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Today in History - August 13
662 Aug 13, Maximus Confessor (b.c580), Greek theologian, died.
1415 Aug 13, King Henry V of England took his army across the English Channel and laid siege on the French port of Harfleur.
(ON, 6/08, p.9)
1422 Aug 13, William Caxton (d.1491), 1st English printer, was born.
(http://en.thinkexist.com/birthday/August_13/)(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1521 Aug 13, Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez conquered the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) after an 85-day battle. Cuauhtemoc fought against Cortes in Tlatelolco when Moctezuma surrendered. Cortez had an Indian mistress named La Malinche.
(NG, 6/1988, p.763)(AP, 8/13/97)(TL-MB, p.12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/24/98, p.A15)
1608 Aug 13, John Smith's story of Jamestown's 1st days was submitted for publication.
1624 Aug 13, French King Louis XIII named Cardinal Richelieu his first minister.
(HN 8/13/97)
1630 Aug 13, Emperor Frederick II of Bohemia fired Albrecht von Wallenmanders, his best military commander.
1642 Aug 13, Christian Huygens discovered the Martian south polar cap.
1651 Aug 13, Litchfield, Connecticut, was founded.
1655 Aug 13, Johann Christoph Denner, inventor of the clarinet, was born.
1704 Aug 13, The Battle of Blenheim, Germany, was fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, resulting in a victory for English and Austrian forces. The Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Austria defeated the French Army at the Battle of Blenheim. In 1705 Joseph Addison wrote the poem "The Campaign" for the Duke of Marlborough to commemorate the military victory over France and Spain at the Battle of Blenheim: "Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.A6)
1732 Aug 13, Voltaire's "Zaire," premiered in Paris.
1787 Aug 13, The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.
1792 Aug 13, Revolutionaries imprisoned the French royal family, including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. [see Aug 10]
1802 Aug 13, Nikolaus Lenau, German poet (Faust, Die Albigenser), was born in Hungary.
1814 Aug 13, Treaty of London-Netherland was signed to stop the transport of slaves. By agreement Britain paid the Dutch £6 million in compensation for the Cape of Good Hope. [see May 30]
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)(MC, 8/13/02)
1818 Aug 13, Suffragist Lucy Stone, women's rights activist, founder of Woman's Journal, was born in West Brookfield, Mass.
(HN 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)
1820 Aug 13, George Grove, biblical scholar, musicographer (Grove's Dictionary), was born in London, England.
1826 Aug 13, Major Gordon Laing, Scottish explorer, became the 1st European to enter Timbuktu (Mali), where some 12,000 people lived. Laing was killed by a Tuareg nomad spear on Sep 26 as he headed for Morocco. In 2005 Frank T. Kryza authored "The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold."
(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.D6)(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.M2)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.75)(ON, 11/06, p.6)
1833 Aug 13, The Bank of the US under Nicholas Biddle began to contract its loans.
(Panic, p.4)
1840 Aug 13, Giovanni Verga, Italian writer (Eros), was born.
1846 Aug 13, The American flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles.
1849 Aug 13, Hungary's Gen. Gorgey surrendered to the Russian forces. Russia gave Hungary back to Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.448)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1851 Aug 13, John Lincoln Clem (d.1937), drummer (last survivor of Union Volunteers), was born.
1860 Aug 13, Annie Oakley (d.1926), sharp-shooter and entertainer, was born in Darke County, Ohio, as Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee (Mosey). She became a markswoman and toured with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.
(WUD, 1994, p.992)(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.2)(HN, 8/14/98)
1860 Aug 13, Montenegro's Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš (1841-1921) was still in Paris when, in consequence of the assassination of his uncle Danilo I, he succeeded as prince.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9vj8zsm)
1864 Aug 13, Battle of Deep Bottom, Va., (Strawberry Plains) and Fussell's Mill, Va.
1865 Aug 13, Ignaz Semmelweis (b.1818), Hungarian gynecologist, died from an infection in Vienna after being beaten up by warders in an asylum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)(Econ, 3/13/10, p.57)
1868 Aug 13, A magnitude 9.0 quake in Arica, Peru (later Chile), generated catastrophic tsunamis; more than 25,000 people were killed in South America.
1876 Aug 13, Reciprocity Treaty between US and Hawaii was ratified.
1876 Aug 13, Richard Wagner's monumental epic, "Ring of the Nibelung" premiered with 4 operas on 4 consecutive nights) at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany. Wagner had begun writing the opera in 1848.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen)(Econ, 6/25/16, p.73)
1878 Aug 13, Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev, composer, was born.
1879 Aug 13, John N. Ireland, English composer, pianist (Mai-Dun), was born.
1881 Aug 13, The first African-American nursing school opened at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.
1882 Aug 13, William Jevons (b.1835), English economist, drowned while bathing near Hastings. His book "The Theory of Political Economy" (1871) declared that value depends entirely upon utility.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.84)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley_Jevons)
1888 Aug 13, John Logie Baird, inventor (father of TV), was born in Scotland.
1889 Aug 13, The first coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Conn. A foreman had refused to let Gray call his sick wife from the company phone.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 8/13/08)
1892 Aug 13, The first issue of the "Afro American" newspaper was published in Baltimore, Maryland.
1898 Aug 13, Manila, the capital of the Philippines, fell to the U.S. Army under Adm. George Dewey. It was later reported that Dewey had agreed to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers in order to give Spanish officers, who had retained dead soldiers on payroll, a chance to report heavy fatalities back to Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_(1898))(SSFC, 6/29/08, DB p.58)
1899 Aug 13, Alfred Hitchcock (d.1980), movie director, was born in London. "A woman, I always say, should be like a good suspense movie: The more left to the imagination, the more excitement there is. This should be her aim -- to create suspense, to let a man discover things about her without her having to tell him."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)(AP, 8/13/99)
1902 Aug 13, Felix Wankel, inventory of the rotary engine which bears his name, was born in Germany.
(HN, 8/13/00)(MC, 8/13/02)
1906 Aug 13, At Fort Brown, Texas, some 10-20 armed men engaged an all-Black Army unit in a shooting rampage that left one townsperson dead and a police officer wounded. A 1910 inquiry placed guilt on the soldiers and Pres. Roosevelt ordered all 167 discharged without honor. In 1970 John Weaver (d.2002) authored "The Brownsville Raid," an account of the incident that led the Army to exonerate all 167 men.
1907 Aug 13, Alfred Alwin Felix Krupp, arms manufacturer, was born in Essen, Germany.
1907 Aug 13, The 1st taxicab began operating in NYC. [see May 31]
1910 Aug 13, Florence Nightingale (90), British nurse famous for her care of British soldiers during the Crimean War, died. In 2004 Gillian Gill authored "Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale." In 2008 Mark Bostridge authored Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon."
(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M3)(AP, 8/13/07)(WSJ, 10/21/08, p.A17)
1911 Aug 13, In San Francisco 10 members of the Industrial Workers of the World were arrested during a riot in North Beach. Speakers had been addressing a crowd denouncing all forms of government along with a tirade against the pope.
(SSFC, 8/14/11, DB p.42)
1912 Aug 13, Ben Hogan, American golfer (US Open 1950, 51, 53), was born in Dublin, Tx.
1912 Aug 13, Jan Peeters, Dutch water colors painter, monumental artist, was born.
1912 Aug 13, Jules E.F. Massenet (70), French opera composer (Werther, Manon), died.
1913 Aug 13, Makarios III, [Michail Moeskos], archbishop, president Cyprus, was born.
1914 Aug 13, Carl Wickman began Greyhound, the 1st US bus line, in Minnesota.
1916 Aug 13, Daniel Schorr, radio and television correspondent, was born.
1919 Aug 13, Rex Humbard, televangelist, was born.
1920 Aug 13, George Shearing, blind pianist, composer (Lullaby of Byrdland), was born in London.
1923 Aug 13, US Steel Corp. initiated an 8-hour work day.
1923 Aug 13, The Turkish National Congress selected Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) as president.
1926 Aug 13, Fidel Castro, revolutionary leader, president, was born in Biran, Cuba.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)(HN, 8/13/98)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1928 Aug 13, Fernand de La Tombelle (b.1854), French composer, died.
1930 Aug 13, Captain Frank M. Hawks, superintendent of the Aviation Division of Texaco, flew a red-and-white Travel Air monoplane from Los Angeles to New York in 12 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds. According to Hawks' own widely publicized account, the Travel Air performed flawlessly, with an average airspeed of 215 mph. Hawks made three 15-minute refueling stops during the 2,510-mile journey. He battled a rainstorm, crosswinds, hunger and a thick haze that made "the ground barely visible at 8,000 feet," but reached New York City in time for dinner.
(HNPD, 8/20/99)
1932 Aug 13, Adolf Hitler refused President Hindenburg's offer to serve as Franz Von Papen's vice chancellor saying he was prepared to hold out "for all or nothing."
1934 Aug 13, The satirical comic strip "Li'l Abner," created by Al Capp, made its debut.
1934 Aug 13, United Aircraft was removed from the DJIA. National Distillers and Chemical Corp. was added.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1937 Aug 13, Japanese attacked Shanghai.
1939 Aug 13, Saul Steinberg, American artist (The Art of Living, New Yorker Magazine), was born in Romania.
1940 Aug 13, Der Adler Tag (Eagle Day) was the name given to the day the German Luftwaffe launched an all-out offensive against the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft industry in southern England. With this action, Adolf Hitler hoped to knock out any aerial resistance to his planned invasion of the British Isles. RAF fighter pilots successfully held off the numerically superior Luftwaffe, in spite of the loss of 415 pilots out of a force of 1,500.
1941 Aug 13, Red army evacuated Smolensk.
1942 Aug 13, Walt Disney's animated feature "Bambi" premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The film was a watered down version of a 1923 novel by Felix Salten. The animated cartoon featured "Thumper" the bunny. The Bambi character was imbued with poetic quality by Chinese-born artist Tyrus Wong (1910-2016).
(SFEC, 5/11/97, DB p.37)(WSJ, 10/14/97, p.A20)(AP, 8/13/99)(SFC, 1/2/17, p.A10)
1943 Aug 13, Harold E. Stearns (b.1891), American journalist, died. His books included "Liberalism in America" (1919). He also edited the influential "Civilization in the United States An Inquiry by Thirty Americans" (1922), the book that inspired many dissatisfied young Americans to go abroad.
(www.bookrags.com/biography/harold-edmund-stearns-dlb/)(WSJ, 1/4/08, p.W5)
1944 Aug 13, In NYC Lucien Carr stabbed to death David Kammerer following sexual advances by Kammerer, who had been Carr's Boy Scout Scoutmaster during his youth. Carr turned himself in and was later sentenced to 20 years, but served only 2 years in prison at Elmira Correctional Facility in upstate, NY. Lucien Carr later introduced Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs to each other.
(www.rooknet.com/beatpage/info/info_carr.html)
1945 Aug 13, 35 Jews sacrificed their lives to blow up a Nazi rubber plant in Silesia.
1946 Aug 13, Britain transferred illegal immigrants bound for Palestine to Cyprus.
1946 Aug 13, H.G. Wells (b.1866), sci-fi author (Time Machine), died in London.
1948 Aug 13, During the Berlin Airlift, the weather over Berlin became so stormy that American planes had their most difficult day landing supplies. They deemed it 'Black Friday.'
1953 Aug 13, 4-5 million French went on strike against economizations.
1960 Aug 13, The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1, a balloon satellite.
1960 Aug 13, Central African Republic became independence from France and David Dacko was named 1st president.
(PC, 1992, p.973)(EWH, 1st ed., p.1173)(MC, 8/13/02)
1960 Aug 13, The Soviet Union withdrew advisors, aid and other support from China.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.A14)(MC, 8/13/02)
1961 Aug 13, Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. Two days later, work began on the Berlin Wall.
1963 Aug 13, A 17 year-old Buddhist monk burned himself to death in Saigon, South Vietnam.
1965 Aug 13, In SF the Jefferson Airplane made its first public performance opening at the new Matrix club at 3138 Fillmore Street. Band co-founder Marty Balin (1942-2018) held an ownership interest in the club.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.4)(SFC, 11/17/08, p.E4)(SFC, 9/29/18, p.A9)
1965 Aug 13, The Berkeley Barb, an underground weekly, debuted in Berkeley, Ca. The radical paper, founded by Max Scherr, continued for fifteen years.
