As it happened: January - June

JANUARY

* The New Year was seen in with the good, the bad and the ugly. A knighthood for everyone's favourite sportsman, Bob Charles; the disappearance of 15-year-old Kirsty Bentley in Ashburton and the subsequent discovery of her body brought back memories of the beginning of the Olivia Hope and Ben Smart case; and Waihi Beach celebrations turned into a violent attack on police.

* In the United States, one of the previous year's running stories reached a new phase with the Senate opening President Clinton's impeachment trial.

* The long hot summer suddenly turned into the long hot, wet summer as torrential rain hit the top half of the North Island, claiming two lives and washing away homes. Hokianga bore the brunt.

* The Brazilian economy finally fulfilled predictions that it could have a wider effect, devaluing its currency and sending world stockmarkets on to a rollercoaster ride.

* On the other side of the world, the euro made its first appearance and two Spanish banks planned a merger that would make them Europe's largest banking entity. The merger story underwent a realignment as British Aerospace backed off its interest in DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and instead set its sights on Marconi Electronic Systems, creating the world's third largest defence company after Boeing and Lockheed.

* Boris Yeltsin started the year as he has spent parts of many others: in hospital.

* The European debate over genetically engineered crops spread to New Zealand.

* Michael Jordan retired again from the Chicago Bulls basketball team.

* Reports of the Olympic Games' venue-incentive practices spread from Salt Lake City to Sydney to Nagano - and to calls for Juan Antonio Samaranch, as overseer of the greed culture, to resign.

* Wellington found it hard to compete against big-spending Melbourne for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

* Jonah Lomu, Joeli Vidiri and Isitolo Maka were not fit enough for the All Blacks' summer camp. And sparks flew in Adelaide when an Australian umpire no-balled a Sri Lankan bowler for throwing.

* Rod and Rachel called it quits.

* The new Indonesia President B.J. Habibie offered East Timorese a chance to vote for autonomy within the country, which if rejected would see it released into independence.

* The New Zealand Army's land commander, Brigadier Roger Mortlock, resigned over a 29-year-old incident, the death of a soldier in Vietnam which was attributed to enemy action but was actually the result of accidental fire among New Zealand troops while on patrol.

* Nato members gave their secretary-general the authority to order air strikes against targets anywhere in what remained of Yugoslavia in response to violence and atrocities in Kosovo.

* And Colombia was an early site for what turned into a regular disaster feature of 1999. A 6.0 earthquake devastated the western coffee-growing region of the South American country.

* Sweetwaters was a great occasion for the crowd but not so good for those presenting the bills.

* Known variously as the Young Turks, Young Pragmatists or the Brat Pack, Bill English (Finance), Roger Sowry (minority Government management), Nick Smith (Education) and Tony Ryall (Justice) confirmed their rise in the Government.

FEBRUARY

* England soccer coach Glen Hoddle departed the national position after revealing in an interview a particularly obnoxious view of reincarnation and people with disabilities.

* Goodyear and Japan's Sumitomo Rubber joined forces to create the largest tyremaker in the world.

* Violence flared in East Timor in the wake of the Government's "autonomy or independence" announcement. East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao was transferred to house arrest after serving seven years of a 20-year jail sentence for his resistance role.

* Anil Kumble took 10 wickets in an innings for India against Pakistan, almost overshadowing the first test series on Indian soil between the two countries in 11 years - appropriately drawn, one match each.

* Jordan lost Hussein, the king who put Middle East peace first.

* Norm Hewitt sparked a debate, not about the drinking binge that got the All Black hooker into trouble but whether his tearful nationwide purging was appropriate.

* President Clinton was acquitted in an impeachment trial that, by the time it began, few seemed to want and everybody knew the result.

* Drip-feeding revelations of city-bidding practices left the International Olympic Committee suffering from water torture.

* Kurdish rebels' leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in Nairobi and flown to Turkey to face charges including treason and murder. The arrest sparked violent Europe-wide demonstrations.

* American Senate report claimed some countries and economic sectors, particularly the health-care industry, were at significant risk from technological failures and business disruption from Y2K problem.

* Avalanches in Austria claimed 37 lives.

MARCH

* Geoff Allott earned a world record at Eden Park, occupying the crease for 101 minutes without scoring as the drawn test with South Africa raised questions about the effect on grounds of rugby's slipping into the cricket season.

* European Union and the United States got into a trade row over bananas.

* Report found Sydney's bid for the 2000 Olympics included numerous breaches of Olympic guidelines in its lavish hospitality and gift-giving but also said the rules were unworkable and had fallen so much into disrepute that they were ignored by candidate cities.

* The IOC expelled six of its members for accepting payments and other inducements from officials involved in the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 winter games but gave a vote of confidence to their leader, Juan Antonio Samaranch. Members also adopted a new system for selecting host cities, confining the decision-making process to a few of their number.

* IOC were not alone in the corruption stakes. All 20 members of the European Union's executive commission resigned following a report condemning them for incompetence, mismanagement and losing control over widescale corruption, nepotism and fraud.

* Wall St firm Goldman Sachs decided to share its windfall from going public with its employees - a newly hired janitor in New York could expect $US10,000.

