspected militants in the northwestern Orakzai tribal region with a mix of airstrikes and ground combat, the latest violence in a months-long campaign to rout Taliban fighters from a mountainous area near the Afghan border. Militants who kidnapped 60 people at gunpoint the day before released 40 of their hostages. Another 10 people told the local government they managed to escape the militants. The kidnappers kept the wealthier men so they could demand ransom from their families.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Hamas police wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers. Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Residents said between 30 and 40 homes were torn down.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, In the Philippines Muslim guerrillas said that they were ready to enter into peace talks with Philippine president-apparent Benigno Aquino III after years of little progress under his predecessor.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi resigned from the helm of Al-Watan daily in a move believed linked to official displeasure with articles critical of the state's harsh Islamic rules.

(AFP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, In Singapore Oliver Fricker (32), a Swiss citizen, broke into a train depot with an accomplice and painted graffiti on two subway carriages. On June 25 a court sentenced Fricker to five months' jail and three strokes of a cane. On Aug 18 he asked a judge to reduce his five-month jail term for graffiti, but instead got two months added to his sentence, showing the lengths the city-state will go to maintain its reputation as a safe and clean place.

(AP, 8/18/10)

2010 May 16, In Somalia Islamist rebels shelled the newly rebuilt parliament in Mogadishu, sparking clashes with government forces and African Union peacekeepers that left 11 civilians dead.

(AFP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Thailand's main emergency medical center said 30 people have been killed in four days of street fighting between Red Shirt protesters and troops in central Bangkok. The latest deaths raise to 59 the number of people killed in related violence since April 10. Most of the dead are civilians.

(AP, 5/16/10)

2010 May 16, Yemeni tribesmen kidnapped two Chinese engineers and their government escorts in the country's volatile south. Kidnappers released the engineers after several days of mediation.

(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/18/10)

2010 May 16, Zimbabwe's PM Morgan Tsvangirai called for an immediate Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit to resolve major disagreements stalling a power-sharing government with his long-time rival President Robert Mugabe.

(AP, 5/16/10)



2011 May 16, The US and Pakistan agreed to work together in any future actions against "high value targets" in Pakistan, even as US Sen. John Kerry defended Washington's decision not to tell Islamabad in advance about the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, The US reached its legal $14.3 billion debt limit. Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner said the government can move money around until about Aug 2, when the Obama administration would be forced to choose between paying creditors or paying for military operations. America’s debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since 1962.

(SFC, 5/17/11, p.A6)(Econ, 5/14/11, p.96)

2011 May 16, The US Treasury Department said that China cut its holdings by $9.2 billion to $1.14 trillion, its 5th straight month of trimming.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Rahm Emanuel (b.1959) took office as Chicago’s 55th mayor. He cut $75 million form the city’s bloated budget on his first day.

(Econ, 8/20/11, p.30)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel)

2011 May 16, Las Vegas marked the end of an era as one of the US gambling mecca's last original "Rat Pack" casino-hotels, the Sahara, closed its doors.

(AFP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Jerry Lewis (85) said he is retiring as host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Labor Day telethon. Lewis planned to continue as the association’s national chairman, a role he has held since the early 1950s.

(SFC, 5/17/11, p.A5)

2011 May 16, Endeavour blasted off on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight, thundering through clouds into orbit as the mission commander's wounded wife, Gabrielle Giffords, watched along with an exhilarated crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, In southern Afghanistan 4 NATO service members were killed in an explosion.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald said a development application has been lodged for a Aus$12 million (US$12.7 million) extension to the Stiletto brothel, which proposes doubling its size to 40 working rooms and 21 waiting rooms.

(AFP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, British scientists said they have found that a gene, called KLF14, linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a "master switch" that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.

(Reuters, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, In Canada wildfires whipped by high winds destroyed more than a third of a sizable town in northern Alberta and forced oil companies in Canada's largest energy-producing province to shut off tens of thousands of barrels of output.

(Reuters, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Egyptian riot police fired tear gas and live ammunition overnight to disperse thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and a security official said that at least 185 demonstrators were arrested over allegations of attacking police and vandalism.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, An Egyptian military court sentenced the 17-year-old and three other men to be hanged for kidnapping and raping a young woman.