1967 Aug 13, The movie "Bonnie and Clyde," starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, had its US premiere.
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999), the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis (1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1971 Aug 13, Britain requested to exchange US dollars for gold. This prompted Pres. Nixon on August 15 to suspend such conversions.
1973 Aug 13, Pres. Nixon instituted general wage and price controls. Phase IV controls went into effect for the general economy and lasted until Economic Stabilization Program (ESP) expired on April 30, 1974.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.C1)(www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/432.html)
1978 Aug 13, In a Palestinian area of Beirut, Lebanon, a bomb killed 100 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1979 Aug 13-1979 Aug 14, A force 9 gale off the southwest coast of Ireland left 15 yachtsmen of the 28th Fastnet Race dead.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Fastnet_race)
1981 Aug 13, In a ceremony at his California ranch, President Reagan signed a historic package of tax and budget reductions, also known as the Kemp-Roth tax cuts. Abstinence-only sex education programs were introduced under Pres. Reagan. Sponsors Rep. Jack Kemp and Sen. William Roth, had hoped for more significant tax cuts, but settled on this bill after a great debate in Congress. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1981 included a rider known as the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA), sponsored by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Jeremiah Denton (Alabama). AFLA set aside a small but significant amount of federal money to be used for the promotion of abstinence, as well as religious instruction in sexual matters within the public schools. In the first four years following implementation of the tax reform act annual revenues were reduced by almost 2% of GDP.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Recovery_Tax_Act_of_1981)(AP, 8/13/01)(Econ, 11/19/16, p.66)
1986 Aug 13, In Texas Christine Morton was found beaten and killed in her Williamson County home. Her husband Michael Morton was convicted and spent 25 years in prison before being freed in 2011 after DNA evidence showed another man was responsible. On April 19, 2013, a judge ruled that former DA Ken Anderson had acted improperly and issued an arrest warrant on criminal contempt and tampering charges.
(SFC, 10/5/11, p.A7)(SFC, 4/20/13, p.A4)
1987 Aug 13, A rented Piper Cherokee airplane flew close to President Reagan's helicopter in restricted airspace over Southern California; the pilot and passenger of the plane were arrested.
1987 Aug 13, On the fifth anniversary of a bull market, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at 2,691.49 after briefly surpassing 2,700.
1988 Aug 13, Vice President George Bush contemplated a list of potential running mates as Republicans gathered in New Orleans for their party's national convention.
1989 Aug 13, The space shuttle Columbia returned from a secret military mission.
1989 Aug 13, Thirteen people were killed when their hot air balloon collided with another over the Australian outback near the town of Alice Springs. The two balloons were flying at an altitude of 600 meters when one plunged to the ground after the collision.
1989 Aug 13, Searchers in Ethiopia found the wreckage of a plane which had disappeared almost a week earlier while carrying Texas Congressman Mickey Leland and 15 other people on a humanitarian mission. There were no survivors.
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)
1990 Aug 13, President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to the Persian Gulf for the second time since Iraq invaded Kuwait. American combat troops in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, were told to prepare for a long stay.
1990 Aug 13, Alejandro Otero (b.1921), Venezuelan painter of Geometric abstraction, a sculptor, a writer and a cultural promoter, died in Caracas.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Otero)
1991 Aug 13, VP Dan Quayle made a speech attacking lawyers.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1991-8/1991-08-13-CBS-4.html)
1991 Aug 13, Clark Clifford resigned as chairman of First American Bankshares Incorporated, a bank holding company the government said had been illegally acquired by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Clifford and law partner Robert Altman were indicted in 1992 on charges of lying to regulators and receiving bribes from BCCI; Altman was acquitted at trial, and remaining charges against both men were dropped.
1991 Aug 13, Jack Ryan (b.1926), designer and inventor (Barbie Doll, Hot Wheels), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(designer))
1992 Aug 13, "Real Inspector Hound" opened at Criterion in NYC for 61 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4691)
1992 Aug 13, President Bush announced that Secretary of State James A. Baker III was leaving his diplomatic post to be White House chief of staff in a shake-up designed to energize Bush's re-election campaign.
1992 Aug 13, Comedian, actor and director Woody Allen began legal action against actress Mia Farrow to win custody of their three children. A judge later ruled against Allen.
1993 Aug 13, Negotiators for the US, Canada and Mexico announced they had resolved side issues concerning the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1993 Aug 13, US Court of Appeals ruled that congress must save all e-mails.
(www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3691/is_199401/ai_n8732518)
1994 Aug 13, In his weekly radio address, President Clinton put Congress on notice that he wouldn't give up an assault weapons ban as the price to revive a crime bill stalled on Capitol Hill.
1994 Aug 13, NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner died at age 59.
1995 Aug 13, Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle died at a Dallas hospital of rapidly spreading liver cancer at the age of 63.
1995 Aug 13, Hans-Christian Ostro, a 27-year-old Norwegian who had come to India to study dance was found dead in the Pahalgam district with his severed head balanced between his thighs, close to the sight of a previous kidnapping by Kashmir guerillas.
1996 Aug 13, At their convention in San Diego, Republicans delivered a blistering critique of President Clinton's record, portraying the Democratic incumbent as an unprincipled liberal conning voters with election-year conservatism.
1996 Aug 13, Mary Higgins Clark, suspense writer, signed a 3-book contract with Simon & Schuster for $3 mil per book.
1996 Aug 13, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0.
(http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release33.html)
1996 Aug 13, In Belgium Marc Dutroux, on parole following rape charges, was arrested for kidnapping and the murder of 2 girls. In 2004 he was convicted of kidnapping and murder. His wife and 2 accomplices were also convicted.
1996 Aug 13, In Burundi the last 2 commercial flights left the country as the outside world tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
1996 Aug 13, In South Africa Nadthmie Edries, leader of a group called People Against Gangsterism, was charged with sedition in connection with the vigilante slaying of a drug-gang leader.
1996 Aug 13, In Spain at Perpignan a gang of masked men stole $800,000 in Spanish pesetas from the cargo hold of an Air France plane.
1997 Aug 13, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross wrapped up a four-day mission to the Middle East, during which he'd persuaded the Palestinians to resume security cooperation with Israel.
1997 Aug 13, In Detroit, Mich., Yolanda Bellamy was slain with 2 young sons, a niece and a nephew. A suspect was later arrested and jumped from a 5th floor police station window. He was critically injured.
1997 Aug 13, A NYC police officer of the 70th precinct in Flatbush was arrested for sexually assaulting a Haitian immigrant who was arrested in a nightclub fight. Officer Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a toilet plunger and then forced the handle into Louima's mouth. Volpe's partner, Thomas Bruder, was ordered off active duty and Mayor Giuliani ordered a shakeup and investigation. Officer Charles Schwartz was later arrested for his participation. Two more officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, were later arrested for beating Louima after his arrest. In 1998 federal civil rights charges were filed against the involved officers. Officer Volpe was jailed in 1999 after he pleaded guilty that he had sodomized Abner Louima. In 1999 Officer Schwarz was found guilty of holding Louima down. Officers Bruder, Wiese and Bellomo were acquitted. In 2000 officers Bruder, Schwartz and Wiese were convicted of covering up the assault on Louima. Schwartz was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. Bruder and Wiese were sentenced to 5 years each. In 2002 a federal appeals court overturned the convictions against Schwarz, Wiese and Bruder.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A4)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A3)(SFC, 6/28/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A3)
1997 Aug 13, In India the Supreme Court ordered the government to come up with legislation to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace.
1997 Aug 13, In Tehran, Iran, Ali Reza Khoshruy Kuran Kordiyeh ("the vampire") was flogged and hung for the rape, murder and burning of 9 women in a crime spree that began in March.
1997 Aug 13, From Panama it was reported that Pres. Balladares has given journalist Gustavo Gorriti until the end of the month to leave Panama. Mr. Gorriti had published investigative articles detailing the financial dealings of the president's election campaign, his allies and gentlemen of questionable character.
1997 Aug 13, In Russia the book "Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Sunset" by former bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov went on sale.
1997 Aug 13, From Russia it was reported that a helicopter accidentally had dropped a 2.3 ton lead box containing strontium 90 into 66 feet of water off Sakhalin Island.
1998 Aug 13, President Clinton led the nation in mourning 12 Americans killed in a pair of U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Standing before black hearses carrying 10 of the bodies, the president pledged to seek justice "for these evil acts."
1998 Aug 13, Oakland, Ca., declared a medical marijuana club a city agency.
1998 Aug 13, US border agents found 7 people dead in the Anza-Borrego Desert. They were believed to be illegal immigrants abandoned by their smuggler.
1998 Aug 13, In California Jack Jessee was stabbed to death by hit man, Thomas Joseph Garrick (36) of Laguna Hills. His wife had him murdered to avoid paying for his cancer treatment and to collect insurance money. Sandra Jessee was arrested in Phoenix in 2007. She had collected $650,000 after her husband's murder from the sale of their home, his death benefits and insurance.
(SFC, 3/24/12, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/7wx9dol)
1998 Aug 13, Jose Garcia Reyes (57), an unemployed tomato picker, was murdered at the edge of the UC Davis campus. Ruben Campos, Guadalupe Franklin and Juan Palomino were arrested for the murder but their prosecution fell apart due to alleged coercive interrogation tactics.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.A1,22)
1998 Aug 13, Julien Green (97), the first American to be elected to the Academie Francaise, died in Paris. The Catholic and homosexual writer produced 18 novels that included "Moira" and "Each in his Darkness." He also published 14 volumes of journals and 5 volumes of memoirs.
1998 Aug 13, In Bangladesh more rain left 11 more people dead and the death toll grew to 326.
1998 Aug 13, In Congo rebels seized a hydroelectric dam and cut off power to Kinshasa. Kabila fired his army chief in response.
1998 Aug 13, In Berlin, Germany, a monument to the Berlin Wall and the 255 people who died crossing it was dedicated at the corner of Ackerstrasse and Bernauer Strasse.
1998 Aug 13, The president of South Korea ordered an amnesty for 7,007 prisoners to mark the Aug. 15 50th anniversary of the Republic.
1998 Aug 13, Puerto Rico approved a Dec. 13 referendum for statehood.
1998 Aug 13, George Soros, in a letter to the Financial Times, called for the government of Russia to devalue its currency by 15-25%. The government insisted that it would not devalue and the ruble continued to drop.
1998 Aug 13, Three Russian cosmonauts lifted off for the second-to-last Mir mission.
1998 Aug 13, In Kosovo, Serbia, Ibrahim Rugova formed a delegation to begin talks with Pres. Milosevic.
1999 Aug 13, Tennis player Steffi Graf retired from the sport she had dominated for two decades.
1999 Aug 13, In Argentina protests and riots raged out of control in Neuquen province where unemployment was 40%. Skirmishes were also reported from Tucuman, Cordoba, Corrientes, and Tierra del Fuego.
1999 Aug 13, In Bogota, Colombia, motorcycle gunmen shot to death humorist and radio co-host, Jaime Garzon (39), in a killing that authorities later blamed on the leader of the country's right-wing paramilitary.
1999 Aug 13, Iran agreed under pressure to join Turkey for simultaneous military operations against the PKK.
1999 Aug 13, In Liberia 7 abducted aid workers were freed and some 90 other UN and foreign workers fled into Guinea to avoid fighting.
