1 One man is killed and his body run over during clashes with Italian police in Genoa during the G8 Summit in July. Riots by anti-globalisation protesters in Quebec City and Gothenburg at earlier summit meetings meant Genoa's city centre was cordoned off by steel walls. In Hong Kong, 20 members of the April 5th Action Group stage their own small protest during the East Asia Conference in October. 2 Two months after the WTC attack, New York is again covered in thick smoke when a passenger jet goes down in Rockaway, Queens, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground. It is believed to have been an accident, not sabotage. 3 Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh is executed in June in front of a small audience of journalists and the families of his victims, despite his request for his death to be broadcast live. The execution had been delayed by a month after it was revealed the FBI had failed to hand over 3,000 pages of evidence. 4 More than 750 people are killed and 30,000 made homeless by flooding in Algiers. In the aftermath, a resident is helped by relatives to evacuate belongings from his ruined home. 5 Foot-and-mouth disease rampages through British livestock, and hundreds of thousands of healthy animals are destroyed in a bid to halt its spread. 6 The Palestinian intifada that erupted in September 2000 continues to escalate with a series of atrocities on both sides, including the killing of Amean Abu Hatab by Israeli soldiers. More than 700 Palestinians and almost 200 Israelis have died. 7 Nine Japanese sailors and students die when a US nuclear submarine surfaces directly underneath their fisheries training vessel, the Ehime Maru, sinking it off Pearl Harbour in February. The wreck is later moved to shallower waters and divers retrieve eight of the bodies. 8 President Robert Mugabe's land-seizure campaign escalates in Zimbabwe, with gangs of self-styled nationalist war veterans invading land owned by white farmers. Nine farmers have been killed, hundreds of labourers assaulted and thou-sands forced out of their homes. By September, Nigeria had brokered a deal to implement a fair land-reform programme. 9 Former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic is arrested in Belgrade in April after a two-day stand-off. He has been formally charged with genocide for his actions against Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war, and is to stand trial at a United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. New on the block Clockwise from top left: Junichiro Koizumi is elected prime minister in Japan following the resignation of Yoshiro Mori and one of the most unpopular administra-tions in the country's history. Silvio Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, becomes its prime minister for the second time (his first innings was in 1994 but he was ousted after seven months when he was investigated for alleged corruption). He soon runs into trouble with the international community for his comment that the West should be 'confident in the superiority of our civilisation' over Islam. Tony Blair is re-elected prime minister in Britain after postponing the election for a month owing to the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. Con-servative Party leader William Hague steps down and the little-known Iain Duncan Smith takes his place. John Howard is re-elected in Australia, largely as a result of his strong stance against refugees. Former shoeshine boy Alejandro Toledo becomes the first native Indian to be elected president in Peru. Ariel Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel and promptly nullifies all peace agreements with the Pal-estinians; the Palestinian uprising soon intensifies as a result. Dearly departed 1 Aussie cricketing giant Sir Donald Bradman, one of the world's best Test batsmen, dies in Adelaide aged 92. Not a bad innings ... 2 Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and later an unofficial ambassador for the hippy generation - his LSD-fuelled, cross-country bus ride in 1964 was immortalised by author Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - dies of liver cancer. 3 Virtuoso violinist Isaac Stern, the man who once saved Carnegie Hall from the wreckers' ball, dies following heart surgery. He used to refer to himself as 'just a fiddle player'. 4 Andrew Tu Hsueh-kwei, founder of the Hong Kong Samaritans, principal of the Mu Kuang School and husband of former legislator Elsie Tu, dies at 80. 5 Laurent Kabila, Congolese president, is assassinated by one of his bodyguards at his palace in Kinshasa. A government commission later accuses Rwanda, Uganda and Congo rebels of conspiring to murder him. 6 A plane crash in the Bahamas takes the lives of 22-year-old R&B singer Aaliyah and eight others who had been in the Caribbean filming a music video. 7 Suicide bombers posing as journalists assassinate Afghan Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood on September 9. 8 Hard-living John Phillips, founding member of '60s pop group The Mamas And The Papas, dies of heart failure at 65. 9 Gerry Forsgate, who landed in Hong Kong in 1941 and never left, dies at 82. 'Form a committee and Gerry will sit on it,' was one friend's joke, born out by his work as an Urban Councillor, instigator of the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens and chairman of the KCRC and China Coast Community, among many others. 10 Former Goon and Welsh comedy legend Sir Harry Secombe dies of prostate cancer. The rotund singer liked to joke, 'I have more chins than the Hong Kong telephone directory.' 11 George Harrison, the 'quiet Beatle', dies at 58 in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer. He was still recording new material in October, six weeks before his death. His ashes are scattered in the Yamuna River in India. 12 Chang Hsueh-liang, the Chinese warlord who kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936, dies in Hawaii aged 101. 13 Blues singer John Lee Hooker, once hailed as the 'funkiest man alive' by jazz impresario Miles Davis, dies in June. 14 Extreme right-wing Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi is shot three times by a Palestinian resistance group. His murder leads to escalating tension between Israel and Palestine. 15 Jeffrey Hyman, aka Joey Ramone, front- man for punk band The Ramones, dies of lymphatic cancer aged 49.