(Reuters, 5/18/11)

2011 May 16, Guatemala declared a 30-day state of emergency for the northern Peten region following the brutal massacre of 27 people at a cattle ranch. President Alvaro Colom called the killings sadistic and perverse, and said they were the work of a drug gang believed to be part of a group called "Z 200." On Feb 21, 2014, nine men were convicted for the murders. They included 3 Mexican men and six Guatemalans.

(AP, 5/17/11)(SSFC, 2/23/14, p.A4)

2011 May 16, In Iraq two members of the security forces were killed and two Norwegian contractors injured in attacks in Baghdad, part of a recent uptick in violence as US troops prepare to leave the country by year's end.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, The Israeli military blocked a Malaysian anti-war group's ship from reaching the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Malaysian group, the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, said its ship was fired at when it tried to reach Gaza. The military denied firing at the ship.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Israeli authorities arrested John Lund (70), a retired US lecturer, on suspicion of trafficking antiquities stolen from Israel. Lund was allowed to leave after posting a $7,500 bond meant to guarantee he will return to stand trial.

(AP, 5/18/11)

2011 May 16, Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara told citizens of Burkina Faso that they are welcome to return to his country, and vowed to put an end to the xenophobia and racial targeting that characterized his predecessor's regime.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court prosecutor, sought an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi accusing him of committing crimes against humanity by killing protesters during an uprising against his 41-year rule.

(Reuters, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Libya's oil minister, Shukri Ghanem, reportedly defected and fled to Tunisia, one of the highest profile figures to abandon Moammar Gadhafi's government. Ghanem’s defection was later questioned as he maintained ties to oil firms. Overnight air strikes by NATO set fire to two buildings near Kadhafi's compound in the Libyan capital.

(AP, 5/17/11)(AFP, 5/17/11)(Reuters, 5/24/11)

2011 May 16, Results from Lithuania's census carried out this year show that the country's population has fallen more than 10 per cent over the past decade. Statistics Lithuania says the Baltic country that borders Belarus and Poland now has 3.05 million residents, compared with more than 3.4 million in 2001. The census was carried out from March to May this year.

(www.litnews.lt/litnews/news.htm)

2011 May 16, In southern Mexico gunmen opened fire on four local police officers, killing them and two bystanders in the downtown area of Coyuca de Catalan, Guerrero state.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, In Pakistan a Saudi diplomat was killed in a hail of bullets on his way to the country's consulate in Karachi, the second attack on Saudi interests in Pakistan's biggest city in less than a week.

(AFP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, In Poland representatives of millions of Poles, whose property was seized during and after World War II, met for a national congress that lashed out at the Cabinet of PM Donald Tusk for recently abandoning a plan to partly compensate families, many of them Jewish, whose property was confiscated by the Nazis and the subsequent Communist regime.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, announced plans to lead Right Cause, a liberal Russian political party with close ties to the Kremlin. Critics referred to the party as fake opposition to help give Russia a semblance of multiparty democracy.

(SFC, 5/17/11, p.A2)

2011 May 16, In Somalia a bomb explosion in Mogadishu killed five pro-government troops at a base militants fled last week. An AU spokesman said his forces began an operation May 12 that has gained 500 yards (meters) of territory from insurgents.

(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 16, Syrians fleeing their homeland described a "catastrophic" scene in the besieged border town of Talkalakh that has been largely sealed off as the army strove to crush a two-month uprising. Talkalakh is a Sunni city, surrounded by 12 Alawite villages.

(AP, 5/16/11)



2012 May 16, The text for America’s Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of this year was introduced. It banned cannabimimetic agents as defined by the effects they have on the brain.

(https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s3190/text)(Econ 5/20/17, p.20)

2012 May 16, The new $1.4 billion int’l. air terminal opened at Hartsfeld-Jackson Atlanta Int’l. Airport.

(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A8)

2012 May 16, Mary Kennedy (52), ex-wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was found dead at her Bedford, NY, home. She was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s second wife. Suicide was suspected.

(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A11)

2012 May 16, Australia said it will contribute $100 million annually for three years beginning in 2015 toward the $4 billion a year cost of running the Afghan National Security Forces after they take responsibility for their country's security.

(AP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, In Bangladesh a Dhaka court decision denied bail to 33 key figures, including ex-ministers and lawmakers, over charges stemming from an arson attack during an anti-government protest last month.