1999 Aug 13, Izvestia confirmed that 4 Russian helicopters were destroyed in Dagestan and that an SU-24 fighter plane was damaged.
1999 Aug 13, In Turkey the parliament made constitutional changes to overhaul the economy and bring in foreign investment.
1999 Aug 13, In Uganda troops were sent across the northeast to quell ethnic unrest following 155 killings in the past month. A clan of ethnic Karamajongs was attacked 2 weeks earlier by rival Karamajongs and Turkanans from northern Kenya and at least 140 people were killed.
2000 Aug 13, On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, 3500 protesters demonstrated against police brutality and in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row for killing a Philadelphia police officer.
2000 Aug 13, It was reported that physicist Humphrey Maris of Brown Univ. had reported findings in June to the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conference that challenged the indivisibility of electrons.
2000 Aug 13, In Kashmir 16 people were killed and dozens injured in explosions and gun battles across the province. 2 land mines killed 6 soldiers and 10 rebels died in battles with government troops.
(SFC, 8/14/00, p.A13)(SFC, 8/15/00, p.A14)
2000 Aug 13, Over 2,000 Somali leaders gathered in Djibouti to form a central government with a new 225-member parliament.
2000 Aug 13, Pres. Chavez of Venezuela held talks in Libya with Moammar Khadafy and proceeded to Nigeria to meet Pres. Obasanjo.
2001 Aug 13, It was reported that the US state-prison population had declined in 2000 for the 1st time since 1972.
2001 Aug 13, Elizabeth Cavanna Harrison (aka Betsy Allen or Elizabeth Headley), American romance writer, died in France at age 92. Her over 80 romances included "Going on Sixteen" (1945), and "Spice Island Mystery" 1970.
2001 Aug 13, In southeast Chechnya rebels seized the village of Benoi-Yurt. Pro-Moscow administrators were reported killed.
2001 Aug 13, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi tried to ease the anger of Asian neighbors by visiting a controversial war shrine two days before the actual anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender.
2001 Aug 13, In Macedonia a peace deal was signed by rival leaders of the 2 main ethnic groups and paved the way for NATO troops to arrive and disarm ethnic Albanian rebels. Representatives of the EU, USA and NATO helped Macedonian politicians produce a plan for peace at Lake Ohrid called the Ohrid agreement.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8j2yh)(AP, 8/13/02)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.62)
2002 Aug 13, President Bush hosted a half-day economic forum at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he assured Americans that his administration had a steady hand on the economy.
2002 Aug 13, American Airlines said it would eliminate 7,000 and cut flights.
2002 Aug 13, Angola reported the capture of Augustin Bizimungu, a key figure in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
2002 Aug 13, Deaths from flooding in Bangladesh (157), India (265) and Nepal (422) and reached at least 874.
2002 Aug 13, In Chechnya explosions rocked a bus in Grozny and Shali, killing at least five people and wounding several others.
2002 Aug 13, Vltava River floodwaters poured into a historic part of Prague, despite the frantic efforts of rescue workers to save the ancient Czech capital from rising river levels, which have forced tens of thousands to flee.
(Reuters, 8/13/02)(AP, 8/13/02)
2002 Aug 13, In India separatist guerrillas ambushed a truck in Meghalaya state and killed at least 15 people.
2002 Aug 13, In Nigeria the lower house called for the resignation of Pres. Obasanjo.
2002 Aug 13, Turkmenistan's Pres. Saparmurat Niyazov issued a decree that extends adolescence until age 25 and postpones old age until 85. His edict divides life into 12-year cycles. Childhood lasts until age 12. Next comes adolescence which will now last to age 25. Turkmen aged between 25 and 37 are considered youthful, while those aged between 27 and 49 years are mature. The next 12-year cycles are divided into periods labeled as prophetic, inspirational and wise.
2003 Aug 13, Arnold Schwarzenegger, candidate for governor of California, named Warren Buffet as his economic adviser. 135 candidates were certified.
2003 Aug 13, Florida's legislature approved a bill that capped most medical malpractice damage awards at $500,000.
2003 Aug 13, In southern Afghanistan a bomb ripped through a bus in Lashkargah, killing 15 people, including six children. Officials blamed al-Qaida and remnants of the Taliban militia for the bombing, the deadliest in nearly a year. Heavy fighting erupted between government soldiers and Taliban remnants. 43 deaths were reported in the fighting.
2003 Aug 13, Ontario health officials reported that a family doctor had become the 44th person to die from SARS in Toronto.
2003 Aug 13, Chinese researchers reported that they had created hybrid embryos of human and rabbit DNA as a source for stem cells.
2003 Aug 13, Iraq began pumping crude oil from its northern oil fields for the first time since the start of the war.
2003 Aug 13, In Iraq British Private Jason Smith (32) died of heat stroke as the local temperature passed the limits of available thermometers. An inquest in 2007 ruled that troops were not adequately advised on how to cope with high temperatures. In 2009 the British Ministry of Defense upheld an earlier judgment that the military had breached Smith's right to life.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.58)(www.operations.mod.uk/telic/smith.htm)
2003 Aug 13, Libya agreed to set up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed in the 1988 Pan Am bombing.
2003 Aug 13, Scientists are blaming global warming for falling fish harvests in Africa's Lake Tanganyika, threatening the diets of several poor nations.
2004 Aug 13, Hurricane Charley roared across Cuba, ripping apart roofs, downing power lines and yanking up huge palm trees on its way to Florida. Charley hit Florida with winds at 145mph. It flattened oceanfront homes, killed 23 people and left thousands more homeless.
(AP, 8/13/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP, 8/16/04)(WSJ, 8/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 13, Julia Child (91), the grande dame of US television cooking shows and books, died in Santa Barbara, Ca. During WWII she spent 3 years working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 2006 Her memoir "My Life in France," co-written with Alex Prud'homme, was published. In 1997 Noel Riley Fitch authored "Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child." In 2012 Bob Spitz authored "Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child."
(Reuters, 8/13/04)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.78)(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.M1)(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.D7)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.74)
2004 Aug 13, Australia's parliament approved a free trade pact with the United States.
2004 Aug 13, The FNL, a Burundian Hutu rebel faction, raided Gatumba camp, a UN refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death 160 people. The camp sheltered Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge.
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.37)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.44)
2004 Aug 13, In Colombia 3 outlawed paramilitary factions agreed to disarm immediately.
2004 Aug 13, Typhoon Rananim weakened to a tropical storm. The death toll from Rananim rose to 115, after it slammed into the China's southeastern coast.
2004 Aug 13, The Olympics opened In Athens. A sea of athletes under 202 flags parted to let a Greek windsurfing champion jog across the stadium and climb to the Olympic cauldron, which dipped on its slender 102-foot arm to receive the spark from his torch. Women's wrestling debuted as an Olympic sport.
(AP, 8/14/04)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
2004 Aug 13, In Calcutta a man convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl was executed, becoming the first person hanged for their crimes in India in nearly a decade. Apartment guard Dhananjoy Chatterjee (42) was executed for the 1990 rape and murder of a teenage schoolgirl.
2004 Aug 13, Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric negotiated to end fighting that has raged in the holy city of Najaf for 9 days, after American forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.
2004 Aug 13, An Islamic Web site posted still pictures that purportedly show Iraqi militants beheading an Egyptian man they claim was spying for the U.S. military.
2004 Aug 13, Lebanon criticized French efforts to ban the militant group Hezbollah's television station, saying the channel may be anti-Israeli but it is not anti-Semitic.
2004 Aug 13, In the Maldives 3,000 people gathered outside the police headquarters Friday demanding the release of prisoners. The government arrested 185 people, including a former minister and a one-time attorney general.
2004 Aug 13, A Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli security guard near a Jewish West Bank settlement before being slain himself.
2004 Aug 13, A southern Philippines court sentenced 17 members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militant group to death for kidnapping nurses from a hospital there three years ago.
2004 Aug 13, The first elements of a 300-strong African Union protection force left Kigali, Rwanda, for Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, Sudan.
2005 Aug 13, The Pentagon said for the second time since the Iraq war began, it was replacing body armor for US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, citing a need for better protection.
2005 Aug 13, Khosraw Basheri (23) claimed a historic title of Mr. Afghanistan in the country's first-ever national competition to select a top bodybuilder.
2005 Aug 13, US Marines and Afghan troops launched an offensive to take a remote mountain valley from insurgents tied to the deadliest blow on American forces since the Taliban regime was ousted nearly four years ago.
2005 Aug 13, James Petersen (51), a Univ. of Vermont anthropology professor on a research trip to Brazil, was killed while he was being robbed in Iranduba near the Amazon River. Three suspects were taken into custody.
2005 Aug 13, Britain's tax-funded National Health Service is unsustainable and should be scrapped, the country's most senior doctor said, but the country's largest health union warned that any change to the NHS' founding principles would lead to a "public outcry".
2005 Aug 13, A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north. Scientists later said that it could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes in 2007.
2005 Aug 13, It was reported that Delhi's water board (DJB) planned a $246 million water project with $140 million financed by the World Bank. As in many Indian cities 16 million people in Delhi suffered chronic water shortages.
2005 Aug 13, The death toll in India from water-borne diseases following floods in Bombay and surrounding areas two weeks ago rose to at least 125.
2005 Aug 13, In Indian Kashmir 9 people died in fresh fighting. Troops intensified search operations ahead of India's Aug 15 Independence Day, which separatists observe as a "black day".
2005 Aug 13, In Iran at least 17 people were reported killed over the last 3 weeks and many more wounded during anti-government protests in the western province of Kurdistan.
2005 Aug 13, In Iraq 3 soldiers were killed and one other wounded in a roadside bombing near Tuz Khormato, 95 miles north of Baghdad. Another soldier was killed at another roadside bombing.
2005 Aug 13, An Italian newspaper reported that more than 100 Italian troops whose tours in southern Iraq have ended are not being replaced, apparently marking the beginning of the country's withdrawal from Iraq ahead of schedule.
2005 Aug 13, A small plane carrying tourists crashed in southern Italy, killing at least two people.
2005 Aug 13, For the first time in a decade, the founders and top political leaders of Hamas gathered on the same stage, vowing to go on fighting Israel and claiming victory for its impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
2005 Aug 13, David Lange (b.1942), former New Zealand prime minister (1984-1989), died in Auckland. He was the architect of new Zealand's anti-nuclear policy.
(WSJ, 8/15/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/bsgp2)
2005 Aug 13, Fernando Olivera, Peru's new foreign minister, said he was resigning his post, just two days after the uproar from his appointment sparked a major shake-up of President Alejandro Toledo's Cabinet.
2005 Aug 13, Fires at a rate of 400 per day began breaking out in Portugal.
2005 Aug 13, Rival militias in arid southwestern Somalia battled for control over a village with pastures and wells. Twelve combatants died, and hundreds of residents fled.
2005 Aug 13, Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency and deployed troops to search for suspects Saturday after the assassination of the foreign minister.
2006 Aug 13, In Michigan City, Indiana, fire swept through a two-story house, killing at least six people. An unknown number of others were missing. It was not clear whether they had left the scene or were still inside the home.
2006 Aug 13, In Afghanistan at least 5 Afghan troops and 25 militants were killed.
2006 Aug 13, The 16th International AIDS conference opened in Toronto with some 24,000 people in attendance.
(SSFC, 8/13/06, p.A15)(Econ, 8/19/06, p.65)
2006 Aug 13, The death toll from Typhoon Saomai, the strongest storm to hit China in 50 years, rose to 114 as more evacuees died when buildings used as shelters collapsed. China's state media reported About 17 million people in southwest China don't have access to clean drinking water due to sustained drought.
2006 Aug 13, On his 80th birthday, Fidel Castro cautioned Cubans that he faced a long recovery from surgery and advised them to prepare for "adverse news," but he urged them to stay optimistic.
