Health hazard / CHRONICLE

.WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MAJORITY WORLD

JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC
Click a month above to read an alternative view of the key events of that month.

CHILE Ricardo Lagos, an opponent to Pinochet’s regime, wins the elections and becomes the first socialist president since Allende in 1973. The victory is narrow – 51.3 per cent of the votes to Lagos and 48.7 per cent to the right-wing opposition.

TIBET Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the 14-year-old head of Karma Kagyu, one of the four great sects of Tibetan Buddhism, arrives in India after a 1,440-kilometre trek through the Himalayas to escape Chinese rule.

NIGERIA Oil giant Shell promises reconciliation with the Ogoni tribe, who accuse the company of failing to intervene to stop the execution of activist Ken Saro Wiwa in 1994. Ogoniland accounts for 30,000 of the 700,000 barrels of oil a day produced by Shell in the Niger Delta.

COLOMBIA A crowd of 100 homeless people, displaced by fighting, seize the Red Cross headquarters in Bogotá, taking 37 people hostage. The hostages are released after President Andrés Pastrana Arango finally meets their demands for shelter, health care and education.

RUSSIA Boris Yeltsin resigns months before the end of his mandate and turns his powers – including the briefcase with codes and controls of Russia’s nuclear arsenal – over to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin oversees revisions to the national-security doctrine that broaden the possible scenarios in which Russia would use nuclear weapons.

WORLD America Online and Time Warner merge to create the fourth-largest corporation in the world. Analysts fear that an Internet power of such size will compromise Web independence and freedom.

HAITI As the US pulls out the last of its troops – originally numbering 15,000 after the invasion in October 1994 – Haiti remains troubled. The US-created police force has had some 900 officers dismissed for corruption and human-rights abuse. Haitians complain that nothing is being done about terror perpetrated by local gangs.

SRI LANKA In an attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a suicide bomber kills 12 and injures 24 in Colombo. It is the latest action action of the Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate homeland since 1983.

THAILAND Burmese guerrillas led by 12-year-old twins storm a Thai hospital taking around 800 people captive. They demand Thailand grant the Karen tribe, to which the rebels belong, refuge from the Burmese army. They also claim that a Thai army offensive against insurgents in the border region has killed around 300 people.

ECUADOR President Jamil Mahuad announces that the country will give up its national currency, the sucre, in favour of the US dollar. But this ‘dollarization’ of the economy is widely resisted.

UNITED STATES Doris Haddock reaches Washington on her ninetieth birthday after a 2,800-kilometre walk across the nation. Haddock sees her walk as an attempt to rally people against the power of corporations: ‘We must look to whether we can afford to give these little monsters a birth certificate but no proper upbringing and no consequences for anti-social behaviour.’

GUATEMALA Alfonso Portillo,
candidate of the Guatemalan Republican Front Party, which was linked to atrocities during the civil war, becomes the country’s new president. Despite admitting he killed a man 17 years ago, Portillo’s promise to bring lawlessness under control ensures his popularity.