(AFP, 5/17/12)

2012 May 16, In Brazil the Rio Negro crested at 97.7 feet after flooding the center of the Amazon jungle city of Manaus.

(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A2)

2012 May 16, Cambodian security forces fatally shot a teenage girl during a clash with villagers in Kratie province. The clashes were a result of violent evictions aimed at clearing land for development.

(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A2)

2012 May 16, Human Rights Watch said Congolese Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, already sought on an international arrest warrant for his alleged use of child soldiers during an earlier conflict, has forcibly recruited another 149 boys and teenagers since April. The UN said Rwandan rebels have killed at least 50 civilians so far this month in the volatile east.

(AP, 5/16/12)(AFP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, In France Jean-Marc Ayrault, previously the mayor of Nantes, took office as the new prime minister. He replaced Francois Fillon.

(SFC, 5/16/12, p.A2)(Econ, 11/17/12, SR p.4)

2012 May 16, French energy giant Total said it had plugged a gas leak under the North Sea Elgin platform that cost the firm hundreds of millions of dollars and threatened to trigger a major explosion off the coast of Scotland.

(AFP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, In French Guiana an Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched two Asian telecoms satellites into orbit from the Kourou space center. It placed into orbit two geostationary satellites, the JCSAT-13 for the Japanese SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, and the VINASAT-2 of the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group.

(AFP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, Greece appointed Panagiotis Pikrammenos (67), head of the Council of State, to head a caretaker government until new elections expected on June 17.

(SFC, 5/16/12, p.A3)

2012 May 16, Guinea-Bissau’s interim leader Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo named Rui Duarte Barros, a former finance minister, to serve as the new prime minister and help lead a transition following last month's coup.

(AFP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, In western Libyan clashes in the Berber city of Ghadamis (Ghadames) left six dead and at least 20 injured.

(AP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, Pakistan said it has ordered officials to finalize an agreement as quickly as possible on lifting a six-month blockade on overland NATO supplies into war-torn Afghanistan.

(AFP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, The top Palestinian anti-corruption campaigner said Mohammed Rashid, the shadowy financial adviser of the late Yasser Arafat, is being sought on suspicion he stole millions of dollars in public funds. Rashid became Arafat's top financial adviser when the Palestinian Authority was established, following interim peace deals with Israel.

(AP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, Syrian regime troops shot dead at least five people in a new assault on the town of Khan Sheikhun and opened fire on a refugee camp in southern Daraa province. In an interview with Russian TV Pres. Assad insisted his regime is fighting back against foreign mercenaries who want to overthrow him.

(AFP, 5/16/12)(AP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 16, In southern Yemen clashes between government troops and al-Qaida fighters left 19 people dead including 13 militants. US troops, operating from a desert air base near the main battle zones, helped to coordinate assaults and airstrikes.

(AP, 5/16/12)



2013 May 16, Florida authorities said a shipment of gold with a declared value of $625,000 has gone missing in a suspected heist at Miami International Airport.

(Reuters, 5/1/13)

2013 May 16, Heinrich Rohrer (79), Swiss physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1986), died in Switzerland. He is regarded as the father of nanotechnology.

(Econ, 6/1/13, p.90)

2013 May 16, Four British LulzSec hackers, who pleaded guilty to a series of high-profile cyberattacks on computers in the US and Britain, were sentenced to up to 32 months in prison.

(SFC, 5/17/13, p.A2)

2013 May 16, In Cambodia the ceiling of a factory, a Taiwanese-owned operation called Wing Star, collapsed on workers, killing 2 people and injuring 7. The firm made sneakers for Asics, a Japanese sportswear label.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed his car into a US convoy in Kabul, killing at least 15 people including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors. Islamic militant group Hizb-e-Islami claimed responsibility for the early morning bombing.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, The Brazilian Congress approved legislation to modernize and expand its overcrowded ports, attract private investments to the sector and make it easier for companies to hire skilled foreign workers, in a bid to spur economic growth.

(AP, 5/17/13)

2013 May 16, In southern China more than 2,000 people unfurled banners in Kunming and shouted "Protest! Protest!" to oppose plans for a petroleum refinery. Local authorities allowed the large environmental rally to go forward in order to let the public vent frustration.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, In Egypt masked gunmen ambushed two taxis at gunpoint outside the city of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai governorate, fleeing with four border policemen working at the Rafah crossing, a riot policeman, and a military border guard. A 7th person was also taken captive. All 7 men were released on May 22.