2006 Aug 13, Iraq's health minister, who is aligned to a powerful Shiite militia, claimed that US forces arrested seven of his personal guards in a surprise pre-dawn raid on his office. 4 vehicle bombs killed 63 Iraqis and wounded 140 in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/13/06)(AP, 8/14/06)(SFC, 8/16/06, p.A6)
2006 Aug 13, After a stormy debate, Israel's Cabinet approved a Mideast cease-fire, agreeing to silence the army's guns on Aug 14 at 8AM. The Israeli military embarked on a last-minute push to devastate Hezbollah guerrillas, rocketing south Beirut with at least 20 missiles. Israeli warplanes fired missiles into gasoline stations in the southern port city of Tyre, killing at least 12 people in those and other attacks. Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets at northern Israel, killing an Israeli man. Two Israeli air raids on a village in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley killed at least seven people and wounded nearly two dozen.
2006 Aug 13, In Mexico a recount confirmed Calderon as the next president. Lopez Obrador vowed to mount new legal challenges.
2006 Aug 13, Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels fought ground battles and artillery duels as the weekend death toll rose to 186. The rebels denied they were ready to talk peace. At least 15 people died in fighting around the St. Philip Neri Church in Allaiiddy, a predominantly Tamil village located on an island just west of the Jaffna Peninsula. The island, like the peninsula, is held by the government.
2006 Aug 13, In Turkey the PKK killed 2 policemen in a bomb attack near Tunceli.
2006 Aug 13, In Venezuela prison officials discovered that Carlos Ortega, an anti-Chavez union leader, had slipped out of the Ramo Verde prison west of Caracas, where he was serving a 16-year sentence for civil rebellion. Three convicted military officers also escaped.
2007 Aug 13, Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, announced his retirement effective at the end of the month.
2007 Aug 13, Brooke Astor (b.1902), philanthropist, died at her Holy Hill estate in NY.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.B5)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.79)
2007 Aug 13, Phil Rizzuto (89), Hall of Fame Yankees shortstop and broadcaster, died in West Orange, N.J. He was beloved by a generation of fans for exclaiming "Holy cow!" as a broadcaster.
2007 Aug 13, In Afghanistan 2 women among the 23 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban in mid-July were freed on a rural roadside and then driven to a US base. A German held hostage said in a telephone conversation orchestrated by his captors that he was in ill health and the Taliban had threatened him with death. In southern Afghanistan 6 civilians were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up their vehicle when Taliban militia attacked a military convoy. A separate clash between troops and insurgents in Ghazni province, further north, left four Taliban dead.
2007 Aug 13, According to new data China's inflation rate accelerated to the highest monthly rate in a decade, driven by a 15.4% surge in food prices over the year-earlier period. Officials said China is still freeing people, including children, forced to work as slaves in illegal brick factories, two months after the scandal involving the brick yards was exposed. A bridge under construction in the central Hunan city of Fenghuang collapsed as workers removed scaffolding from its facade, killing 64 people.
2007 Aug 13, A boat carrying illegal immigrants capsized off France's Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, killing at least 17 people, eight of them children. The boat carrying 38 people was en route from the Comoros Islands about 125 miles to the northwest when it overturned while trying to evade the French coast guard.
2007 Aug 13, US troops in Iraq launched a major assault against Al-Qaeda-linked militants and alleged Iranian-aided extremist groups as a Sunni leader accused Iran of plotting genocide against his people. The US military also said it had arrested a top "financier" of Iraqi extremist groups believed to be supported by Tehran's Quds Force in a Baghdad raid. 3 US soldiers were killed in an explosion near their vehicle in northwestern Ninevah province. Another died of wounds sustained during combat operations in western Baghdad.
2007 Aug 13, In Malaysia 20 people died after an express bus overturned on the main highway, tearing off the vehicle's roof and flinging seats into the air in what officials said was the country's worst traffic disaster. The toll rose to 22 after 2 injured people died later.
2007 Aug 13, Armed pirates attacked a Malaysian barge in the Malacca Strait and kidnapped 2 Indonesian crew, in the first high sea abduction in the busy waterway in more than 2 years.
2007 Aug 13, AkzoNobel, a Dutch chemicals group under Hans Wijers, made a cash offer for the British firm ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) under John McAdam for $16 billion. The deal turned Akzo into the world's biggest maker of paints.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.72)(www.ici.com/main/cms/cmRender.asp?i=2162)
2007 Aug 13, A monsoon storm unleashed landslides and collapsed houses in a village in Pakistan's mountainous northwest, killing 22 people.
2007 Aug 13, Hamas militiamen beat protesters with clubs and rifle butts to try to stop a demonstration by political opponents in the Gaza Strip, but hundreds chanting "We want freedom" defied the ban.
2007 Aug 13, Poland's fractious governing coalition came to an end when the country's president dismissed four Cabinet ministers from two junior partners, clearing the way for an early election expected this fall.
2007 Aug 13, A bomb explosion threw the Neva Express train, which was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, off the tracks and injuring 60 people. Suspicion fell on representatives of extremist nationalist organizations.
2007 Aug 13, In South Korea a family of five fell to their deaths from a Ferris wheel after two cars collided at an amusement park in the southern city of Busan.
2007 Aug 13, In central Vietnam the death toll from a tropical storm that caused widespread flooding hit 70 after five more bodies were recovered, while six people were still missing and feared dead.
2008 Aug 13, In California prison receiver Clark Kelso asked a federal judge to seize $8 billion from the state's treasury over the next 5 years to build 7 medical facilities for inmates throughout the state.
2008 Aug 13, In Little Rock, Ark., Timothy Dale Johnson (50), described as a loner, drove more than 30 miles to Arkansas' Democratic Party headquarters and fatally shot its chairman, Bill Gwatney, hours after losing his job. Johnson was later shot dead by officers.
2008 Aug 13, Michael Phelps swam into history as the winningest Olympic athlete ever with his 10th and 11th career gold medals, and 5 world records in 5 events at the Beijing Games.
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that at least 150 fuel tanks, managed by the US Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA), needed inspection for leaks. It was estimated that some 500,000 fuel storage tanks, both private and publicly owned, were leaking.
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that the red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans, was rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean. The maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes was swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on the ecologically delicate region.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A6)(www.sanluisobispo.com/health/story/438289.html)
2008 Aug 13, Jack Weil (107), patriarch of western clothing, died. He created the western style shirt which sold after 1946 through his Denver-based company Rockmount Ranch Wear.
2008 Aug 13, Stuart Cary Welch (b.1928), American teacher and collector of Indian and Islamic art, died while traveling in Japan.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Cary_Welch)
2008 Aug 13, In Afghanistan militants brandishing assault rifles ambushed a US relief organization's vehicle, killing three aid workers and their Afghan driver and leaving their white SUV riddled with hundreds of bullets. The three women killed in Logar province worked for the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC). In southern Afghanistan militants began launching attacks on a coalition patrol. Over 3 dozen militants were killed in the fighting.
2008 Aug 13, Bolivia and Libya agreed to establish diplomatic relations and join efforts to develop the nations' energy resources.
2008 Aug 13, Scientists from Britain's University of Reading unveiled Gordon, a neuron-powered machine, whose grey matter was stitched together from cultured rat neurons.
2008 Aug 13, A Chinese team beat the United States and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics, amid allegations that at least one member, He Kexin, of the Chinese team was under age.
2008 Aug 13, Henri Cartan (b.1904), French mathematician, died in Paris. In 1956 he and Samuel Eilenberg wrote a fundamental textbook on homological algebra.
2008 Aug 13, Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori then thrust deep into Georgian territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war. Georgia said that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins. EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will spend at least $400 million in 2008 on restoring South Ossetia's battered capital Tskhinvali.
2008 Aug 13, The Indian army said that it was investigating UN allegations its troops had engaged in sexual abuse while on peacekeeping duties in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A five-story building in a crowded residential neighborhood of Mumbai, India's main financial city, collapsed after monsoon rains, killing at least 20 people.
2008 Aug 13, In northwest Iran three Kurdish separatists and one Iranian soldier were killed in a shootout.
2008 Aug 13, A suicide truck bomber targeted the mayor of a town near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, while another car bomb struck civilians elsewhere in northern Iraq. A bomb in a parked car struck a local market in the Qayara area south of the northern city of Mosul, killing at least two people and wounding five.
2008 Aug 13, Riots erupted across Indian-controlled Kashmir as Muslims mourned 15 people killed in a day of bloody violence, as the protests spread to other parts of India. Indian police say they have issued orders to shoot protesters defying a curfew in the town of Kishtwar in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
2008 Aug 13, In northern Lebanese city a bomb ripped through a bus during morning rush hour in Tripoli, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, raising fears that an al-Qaida-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks against the military.
2008 Aug 13, In Mexico a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office said 6 federal agents have been arrested on suspicion of passing information to a group of powerful drug lords.
2008 Aug 13, Nigerian officials said flocks of quelea birds have invaded farmlands in northern Borno state, destroying crops that were due for harvest in two months' time.
2008 Aug 13, In Lahore, Pakistan, a bomber struck outside a mosque just before midnight as Pakistanis poured into the streets to celebrate the nation's 61st anniversary of its independence from Britain. 8 people were killed and 18 wounded.
2008 Aug 13, An alleged assault by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (b.1955) reportedly took place on a young model (20) on a yacht on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. An investigating magistrate on the resort island closed the case in 2010 on grounds of insufficient evidence. In 2011 Spain reopened a rape probe after tests done by a forensic lab found semen in the woman and traces of a sedative called nordazepam.
2008 Aug 13, South African President Thabo Mbeki left Zimbabwe after failing to secure a power-sharing deal between its main rivals during marathon talks, adding to doubts over chances of an agreement.
2008 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles across the front lines in the 25-year-old civil war killed 14 ethnic Tamil rebels and two government soldiers.
2009 Aug 13, Legendary guitarist and inventor Les Paul (94), who pioneered the design of solid body Gibson electric guitars that bore his name, died at a New York hospital of complications from pneumonia. Paul was born as Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on June 9, 1915. He created one of the first solid-body electric guitars in 1941, but it took nearly 10 years before he, working with Gibson Guitar Corp., perfected it.
2009 Aug 13, Australian police said a 20-year-old Australian man has been charged with infecting more than 3,000 computers around the world with a virus designed to capture banking and credit card data.
2009 Aug 13, It was reported that millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from the Fraser river on Canada's Pacific Coast. It was once known as the world's most fertile spawning ground for sockeye. Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer. The latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned. The Canadian government has closed the river to commercial and recreational sockeye fishing for the third straight year, hitting the livelihood of nearby Indian reserves.
2009 Aug 13, In Chechnya a gun battle between police and 2 suspected militants left the 2 militants dead as well as 4 police officers.
2009 Aug 13, Chinese officials retreated from a plan to install anti-pornography software on every computer sold, but said Internet cafes, schools and other public places must use the program.
2009 Aug 13, In Dagestan some 10 men opened fire on a police post in Buinaksk, killing 4 officers. The gunmen then entered a sauna complex nearby and killed 7 women working there.
2009 Aug 13, Ecuador's Citizen Participation Minister Doris Soliz called for the creation of local citizen committees to defend the government and its "revolution," sparking criticism that the president aims to control opponents in a system reminiscent of Cuba or Venezuela.
2009 Aug 13, The EU said it was extending its sanctions on Myanmar to cover members of the judiciary responsible for the verdict in the trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
2009 Aug 13, In India thousands of schools, colleges and cinemas shut down in Mumbai to combat the spread of swine flu as the government struggled to contain public anxiety.
2009 Aug 13, In Iran a group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country's most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.
2009 Aug 13, In Iraq a gunfight erupted during an attempted bank heist in Baghdad, as a court official announced that five members of Iraq's presidential guard will go on trial later this month for their alleged roles in the deadly July 28 robbery of Baghdad's Rafidain Bank. In the northwest city of Sinjar 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up at a popular cafe killing 21 people and wounding 30 others.
2009 Aug 13, In Japan a woman (23) crashed her moped when it hit a rope that was stretched across the road. She suffered a fractured skull after being thrown from her bike near western Tokyo's US Yokota Air Base. Police later arrested four children, three boys and one girl aged between 15 and 18, of US military personnel on suspicion of attempted murder.
2009 Aug 13, In Liberia US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the country's post-war transition to democracy and threw support behind President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has faced calls to resign because she helped fund a warlord.
2009 Aug 13, In Mexico state security officials banned police from setting up sobriety checkpoints in the northern city of Monterrey because they say the officers routinely use them to extort motorists. Bishop Eduardo Patino Leal was detained in the town of Huatusco, Veracruz state, lost control of his vehicle and ran over 6 Indian street vendors, killing one.
2009 Aug 13, North Korea freed Yu Seong-Jin (44), a South Korean worker it had detained since March, raising hopes of better cross-border relations after 18 months of bitter hostility from the communist state.
2009 Aug 13, In northwest Pakistan helicopter gunships pummeled the bases of Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud, killing at least 12 insurgents as government forces ratcheted up pressure on the militants following their top leader's reported death. 2 intelligence officials said a suicide bomber killed pro-government lashkar leader Malik Khadeen, who was instrumental in fighting Uzbek militants operating with the Taliban in South Waziristan. In the Bajur tribal area authorities found the bodies of two anti-Taliban lashkar leaders near a security checkpoint. The two lashkar commanders, Malik Sehar Gul and Malik Jalindhar, had been kidnapped the night before.
2009 Aug 13, Scottish officials said they were considering early release for the Lockerbie bomber, leading to sharp debate among victims' relatives in the US and Britain over whether he should be allowed to return home to Libya. British media said Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi could soon be freed on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer.
2009 Aug 13, The crew of two Egyptian fishing vessels overpowered Somali pirates after being held hostage for four months and, with machetes and tools, killed at least two pirates before sailing to freedom. The fight took place near the coastal town of Las Qorey off the Gulf of Aden. The pirates had demanded a ransom of $1.5 million.
2009 Aug 13, Taiwan deployed thousands of extra troops as it faced growing public anger and pressure to rescue people trapped by landslides. The confirmed death toll from the destruction wreaked by the typhoon rose to at least 116.
2009 Aug 13, In Venezuela attackers injured 12 of the journalists as they passed out leaflets warning against a new education law that critics fear could lead to indoctrination in schools. Their fliers warned against a provision for sanctions against reports that "produce terror" among children or incite hate. The government condemned the violence and ordered an investigation.
2009 Aug 13, Yemeni warplanes bombed a northern province bordering Saudi Arabia for a second straight day, in an ongoing offensive that has brought casualties and pushed the area close to an all-out war.
2010 Aug 13, President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border. The new law nearly doubled fees on visas for skilled workers brought in by companies whose employees are more than 50 percent foreign, a move that largely affects India's IT and outsourcing industries.
2010 Aug 13, Pres. Obama forcefully endorsed building a mosque near ground zero, saying the country's founding principles demand no less.
2010 Aug 13, The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Palos Bank and Trust Co. based in Palos Heights, Illinois. It was the 110th US bank to go under this year.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.D3)
2010 Aug 13, Geral Rosen (71), American novelist, died in SF. His 7 books included "Blues for a Dying Nation" (1972) and his autobiography "Cold Eye, Warm Heart" (2009).
2010 Aug 13, In southern Afghanistan a member of the international coalition died after an insurgent attack. A British soldier was also killed by small-arms fire in the Sangin district of Helmand province. Three small children were killed and their mother was wounded when a civilian house was hit by an insurgent rocket in Khost city. Two private security guards and two militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Karukh district of Herat province, 12 other guards were wounded in the skirmish. 3 Afghan civilians were killed and another was wounded by insurgents in three separate incidents in Kandahar province.
2010 Aug 13, In Australia 2 men were gunned down in a popular Melbourne bar area, shortly after the killing of a known crime figure sparked fears of a new gang war in the city's notorious underworld.
2010 Aug 13, A Belgian man died from a drug-resistant "superbug" originating in South Asia, the first reported death from the bacteria. The superbug -- a bacterial gene called New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) -- was first identified last year in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
2010 Aug 13, The Bosnia's war crimes court confirmed charges of genocide for 4 former Bosnian Serb army soldiers over the killing of at least 800 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in July, 1995. Franc Kos, Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja all served with the Bosnian Serb army's 10th commando unit.
2010 Aug 13, In western Canada at least 450 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, on board the MV Sun Sea cargo ship, arrived at a naval base escorted by a naval frigate and police helicopters.
2010 Aug 13, In northwest China new landslides killed 24 people and left 24 missing in Gansu province as downpours threatened more devastation and made rescue work nearly impossible in a region where more than 1,100 people have died.
2010 Aug 13, In Egypt a gunbattle between Eritrean migrants and Bedouin traffickers demanding more money to take them to Israel left at least four people in the Sinai Desert. 2 others were shot dead by Egyptian police barring them from illegally crossing the border. A woman died of her injuries on Aug 15. Police later said as many as 10 migrants were killed and that dozens more could be lost in the desert.
2010 Aug 13, Guatemalan police arrested the former head of the national prison system, accusing him of orchestrating the executions of seven prisoners during a 2006 government raid on an infamous jail. Alejandro Giammattei, in charge of penitentiaries during the previous administration of President Oscar Berger, turned himself over to authorities after trying to seek asylum in the Honduran Embassy this week.
2010 Aug 13, In Iran PJAK Kurdish rebels killed a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards and two Islamist militiamen in clashes near northwestern Orumieh city.
2010 Aug 13, In Kashmir tens of thousands staged angry street demonstrations after government forces killed four people and injured 31 others during the latest unrest against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
2010 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a military court convicted former Sri Lankan army chief and presidential candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka of involvement in politics while in service and stripped him of his rank and military honors.
2010 Aug 13, Turkish officials said police have raided a house used by people suspected of digging illegally for antiquities and discovered two tunnels leading to an underground tomb that housed an ancient marble coffin and frescoes. The tomb was believed to be that of Hecatomnus, satrap of Caria (391BC-377BC).
(AP, 8/13/10)(www.livius.org/he-hg/hecatomnids/hecatomnus.html)
2011 Aug 13, In the Iowa Republican straw poll Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann won with 4,823 votes, Texas Rep. Ron Paul got 4,671. Former Minnesota Gov. Rick Pawlenty received 2,293. His 3rd place finish led him to drop out of the race.
2011 Aug 13, In Indiana a wind gust toppled a stage at the state fair in Indianapolis killing 5 people and injuring dozens of fans waiting for the country band Sugarland to perform. A 6th person died of her injuries on Aug 19. The death toll reached 7 people in the disaster with 58 injured. A government in 2012 blamed fair officials, a stagehands union and a company that built the roof and lights rigging for the stage collapse.
(SFC, 8/15/11, p.A4)(SFC, 8/20/11, p.A6)(SFC, 2/9/12, p.A7)
2011 Aug 13, Ctirad Masin (81), a controversial anti-communist fighter in the former nation of Czechoslovakia, died in Cleveland, Ohio. He had eluded a massive East Bloc manhunt during the Cold War.
2011 Aug 13, In Afghanistan a minivan struck a roadside bomb in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, killing five civilians. 2 policemen and 4 insurgents were reported killed in shootout in Herat province.
2011 Aug 13, Angolan authorities barred activists from entering the country ahead of the annual Southern African Development Community summit that opens Aug 16.
2011 Aug 13, In Cuba a gay man and a woman whose sex-change operation was paid for by the state were married in Havana.
2011 Aug 13, The Czech Republic's first gay pride parade was held in Prague under strong police guard as some 3,000 gays and lesbians marched through the city center.
2011 Aug 13, Egypt's largest political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, warned the country's military rulers not to interfere in the writing of a new constitution.
2011 Aug 13, In India suspected rebels fired guns at motorists on a highway in the insurgency-wracked northeast, killing one person and wounding five others in Assam state.
2011 Aug 13, In Iraq bombings and shootings, including an attack near cafes and ice cream shops, killed five Iraqis and wounded 14 in Baghdad and Al-Baghdadi, Anbar province.
2011 Aug 13, Israel's military magazine Ba'mahaneh reported that the army is planting new land mines along its border with Syria in an attempt to dissuade protesters from rushing into the Golan Heights. Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into streets across the country for a fourth consecutive week, expanding their protest movement against the nation's high cost of living from major central cities to smaller ones in outlying areas.
2011 Aug 13, Jordan's Popular Democratic Unity party said at least 8 of its members were wounded in the southern city of Karak during a protest demanding government reforms.
2011 Aug 13, In Lebanon 4 Lebanese and one Sudanese citizen broke out of the heavily-guarded Roumieh prison east of Beirut. The Lebanese were members of the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group.
2011 Aug 13, Libya's rebels fought with regime troops for control of Gharyan, a key mountain town that is a strategic gateway on the road to Tripoli.
2011 Aug 13, In Acapulco, Mexico, the body of a man who had been beaten in several places was found half-buried in the ground wrapped in a bedspread, while two men who had been shot were found in a graveyard.
2011 Aug 13, Northern Ireland police came under attack from Irish Catholic rioters in the British territory's second-largest city of Londonderry but reported no serious injuries. Several hours of violence followed a peaceful parade through the medieval walled center of Londonderry by about 12,000 members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry.
2011 Aug 13, In Pakistan gunmen abducted Warren Weinstein, an American development expert, after breaking into his house in Lahore. The unusually brazen raid illustrated the threat to foreigners in this militancy-wracked country. By Aug 24 three arrests were made after officers tracked cell phone numbers. On Dec 2 Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged that the terror group was holding Weinstein.
(AP, 8/13/11)(AP, 8/24/11)(AFP, 12/2/11)
2011 Aug 13, Ihab Ghussein, a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas rulers, said foreigners must now obtain visas to enter the Gaza Strip.
2011 Aug 13, Fashion designer Jesus del Pozo (65), one of Spain's most influential style modernizers, died. Del Pozo opened his first outlet in Madrid in 1974, making him a contemporary of Antonio Miro and Adolfo Dominguez. His first collection was unveiled in 1976.
2011 Aug 13, Syrian tanks fanned out across a neighborhood in the coastal city of Latakia amid intense shooting that sent many resident fleeing to safer areas. Scores of security agents and pro-government gunmen, known as Shabiha, entered the town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon and several nearby villages, arresting scores of residents. At least two people were killed after 20 tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into Latakia's al-Ramel district.
2011 Aug 13, In Venezuela a light plane landed on a coastal road in Falcon state with 1.4 tons of cocaine. A shootout followed between state police and national detectives (CICPC). The plane had taken off from a military airport in Caracas. 2 people were killed.
(Econ, 10/8/11, p.48)(www.madcowprod.com/08242011.htm)
2012 Aug 13, US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar announced the first comprehensive plan to manage the national petroleum reserve in Alaska, allowing new drilling on half of the nearly 23-million-acre reserve, while putting the rest off limits.
2012 Aug 13, In Texas Thomas A. Caffall III (35), a man facing eviction, opened fire on police officers and bystanders near the Texas A&M University campus, killing two and wounding four before being shot to death by police. Constable Brian Bachmann was shot dead while trying to serve a court summons.
2012 Aug 13, Google said it will cut some 4,000 jobs at its Motorola Mobility Holdings unit, which it bought just months ago for some $12.5 billion.
2012 Aug 13, Helen Gurley Brown (b.1922), former editor in chief Cosmopolitan magazines' 64 int'l. editions, died in NYC. She authored the bestseller "Sex and the Single Girl" (1962).