(AP, 5/16/13)(AP, 5/17/13)(AP, 5/22/13)

2013 May 16, In France, a dozen students and a teacher saw a man kill himself with a shot in the head at a private Catholic school. People expressed surprise that the man gained access to the private La Rochefoucauld school, in the heart of Paris' 7th district.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, Flights in Greece were halted for four hours as the country's two largest labor unions staged work stoppages to protest austerity measures and the government decision to cancel a teachers' strike.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, In India 3 cricketers and a dozen bookmakers were arrested for alleged match-fixing in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

(Econ, 5/25/13, p.18)

2013 May 16, Indonesia’s Pres. Yudhoyono extended a 2-year moratorium on forest clearing concessions for another 2 years.

(Econ, 5/25/13, p.40)

2013 May 16, In Iraq car bombs struck Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and Mosul, killing 21 people. Gunmen in Baghdad shot dead the brother of a Sunni lawmaker.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, Israeli police temporarily barred Israeli Jews and tourists from entering the most hotly contested Jerusalem holy site following Palestinian demonstrations.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, In Jordan a British-made aerobatic T-67 Firefly trainer crashed near the Syrian border, killing its two Jordanian pilots.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, In northern Nepal a plane crashed while trying to land at a mountain airstrip. All 21 people on board, including 8 Japanese tourists, survived with injuries.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, Soldiers in northeast Nigeria shelled suspected camps of Islamic extremists in the first military action of a new offensive against the insurgents, killing at least 21 people in the Sambisa Forest Reserve. In a firefight in the town of Daura near the Niger border, two government soldiers were killed and an officer was wounded while two members of Boko Haram were killed. Three other Boko Haram fighters died when their vehicle crashed while attempting to flee the scene.

(AP, 5/17/13)

2013 May 16, Pakistan says it will conduct a recount or re-do the vote for eight national assembly seats following allegations of vote rigging in the recent election. The Pakistan Muslim League-N party led by former PM Nawaz Sharif has won 124 seats so far, setting it up to form the next government.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, Levada Center, Russia's only independent polling agency, was told by prosecutors to register as a foreign agent.

(Econ, 6/1/13, p.53)

2013 May 16, In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, vegetable seller Muhammad Harissi set himself on fire after police confiscated his goods for standing in an unauthorized area. He died the next day.

(AP, 5/19/13)(Econ, 7/13/13, SR p.10)

2013 May 16, Syrian rebels withdrew from a prison in the northern city of Aleppo after heavy fighting with government troops. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights more than doubled its tally of deaths from the May 3 sectarian killings in Banias. A video emerged showing a Nusra Front commander killing 11 regime soldiers execution-style for alleged crimes they committed against the Syrian people.

(AP, 5/16/13)

2013 May 16, Taiwan announced a 2nd wave of sanctions against Manila in response the Philippines coast guard’s fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman on May 9.

(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.A4)

2013 May 16, A Vietnamese satellite TV company stopped airing international channels including BBC and CNN, citing a law which came into effect a day earlier.

(AP, 5/16/13)



2014 May 16, US Federal safety regulators slapped General Motors with a record $35 million fine for taking more than a decade to disclose an ignition-switch defect in millions of cars that has been linked to at least 13 deaths. On June 5 GM said it has forced out 15 employees for their role in the ignition-switch scandal.

(AP, 5/16/14)(SFC, 6/6/14, p.C1)

2014 May 16, California firefighters were battling wind-whipped wildfires, as some 125,000 people fled their homes in the San Diego area and police arrested at least two people on arson-related charges.

(Reuters, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, Clyde Snow (b.1928), American forensic anthropologist, died in Norman, Ok. His work took him around the world to examine the slaughter of innocents.

(Econ, 5/24/14, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Snow)

2014 May 16, In Utah 4 undocumented immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador were killed when a crowded van crashed on Interstate 70. Agents detained three of four men who survived the crash and continued to search for a woman who fled the scene.

(AP, 5/21/14)

2014 May 16, Four British sailors went missing after their yacht, Cheeki Rafiki, capsized about 1,000 miles off Cape Cod, Mass.