2012 Aug 13, In Afghanistan a remote-controlled roadside bomb exploded killing 5 people, including provincial peace councilor Mohammad Hashim and Abdul Aziz, the mayor of Ishkamesh district, Takhar province. Insurgent gunmen also attacked the convoy of the same district's police chief and chief administrator, sparking a battle on the road. 2 Taliban gunmen were killed in the fighting and another was captured. An Afghan policeman opened fire on NATO forces and Afghan soldiers in Nangarhar province in the fifth attack reported in a week by Afghan security forces on their international partners. No coalition service members were killed. At least one Afghan intelligence agent was wounded and the shooter escaped.
2012 Aug 13, Australia's PM Gillard announced a sharp reversal in her government's policy on asylum seekers, saying it will introduce legislation allowing their deportation to the poor Pacific nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru to face lengthy stays in detention camps.
2012 Aug 13, The Olympic flag touched down on Brazilian soil, marking the start of four years of preparations ahead of the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.
2012 Aug 13, British energy group BP said that it has agreed to sell its Carson refinery in California to US peer Tesoro Corporation for $2.5 billion (2.02 billion euros) as part of its ongoing restructuring. BP also said that Eagle Rock Energy Partners is paying $227.5 million in cash for the Sunray and Hemphill gas processing plants in Texas.
2012 Aug 13, In far west China a Kirti monk named Lungtok and another man, identified as Tashi, set themselves alight in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture. Police beat a Tibetan man to death during a clash that broke out after the two Tibetans set themselves on fire.
2012 Aug 13, CongoDRC's sports ministry said a judoka and three coaches from its Olympic delegation have gone missing after leaving the Athletes' Village at the London Games.
2012 Aug 13, In northeast CongoDRC a landslide at a gold mine in remote Pangoyi left at least 60 people dead.
2012 Aug 13, In northern France months of tension between police and young people exploded in Amiens, with dozens of youths facing off against riot officers in a night of violence. Some 17 officers were injured after more than 200 riot police were stationed to the area.
2012 Aug 13, Germany's Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said it has acquired three wind parks in Britain as part of a 2.5-billion-euro ($3.0-billion) investment in renewable energies.
2012 Aug 13, In Hong Kong HSBC won a legal bid to clear out anti-capitalist protesters from a public space below the bank's Asian headquarters in the southern Chinese financial center. A judge ruled that the activists must leave by 9 p.m. on Aug 27.
2012 Aug 13, A government spokesman says Iraq has asked French oil giant Total S.A. to choose between working with the self-ruled northern Kurdish region or to quit developing one of the major oil fields in southern Iraq.
2012 Aug 13, Dutch sailors taking part in NATO's pirate-busting operation Ocean Shield helped rescue the crew of a Somali dhow hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
2012 Aug 13, In south-eastern Senegal police fired teargas at stone-throwing demonstrators, injuring one person as protests erupted over the death of a deaf-mute youth in police custody.
2012 Aug 13, In Spain 2 firefighters died over the last 24 hours from injuries sustained in battling a wildfire in the eastern province of Alicante, while hundreds were evacuated by boat to escape a fire raging on the Canary Island of La Gomera.
2012 Aug 13, Julius Baer Group, a Swiss private banking group, said it has agreed to pay 860 million francs ($879 million) to buy Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch wealth management operations outside the United States.
2012 Aug 13, Syria's top representative at the UN Human Rights Council said he has defected. Activists released a video which they claim shows a government Soviet-made MiG warplane catching fire apparently after it was hit by ground fire over the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. State-run media said the pilot ejected from the warplane after technical failure. Regime forces bombarded rebel strongholds around Damascus and launched a mass raid in the historic heart of the capital. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 160 people were killed nationwide. Gunmen abducted the correspondent of Iran's Arabic-language TV al-Alam in the central city of Homs.
(AP, 8/13/12)(AFP, 8/13/12)(AP, 8/14/12)
2012 Aug 13, A Syrian rebel group kidnapped Hassan al-Muqdad, accusing him of being a sniper and a member of Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah. American freelance journalist Austin Tice (31), a former US Marine, disappeared in Syria.
(AFP, 8/15/12)(AP, 11/12/12)
2012 Aug 13, Abdallah Kombo, the director of the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA), said it was "cheated" by its Dubai-based agent Philtex Corporation, which is alleged to have reflagged the Iranian vessels. Maritime Transport Minister Rashid Suleiman Seif said The government in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, will deregister Iranian oil tankers flying its flag to dodge sanctions.
2012 Aug 13, A Vatican judge ordered Paolo Gabriele (45), the pope's butler, and fellow lay employee Claudio Sciarpelletti (48) to stand trial for allegedly pilfering documents from Pope Benedict XVI's private apartment. The scandal has embarrassed the Vatican and exposed infighting and alleged corruption at the highest levels.
2012 Aug 13, Zambia's main opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, was arrested and charged with publishing false information after he claimed on June 11 that ruling party youth were being trained by Sudanese militia.
2013 Aug 13, A US federal appeals court ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
2013 Aug 13, The US Justice Dept. filed suit to stop a $14 billion union of American Airlines and US Airways.
2013 Aug 13, In Louisiana Fuaed Abdo Ahmed (20) shot two hostages, killing one, at a rural bank before police shot him dead after an hours long standoff.
2013 Aug 13, Croatian farmers said they would press protests to demand the government pay them 600 million kuna ($105.83 million) in lost subsidies, cut in a budget crunch to meet deficit targets set by the EU. Finance Minister Slavko Linic said Croatia had to rein in spending. He said country's public debt is at 190 billion kuna, 60% of GDP.
2013 Aug 13, The Czech cabinet, dominated by allies of leftist President Milos Zeman resigned, after losing a confidence vote last week, clearing the way for early elections that could resolve a political deadlock. Zeman accepted the resignation and said PM Jiri Rusnok, an economist, would stay on in a caretaker capacity.
2013 Aug 13, Egypt's interim president swore in 20 new provincial governors. This meant the official removal of 10 Brotherhood governors appointed under Morsi.
2013 Aug 13, Greek student Thanassis Kanaoutis (19) died after an argument with a bus ticket inspector in Athens. He quickly came to symbolize the plight of a population ground down by worsening poverty and unemployment.
2013 Aug 13, In India some weapons detonated accidentally on a submarine and fire swept through it. 18 sailors were on board the 16-year-old Russian-built INS Sindhurakshak. It was docked at the main naval base in Mumbai when two blasts rocked the vessel late just before midnight.
2013 Aug 13, Indonesia's anti-graft agency arrested Rudi Rubiandini the head of energy regulator SKKMigas to probe allegations he took more than half a million dollars from an oil firm. Pres. Yudhoyono suspended him the next day.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)(Econ, 8/24/13, p.38)
2013 Aug 13, In Iraq 2 policemen were killed as they were trying to defuse a car bomb left on the road near Kirkuk. A mosque bombing in the town of Madain killed 5 people and left 13 wounded.
2013 Aug 13, A bomb attack stopped oil flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline linking Iraq to Turkey.
2013 Aug 13, The Israeli military shot down a rocket launched toward a Red Sea resort town near the border with Egypt. It was the first time Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system successfully intercepted a rocket attack on the resort of Eilat.
2013 Aug 13, In Libya members of the ethnic Berber minority forced their way into the parliament building in Tripoli, smashing windows and destroying furniture, in a demonstration to press for greater recognition.
2013 Aug 13, In Pakistan a pair of hand grenade attacks on minority Ismaili prayer houses in Karachi killed two people and wounded 30 others.
2013 Aug 13, Palestine's PM Rami Hamdallah accepted a request by Pres. Abbas to remain on the job, weeks after announcing his resignation.
2013 Aug 13, In Romania a trial opened on artwork stolen last october in the Netherlands. Lawyers for the defendents said the paintings have not been burned and that the gang responsible would like to cut a deal so the artwork can be returned.
(SFC, 8/1411/13, p.A2)
2013 Aug 13, Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces killed at least 18 rebels in overnight clashes near the country's main north-south highway near Morek in Hama province.
2013 Aug 13, Zimbabwe's longtime Pres. Robert Mugabe said his party won "a resounding mandate" from voters to complete a sweeping black empowerment program to take over foreign and white-owned assets.
2013 Aug 13, Yemen's military said Al-Qaida militants have killed 3 soldiers in the southwest during what the military said was an attempt to capture Hawtah, the capital of Lahj province.
2014 Aug 13, Missouri police responded about an hour after midnight to reports of four or five men with shotguns and wearing ski masks. They encountered multiple suspects running, one of whom pulled a gun on an officer, who shot and critically wounded the man in Ferguson near the site of protests over the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
2014 Aug 13, Former Oklahoma doctor William Valuck (71) pleaded guilty to 8 counts of 2nd-degree murder in connection with the drug overdose deaths of several patients. The plea deal called for eight years in prison.
2014 Aug 13, A fire aboard the Pine Galaxy chemical tanker left one crewman dead and the ship adrift off the ocast of Oregon. 21 crew members from China and South Korea remained onboard.
2014 Aug 13, In Brazil socialist politician and presidential candidate Eduardo Campos (49) and six other people were killed when their small plane crashed near Santos, ahead of the Oct. 4 presidential election. Running mate Marina Silva soon replaced Campos on the PSB ticket.
2014 Aug 13, France said it would start supplying arms to the Kurdish forces fighting Sunni extremists from the Islamic State group.
2014 Aug 13, Guinea declared a public health emergency over an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,000 people in three West African states and is sending health workers to all affected border points.
2014 Aug 13, In Iraq suicide bomber attacks a checkpoint near the home of the new Prime Minister in Baghdad, causing severe damage. PM Maliki continued to defy international pressure to step aside, declaring that it would take a federal court ruling for him to quit.
2014 Aug 13, In Iraq thousands more Yazidis poured across a bridge into camps in the autonomous Kurdish region after trekking from Mount Sinjar, most with nothing but the clothes they wore. A US assessment team found the humanitarian situation for the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar not as grave as expected. Roughly 4,500 people remained atop Sinjar Mountain. Nearly half were herders who lived there before the siege and have no interest in being evacuated.
2014 Aug 13, Jordan's King Abdullah II ordered the activation of a Defense Ministry to support the military, which is under increasing pressure from the wars in neighboring Syria and Iraq as well as a massive influx of Syrian refugees.
2014 Aug 13, Israeli ordnance exploded in Gaza, killing 5 people including Italian journalist Simone Camilli and his Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, as bomb experts tried to disable a missile on the last day of a 72-hour truce. Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a temporary cease-fire for five days.
(AFP, 8/13/14)(SFC, 8/14/14, p.A6)
2014 Aug 13, Libya's newly elected parliament asked the UN for an "international intervention" as militia violence raged across the country.
2014 Aug 13, Pakistan dismissed as "baseless rhetoric" claims by Indian PM Narendra Modi that it was waging a "proxy war" in disputed Kashmir.
2014 Aug 13, In Pakistan thousands of riot police sealed off Islamabad with barbed wire and shipping containers on the eve of the country's Independence Day, in a bid to foil mass protests aimed at toppling embattled PM Nawaz Sharif.
2014 Aug 13, In Puerto Rico 2 men died and two others were injured in a drive-by shooting in the US territory.
2014 Aug 13, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State insurgents have seized several towns and villages from rival Islamist groups in Aleppo province. The Observatory also reported two more crucifixions by Islamic State in Deir al-Zor overnight.
2014 Aug 13, In eastern Ukraine 12 nationalist fighters, battling a pro-Russian insurgency, were killed early today and an unknown number taken captive when rebels ambushed their bus. More than 100 Russian soldiers were killed near the town of Snizhnye, Donetsk Province, while helping pro-Russian separatists fight Ukrainian troops.
2014 Aug 13, A Russian convoy of nearly 300 trucks, carrying what Russia says is humanitarian aid for victims of fighting in eastern Ukraine, moved slowly towards the border despite concerns by Kiev and the West over the shipment. The UN said the death toll in fighting in eastern Ukraine had doubled in the last two weeks to over 2,000. Ukraine said it could allow Russian aid to enter the country after it was inspected by Ukrainian border guards and foreign monitors.
(Reuters, 8/13/14)(AFP, 8/13/14)(AFP, 8/14/14)
2014 Aug 13, At the Int'l. Congress of mathematicians in South Korea, Stanford Prof. Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian-born mathematician, became the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal for her work in understanding the mathematical symmetry of curved surfaces and saddle-shaped spaces.
2014 Aug 13, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State insurgents have seized eight towns and villages from rival Islamist groups in Aleppo province. The fighting left 52 people dead. The Observatory also reported two more crucifixions by Islamic State in Deir al-Zor overnight.
2014 Aug 13, In south Yemen a bomb, planted near a prison by presumed Al-Qaeda militants, exploded killing 10 civilians and 3 army technicians in the Tibn area of Lahij province.
2015 Aug 13, Connecticut's Supreme Court spared the lived of all eleven men remaining on death row. The state's death penalty had been abolished in 2012.
2015 Aug 13, In New York a jury acquitted Charles "Teddy" Pierre in the deaths of Clara Sconiers and Thomas Reed. The Trinidad-born man had served 13 years in prison for a 2002 double homicide. He still faced a possible deportation.
2015 Aug 13, A Pennsylvania judge, citing new DNA evidence, vacated the murder conviction of Lewis Fogle (63), who has been in prison for 34 years in the shooting death of a girl (15).
2015 Aug 13, Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk said he will invest $20 million as part of the company's $500 million stock offering in a show of confidence at a time when the electric car maker is burning through cash.
2015 Aug 13, A high-level Afghan delegation arrived in Pakistan to discuss security cooperation and peace efforts.
2015 Aug 13, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in an online audio message, pledged allegiance to Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, the new head of the Afghan Taliban, in a move that could bolster his accession after the death of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.
2015 Aug 13, Australia's Sidney Morning Herald reported that the Islamic State has hacked the personal information of Defense Force employees and their relatives, New South Wales health employees and several other public servants. It said the IS has bragged of gathering the names of some 1,400 people, most of whom are supposedly US military personnel.
2015 Aug 13, In Azerbaijan a court in Baku sentenced Leyla Yunus, a prominent rights defender, to 8½ years in prison on charges of fraud, tax evasion and illegal business activities. Her husband Arif Yunus was given a 7-year sentence on fraud charges, and the court also confiscated the couple's assets.
2015 Aug 13, In Brazil at least 17 people were shot to death within the span of about three hours in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. Police soon began investigating whether the string of murders were a coordinated act of revenge by off-duty officers following the nearby deaths of two colleagues.
2015 Aug 13, Britain said it would make a formal protest to Ecuador over its decision to provide asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its London embassy and so prevent his extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes.
2015 Aug 13, Burundi's ruling party termed the controversial re-election of President Pierre Nkurunziza (51) a "divine miracle", as the opposition accused him of declaring war by clinging to power. Meanwhile violence continued unabated with at least 3 people killed in the last 24 hours.
2015 Aug 13, In Beijing a man slashed a Chinese woman to death and injured her French companion in one of the city's busiest shopping districts in broad daylight. The man (25), family name Gao, was arrested.
2015 Aug 13, Egypt's health minister said 17 more people have died due to an "unprecedented" heat wave, raising this week's death toll to 76.
2015 Aug 13, In Egypt police Lieutenant Colonel Amr Farouk was sentenced to a reduced five years in jail in a re-trial over the deaths of 37 Islamist prisoners being transported to jail in an overcrowded van in August, 2013. Three other officers again received suspended terms.
2015 Aug 13, In Iraq a truck bomb ripped through the popular Jameela market in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad's Sadr City early today, killing at least 67 people. The IS group claimed responsibility.
2015 Aug 13, In Israel a tent was torched and Hebrew-language graffiti was sprayed at a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank in what residents and an NGO said was a suspected attack by Jewish extremists.
2015 Aug 13, President Anote Tong of the low-lying Pacific island nation of Kiribati called for a global moratorium on new coal mines to slow global warming and a creeping rise in world sea levels.
2015 Aug 13, In central Libya at least 17 people were killed in heavy clashes between Islamic State fighters and a rival Islamist group in the Islamic State-held city of Sirte. Earlier this week a Salafist Muslim group and armed residents attacked IS fighters in Sirte. Residents said around 15 local fighters and two IS commanders were killed.
2015 Aug 13, In Mexico five gunmen burst into a bar early today and killed Jose Marquez Balderas, a reputed local boss of the Zetas drug gang, journalist Juan Santos Cabrera and 4 other people in the coast state of Veracruz.
2015 Aug 13, Myanmar's military-backed ruling party announced the ouster of Shwe Mann, its politically popular chairman, hours after security forces seized the party headquarters, preventing some members from leaving. Shwe Mann was seen as a leading candidate for the presidency in upcoming Nov 8 elections.
2015 Aug 13, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari swore in a new set of military chiefs, ordering them to end Boko Haram's bloody six-year Islamist insurgency within three months.
2015 Aug 13, Pakistan's army announced the death penalty for six militants linked to the Dec 16, 2014, assault on a school in Peshawar that killed 151 people, mainly students. The army also announced it would execute another man for carrying out an attack on soldiers in the city of Karachi in March that killed three.
2015 Aug 13, Romanian education authorities were reported investigating some 400 cases in which students are suspected of getting into high schools without having the necessary grades.
2015 Aug 13, Russia's foreign minister hosted a delegation of the main Syrian opposition group, part of the Kremlin's new push for a mediation role in the Syrian conflict.
2015 Aug 13, Russia broadened a food embargo imposed in retaliation for Western sanctions over Ukraine to include Iceland, a significant fish importer, as well as Montenegro, Albania and Liechtenstein.
2015 Aug 13, Sergio Morate (29), wanted by Spain for murdering his girlfriend and another woman, was detained in the western city of Lugoj, Romania. A Romanian court ruled the next day that he can be extradited to his home country to face charges.
2015 Aug 13, Swedish prosecutors dropped a sexual assault probe against Julian Assange after the time limit on the case expired but the Wikileaks founder, who still faces a rape claim, voiced disappointment.
2015 Aug 13, In Syria rockets hit several districts in Latakia, a stronghold of Pres. Bashar Assad, killing 2 civilians and wounding 13. A two-day cease-fire between Hezbollah fighters and rebel groups in Zabadani, as well as in Foua and Kfarya, two Shiite villages in Idlib province, was extended for another 48 hours.
2015 Aug 13, Thailand's military-installed interim PM Prayuth Chan-ocha defended a new law that places tight restrictions on public gatherings and warned it will be strictly enforced as the Public Assembly Act took effect.
2015 Aug 13, In Turkey efforts PM Ahmet Davutoglu to forge a coalition alliance with the country's pro-secular party failed, edging the country closer toward new elections.
2015 Aug 13, In Yemen mortar rounds fired by Shiite Houthi rebels killed 6 civilians in the central city of Taiz.
2016 Aug 13, In northern California the Clayton wildfire broke out in Lake County.
2016 Aug 13, Torrential downpours in parts of Louisiana left at least 3 people dead.
2016 Aug 13, In NYC Imam Maulama Akonjee (55) and friend Thara Uddin (64) were shot and killed as they left afternoon prayers at the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque in Queens. Police the next day released a sketch of the suspect: a dark-haired, bearded man wearing glasses and soon arrested Oscar Morel (35), a Brooklyn man, following a hit and run near the crie scene. On August 15 Morel was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
2016 Aug 13, Milwaukee police shot and killed Sylville Smith (23) after he failed to drop a gun. An angry crowd of at least 200 people took to the streets, torching at least six businesses, including a gas station and auto parts store. Looting continued into the next night as police in riot gear moved in on the Sherman Park neighborhood. On Dec 15 police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who is also black, was charged with murder.
(AFP, 8/15/16)(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A10)
2016 Aug 13, In Afghanistan at least 9 policemen were killed late today in Taliban attacks on checkpoints in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan, while another two were killed in the east. 5 insurgents were killed and three wounded in the ensuing gun battles.
2016 Aug 13, In eastern Congo DRC at least 36 people were killed late today in a massacre by suspected rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), near Beni, North Kivu province, an area that has been shaken by violence since 2014.
2016 Aug 13, Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir extended a strict curfew to most parts of the restive region as separatist leaders called for weekend protests against Indian rule.
2016 Aug 13, Mothers in east Mexico searching for missing loved ones said they have found a total of 28 clandestine gravesites since August 1 with remains of some 40 bodies in the gang-ravaged state of Veracruz.
2016 Aug 13, In Peru more than 50,000 people marched in Lima and eight other cities to protest violence against woman and what they say is the indifference of the judicial system.
2016 Aug 13, The Philippines restarted peace talks with the country's largest Muslim rebel group, the first under President Rodrigo Duterte aimed at ending decades of violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
2016 Aug 13, Singapore exploded in celebration after homegrown swimming hero Joseph Schooling beat US legend Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly in Rio to win the tiny republic's first ever Olympic gold.
2016 Aug 13, In South Korea prosecutors indicted the former chief executive of the South Korean unit of Swss-based Novartis and five other former and current managers over allegations they illegally paid doctors 2.6 billion won ($2.3 million) in return for prescribing the company's drugs.
2016 Aug 13, Fighting flared in South Sudan late today southwest of the capital between forces loyal to the president and those backing the opposition, after clashes last month raised fears of a slide back into civil war.
(Reuters, 8/14/16) (AP, 8/13/16)
2016 Aug 13, In Switzerland a Swiss national man carried out a stabbing and arson attack on a Swiss train, injuring six others. The attacker and one of the victims soon died of their injuries.
2016 Aug 13, In northern Syria US-backed forces seized full control of Manbij near the Turkish border after the last remaining Islamic State fighters, who had been using civilians as human shields, left. Clashes and airstrikes continued across Aleppo province, resulting in at least 49 civilian deaths. Within ten days of the liberation of Manbij booby traps and mines planted by retreating jihadists killed 29 people.
(Reuters, 8/13/16)(AP, 8/14/16)(Econ, 4/1/17, p.41)
2016 Aug 13, Thousands of Venezuelans were welcomed to Colombia by a military band early today as the two countries' borders were officially reopened after being closed by Venezuela a year ago.
2016 Aug 13, In Yemen 10 children were killed in coalition air raids on a school in Haydan, a town in rebel-held Saada province. The coalition said the next day it had bombed a camp at which Iran-backed rebels train underage soldiers.
2017 Aug 13, Police in Texas acting on a tip found 17 immigrants locked inside a tractor-trailer parked at a gas station about 20 miles (30 km) from Mexican border.
2017 Aug 13, In southeastern Wisconsin three men from Illinois, believed to be gang members, were shot to death at close range during a drag racing event at the Great Lakes Dragaway in the town of Paris.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A5)
2017 Aug 13, In Burkina Faso suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a Turkish restaurant in Ouagadougou late today, killing at least 18 people in the second such attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the last two years. Security forces neutralized two terrorists.
2017 Aug 13, In Egypt two suspected militants were killed in an exchange of fire with the police in a province outside the capital Cairo.
2017 Aug 13, In India two packed buses were swept into a gorge overnight by a landslide so powerful it destroyed an entire stretch of highway in Himachal Pradesh state. 17 bodies were recovered from the site, but dozens remained missing.
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament voted unanimously to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, part of a sanctions bill mirroring a new US law targeting the country.
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament passed a long-awaited amendment to its drug trafficking laws, raising the thresholds that can trigger capital punishment and potentially saving the lives of many on death row.
2017 Aug 13, In northern Iraq two American soldiers were killed during combat operations, but their deaths were not caused by enemy contact.