(Reuters, 5/19/14)

2014 May 16, In China the leader of a baby trafficking ring that brought 23 boys and pregnant women from Vietnam was sentenced to death. The court in the southern region of Guangxi gave another 23 members of the group sentences ranging from less than two years to life in prison.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, Colombia's government and main rebel group (FARC) announced an agreement to jointly combat illicit drugs in the South American country, which was long the world's leading cocaine producer.

(AP, 5/17/14)

2014 May 16, Dominican Rep. legislators unanimously approved a bill they say would allow thousands of people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic the opportunity to obtain naturalized citizenship. Pres. Danilo Medina singed the legislation on May 23. Some 200,000 remained undocumented.

(AP, 5/16/14)(Econ, 5/31/14, p.31)

2014 May 16, German authorities said they have arrested a Mexican man (44) at the Frankfurt Airport after finding his suitcase full of snakes, turtles and lizards, including endangered species.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, Dozens of Guatemalan war survivors and human rights activists protested against a congressional resolution that denies there was any attempt to commit genocide during the country's bloody 36-year civil war.

(AP, 5/17/14)

2014 May 16, India’s opposition candidate Narendra Modi thundered to victory, with partial results showing that the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party trounced the ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in a seismic political shift.

(Reuters, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, In Iraq separate attacks killed 5 members of an anti-militant Sunni militia. An al-Qaida splinter group claimed responsibility for a spate of Baghdad bombings that killed at least 19 people the day before.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, In Kenya at least 10 people were killed and 70 wounded in two explosions in Nairobi.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, In eastern Libya fierce fighting broke out between army troops believed to be loyal to rogue Gen. Khalifa Hifter (Haftar) and two influential militias in the city of Benghazi. More than 70 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

(AP, 5/16/14)(Reuters, 5/18/14)

2014 May 16, Mexican authorities arrested Leonor Nava Romero (45), the leader of a gang responsible for trafficking drugs from the southwestern state of Guerrero to the United States, in Tecpan de Galeana, Guerrero.

(AP, 5/17/14)

2014 May 16, Suspected Boko Haram rebels from Nigeria attacked a Chinese work site near Waza in northern Cameroon and at least 10 people were believed to have been kidnapped.

(Reuters, 5/17/14)(Econ, 7/26/14, p.43)

2014 May 16, Filipinos and Vietnamese residents in Manila staged a joint protest against China's incursions into South China Sea territories claimed by their countries.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, Russia's Proton-M booster rocket failed and broke apart during a test launch, just months after a shake-up in the country's space agency that was meant to boost its dented image.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, South Africa said it has suffered its first elephant poaching incident in 10 years this week at the country's largest game reserve.

(Reuters, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, In Syria rebels fired a rocket that struck a government-held neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 13 people.

(AP, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, Turkish police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several thousand protesters in the town of Soma, where 301 people died in the country's worst ever mining disaster this week.

(Reuters, 5/16/14)

2014 May 16, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned a cut in water supplies in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo that he said has deprived at least 2.5 million people of access to potable water. Rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front shut down main water pumping station in Aleppo nearly two weeks ago to punish civilians living on the government-controlled side of the divided metropolis.

(AP, 5/17/14)



2015 May 16, In southern California Hao Zhang was arrested after arriving from China for a scientific conference. A 32-page indictment charged him and five others, still in China, with economic espionage in a case that went back to 2006.

(SFC, 5/20/15, p.A10)

2015 May 16, In Washington state hundreds of activists in kayaks and small boats fanned out on a Seattle bay to protest plans by Royal Dutch Shell to resume oil exploration in the Arctic and keep two of its drilling rigs stored in the city's port.

(Reuters, 5/17/15)

2015 May 16, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban militants blocked roads in Paktia province, forcing cars to stop and kidnapping the occupants at gunpoint. Six people were still being held out of the 22 initially abducted.

(AP, 5/16/15)

2015 May 16, Burundi officials said five generals have been arrested for plotting a failed coup led by Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombare, who remained in hiding.

(SSFC, 5/17/15, p.A2)

2015 May 16, In China Indian PM Narendra Modi got down to business on the final day of his trip, saying his country was open for investment as firms signed deals worth more than $22 billion.

(AFP, 5/16/15)

2015 May 16, In northern China a chemical leak killed 8 people and injured two others in Yangcheng County, Shanxi province. The carbon disulfide leak occurred at a plant belonging to the Ruixing chemical company.

(AP, 5/17/15)

2015 May 16, An Egyptian court sentenced former president Moh