2017 Aug 13, The Italian government welcomed Libya's decision to bar foreign vessels from a stretch of water off its coast. Libya's navy last week ordered foreign vessels to stay out of a coastal "search and rescue zone" for migrants headed for Europe, saying the measure was aimed at non-governmental organizations it accuses of facilitating illegal migration.
2017 Aug 13, In south Kashmir two Indian soldiers and three militants were killed in a 12-hour overnight gunfight in the Shopian district.
2017 Aug 13, Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga called for a strike to support his claim to the presidency and accused the ruling party of "spilling the blood of innocent people", despite growing pressure on him to concede election defeat. 24 people have been killed since the election.
2017 Aug 13, Kuwait said it will finish cleaning up a crude oil spill in its southern waters near the Ras al-Zour area this week. The spill began days ago and activists informed authorities about it on August 10. Kuwaiti media quoted local oil experts as saying the spill originated from an old 50-km (31-mile) pipeline from Al-Khafji. On August 16 an analysis of satellite imagery by a US-based nonprofit organization suggested at least 34,000 gallons of oil have leaked out during a spill off the coast of Kuwait.
(Reuters, 8/13/17)(AFP, 8/13/17)(AP, 8/16/17)
2017 Aug 13, Libya's former prime minister Ali Zeidan (Zidan) was kidnapped by an armed group in war-torn Tripoli. The gunmen were from the GNA-linked Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade, a militia of former rebels from the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
2017 Aug 13, In Malaysia a town hall meeting with former PM Mahathir Mohamad (92), who now heads an opposition coalition, was marred by violence, with several people hurling flares, chairs and shoes at the stage.
2017 Aug 13, In western Myanmar hundreds of Buddhists took to the streets to protest against aid organizations they accuse of giving support to Muslim Rohingya militants.
2017 Aug 13, Nepalese authorities upgraded the death toll from flash flooding across the country to 49 as the water kept rising, forcing thousands to flee for higher ground. Another 17 remained missing.
2017 Aug 13, In Portugal more than 3,000 firemen struggled to put out forest fires across the country, after the country requested assistance from Europe to fight blazes that threaten to spread with more hot weather in the coming days.
2017 Aug 13, In Somalia Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur, a deputy director of al-Shabab, was flown to Mogadishu from Hudur following his surrender to the government.
2017 Aug 13, The Syrian Failaq al-Rahman rebel faction said it has killed 20 army soldiers in a tunnel blast as the battle for Damascus's northeastern suburbs shows no signs of letting up.
2017 Aug 13, In Turkey police Officer Sinan Acar (24) was stabbed to death by a suspected member of the Islamic State (IS) group, who had been arrested for allegedly planning a suicide attack. The suspected IS member was shot dead on the spot by other police officers.
2017 Aug 13, Yemen's Central Bank said the Saudi-led coalition is "strangling" the economy by preventing planes from flying in newly-minted cash.
2018 Aug 13, US President Donald Trump signed a $716-billion defense policy act that authorizes military spending and waters down controls on US government contracts with China's ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
2018 Aug 13, US Pres. Donald Trump lashed out at his former adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman, who is promoting a tell-all book of her White House experience. Newman said: "There's a lot of very corrupt things happening in the White House, and I am going to blow the whistle on a lot of them".
2018 Aug 13, A US lawyer for Peter Strzok, a senior FBI counterintelligence agent, said Strzok has been fired for violating bureau policies. Strzok had disparaged Pres. Trump in inflammatory text messages and helped oversee the Hillary Clinton and Russia investigations.
2018 Aug 13, In California the body count in the Golden State Killer's alleged reign of terror increased to 13 when prosecutors in Tulare County filed charges linking suspect Joseph James De Angelo (72) to the 1975 murder of college teacher Claude Snelling (45) in Visalia. De Angelo has also been accused of being the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker.
2018 Aug 13, In northern California Ricardo Gardcia Lopez (39), on probation for domestic violence and failing to register as a sex offender, shot and killed three of his children before killing himself early today in Clearlake, Lake County.
2018 Aug 13, In northern California a firefighter from Utah was killed while battling the Ranch Fire, part of the Mendocino Complex. The 300,970-acre Ranch Fire was 59 percent contained. The associated River Fire was fully contained at 48,920 acres.
2018 Aug 13, In Utah Duane Youd flew a small plane into his own house hours after being arrested and released on bail for assaulting his wife. Youd died in the crash, but his wife and child survived.
2018 Aug 13, The West Virginia House of Delegates impeached all four justices of the state Supreme Court on charges of extravagant spending and other misconduct. Democrats have described the whole process as a partisan power grab.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9alekkd)(SFC, 8/15/18, p.A5)
2018 Aug 13, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he was in talks with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other investors to take the electric automaker private.
2018 Aug 13, Afghanistan's defense minister said four days of ferocious fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban over Ghazni has claimed the lives of about 100 Afghan policemen and soldiers and at least 20 civilians. A suicide attacker detonated explosives near the office of the election commission in Kabul where dozens of protesters had gathered. At least one police official was killed and one officer was wounded.
2018 Aug 13, In Armenia an appeals court in Yerevan released former Pres. Robert Kocharian on the grounds of constitutional immunity for actions as president. Kocharian was jailed July 27 on charges of violating constitutional order for sending police and soldiers to break up a demonstration in Yerevan in March 2008. Eight demonstrators and two police died in the clash.
2018 Aug 13, A court in Azerbaijan freed human rights activist Ilgar Mammadov after he had served five years of a seven-year jail sentence. The European Court of Human Rights has described his sentence "an unjustified restriction of freedom".
2018 Aug 13, Influential British publisher John Calder (b.1927) died in Edinburgh. He championed avant-garde authors, battled censorship and published such European writers as Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and Emile Zola, as well as newer authors, notably Samuel Beckett, and edgy Americans including Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs.
2018 Aug 13, China insisted there is no "arbitrary detention" and there are no "re-education centers" in its western Xinjiang region, rejecting concerns raised by a UN human rights committee that more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs may be being held in camps.
2018 Aug 13, Egypt's interior ministry said security forces have killed six suspected militants in a raid on a house on the outskirts of Cairo.
2018 Aug 13, Indonesian authorities said the holiday island of Lombok suffered damage running into more than 5 trillion rupiah ($342 million) from last week's 6.9 earthquake as the death toll climbed to more than 430.
2018 Aug 13, Indonesian prosecutors demanded an 18-month prison term for a woman who was charged with blasphemy after she complained about the volume of a mosque's loudspeakers. The ethnic Chinese defendant, Meiliana (44), was arrested on May 18, about two years after her case triggered a riot in Tanjung Balai.
2018 Aug 13, Iran unveiled a next generation short-range ballistic missile and vowed to further boost its capabilities.
2018 Aug 13, Malaysia's PM Mahathir Mohamad said he is looking to cancel multibillion-dollar Chinese-backed infrastructure projects signed by the previous scandal-tainted government as the country digs itself out of debt.
2018 Aug 13, Norway's rightwing Fisheries Minister Per Sandberg (58) quit after breaching security protocol when he went on holiday to Iran in July with an Iranian-born former beauty queen (28), in a major media scandal.
2018 Aug 13, A presidential spokesman said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has fired 20 people, including colonels and a general, over accusations of fraud and graft in purchases of military medical supplies.
2018 Aug 13, Poland used its powers as a European Union member to ban human rights Ukrainian activist Lyudmyla Kozlovska (32) from all 26 countries in Europe's Schengen area. Kozlovska was stopped at the Brussels Zaventem airport after arriving from Kiev, held overnight and put on an early flight back to Kiev the next morning. Belgian authorities acted after Poland entered her in the Schengen Information System, a database aimed at ensuring security in Europe's passport-free Schengen Area.
2018 Aug 13, Workers at South Africa's high-speed train service that mainly caters for business commuters ended a two-week strike over pay after reaching a 12-month agreement with their employer.
2018 Aug 13, Sudan's Red Crescent Society said at least 23 people have been killed in heavy flooding since July 23. More than 8,900 families have been left homeless.
2018 Aug 13, In Taiwan a fire at a hospital early today killed nine people and injured 15. An investigation was launched into the cause of the blaze.
2018 Aug 13, Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi proposed giving women equal inheritance rights despite protests from thousands of people objecting to any challenge to Islamic law.
2018 Aug 13, Turkey's central bank took action to free up cash for banks as the country grapples with a currency crisis sparked by concerns over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's economic policies and a trade and diplomatic dispute with the United States.
2018 Aug 13, Ugandan police arrested three opposition lawmakers and scores of others after stones were thrown at the convoy of President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country since 1986.
2018 Aug 13, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro announced that from now on dirt-cheap fuel will be available only to people with a special government aid card that the opposition has denounced as a tool for controlling people.
2019 Aug 13, Donald Trump played Santa Claus, telling reporters he was delaying tariffs on Chinese imports to avoid any adverse impact on US shoppers before the festive season.
(The Guardian, 8/13/19)
2019 Aug 13, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants is about "people coming from Europe" and that America is looking to receive migrants "who can stand on their own two feet".
2019 Aug 13, A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration over its decision to ease restrictions on coal-fired power plants, with California's governor saying the president is trying to rescue an outdated industry.
2019 Aug 13, The Los Angeles Opera said it will investigate accusations of sexual misconduct against Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, as two organizations canceled planned appearances by him.
2019 Aug 13, The San Francisco school board reversed course and voted to obscure art panels at George Washington High School that depicted slavery and white settlers stepping over a dead Native American. They were painted in 1936 by Russian artist Victor Arnautoff as part of the Works Progress Administration public art program under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal employment projects.
2019 Aug 13, A police officer in Gastonia, North Carolina, shot a suspect late today after responding to a call about a "subject with a weapon" at a popular restaurant.
2019 Aug 13, In Australia Mert Ney (21) was wrestled to the ground by three British men after he yelled "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and wounded one woman and attempted to stab others in Sidney. He had already allegedly stabbed one woman (21) to death in a nearby apartment. Police said he had a history of mental health issues.
(The Telegraph, 8/13/19)(SFC, 8/14/19, p.A2)
2019 Aug 13, It was reported that arrests and deportations of foreign teachers in China have soared this year, amid a broad crackdown defined by new police tactics and Beijing's push for a "cleaner", more patriotic education system. Switzerland-based Education First (EF), which runs 300 schools across 50 Chinese cities, has seen a "significant" increase in detentions in China for alleged offences including drugs, fighting and cybersecurity violations, according to a June 27 internal notice sent to employees.
2019 Aug 13, An Ethiopian soldier shot a man dead in front of several people after his phone rang during a public meeting in 2019. Ariti Shununde (32) was killed during operations to suppress the armed Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
(https://tinyurl.com/yden46kg)(AP, 5/29/20)
2019 Aug 13, Guatemala's Pres. Alejandro Giammattei said his country is too poor to tend to its own people, let alone those from other countries. This was in response to a July agreement signed by the outgoing administration of Pres. Jimmy Morales that would require migrants from other countries who cross into Guatemala to apply for asylum locally rather than in the US.
2019 Aug 13, Protests forced Hong Kong's airport to suspend check-ins for departing flights -- its second straight day of major service disruptions -- as embattled local leader Carrie Lam warned that the city risked sliding into an "abyss".
2019 Aug 13, In Libya fighting around Tripoli resumed overnight, following a two-day truce observed during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The self-styled Libyan National Army led by commander Khalifa Hifter carried out airstrikes overnight on Tripoli's southern outskirts.
2019 Aug 13, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the central bank to stop dollar supply for food imports, saying food security has been achieved and agricultural production has increased.
2019 Aug 13, Pakistan called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, saying India's decision to strip its part of disputed Kashmir of autonomy poses "an imminent threat" to international peace and could lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Muslim-majority region.
2019 Aug 13, Sudan state news said flooding triggered by weekend heavy rains inundated hundreds of houses in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country and killed at least six people.
2019 Aug 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a decree offering citizenship to Russians suffering political persecution, and also to foreigners who fought on Kiev's side in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
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