* Nato talking continued while Serb military attacks displaced thousands of Kosovo Albanians. Refugee officials estimated 50,000 in the past month driven from their homes. At the end of March, Nato air strikes began, triggering Serb terror attacks that sent ethnic Albanians fleeing to neighbouring states.

* A Swiss psychiatrist, Bertrand Piccard, and a British pilot, Brian Jones, achieved the first successful balloon flight around the globe, taking 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes and ending up stranded for seven hours in Egypt's Western Desert.

* Shakespeare in Love won the Oscar for best film, leaving Steven Spielberg with the consolation of best director for Saving Private Ryan.

* Malaysia had to kill off hundreds of thousands of pigs to counter outbreak of encephalitis virus that claimed 100 lives.

* British law lords narrowed charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet but ruled that he was legally liable for extradition to Spain.

* Jack Kevorkian, the American known as Dr Death for assisting more than 130 people to commit suicide, was found guilty of second-degree murder.

* More than 40 people died when a fire raged through the Mt Blanc road tunnel linking France and Italy.

APRIL

* Month opened with fears of wider instability in the Balkans as refugees by the trainload headed for Macedonia from Kosovo. Nato stepped up air attacks amid reports of new massacres. Opposition to the strikes was given ammunition through bombing mistakes that claimed the lives of Albanian refugees.

* The electricity industry moved into the competitive era under a cloud of challenges to the three-way split of the Electricity Corporation.

* Libya handed over two former agents, Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, to be tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law for the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people.

* New Zealand radio listeners to a Super12 match in South Africa got more than they bargained for when the South African announcers failed to turn up and Auckland talkback host Helen Brabazon filled the gap - all 80 minutes - with her television-based version of the Hurricanes' 34-18 win over the Sharks.

* The two largest record companies in the United States, Universal Music and BMG, united forces to market music on the Internet.

* Europe and United States both won in banana war: World Trade Organisation ruled that American companies were damaged by European banana quota but not by as much as claimed.

* Bumps on the heads of Nelson salmon stirred the genetic modification debate.

* Lion Nathan signed on to a deal to brew and market the German beer Becks - a very nice brew indeed - in China.

* How did we lose him? John Leslie, probably the best second-five never to play for the All Blacks, stole the show as Scotland took European rugby's Five Nations title.

* The big Y2K question was asked: could councils cope? Civil defence chiefs said householders should plan for two days of cuts of essential services

* Former Deputy Prime Minister Anway Ibrahim sentenced to six years in jail on corruption charges, setting off rioting in the Malaysian capital against the Mahathir Government.

* The former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was sentenced to five years in jail for corruption.

* India tested nuclear-capable missile; Pakistan followed suit.

* Running as everyman and woman's sport clearly had not lost its attraction: 30,000 started the London marathon.

* Two pupils killed 13 of children at a Denver suburb high school before turning their guns on themselves. It triggered one of the biggest debates on gun control in the United States.

* Indonesian Government flirted with a policy of greater autonomy as widespread unrest provided a reminder that East Timor was not the only region of the archipelago seeking some form of independence from dominance by Jakarta and the military.

* Former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore became caught up in a nasty little battle between Asian states and Washington over who should be the new director-general of the World Trade Organisation.

* The Tourism Board's bad year came to a head with Murray McCully quitting the Tourism Minister's portfolio.

MAY

* A search party formed 75 years after the disappearance of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine on Mt Everest found Mallory's body 521m below the summit. The big question, whether they reached the summit, remained unanswered.

* New driver's licences came into effect amid long queues, frustrating delays and failed eye tests.

* Slippery new $20 note with "holes" came into circulation.

* Nato's bombing mistakes culminated in death and damage at the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Mass anti-United States demonstrations in Beijing.

* Yugoslav Government announced a partial withdrawal of troops from Kosovo. Refugees streamed into Macedonia. Nato added a Belgrade hospital to its list of mishits. Pressure grew to send a ground force into Kosovo. The International War Crimes Tribunal indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four other senior leaders in relation to persecutions, deportations and murder committed in Kosovo.

* Scotland gained a Parliament; Labour took most seats in a proportional representative election; nationalists established themselves as the official Opposition.

* Firefighters turned on their boss, Fire Service Commission chief Roger Estall, at the site of a near-fatal fire in Auckland as heat intensified on fire-service restructuring. Pressure finally told; Estall resigned.

* Public investors in Contact Energy, New Zealand's largest share float, picked up their winnings.

* The Auckland urban Maori authority, the Waipareira Trust, won Government recognition as a tribe in social welfare matters.

* In Russia, Boris Yeltsin dismissed his Prime Minister, Yevgeni Primakov. Parliament approved his replacement as Sergei Stephashin.

* Cervical screening doubts turned the spotlight on Gisborne pathologist Dr Michael Bottrill and the transparency of New Zealand healthcare.

* Dutch Government collapsed after the coalition party failed to win passage of a bill giving citizens the right to vote in referendums. Resolution of the crisis was handed to Queen Beatrix.

* Sian Elias was sworn in as New Zealand's 12th, and first woman, chief justice.

* Creative New Zealand survey said 90 per cent of New Zealanders took part in an average of four different types of arts activity a month - that's if arts activity included listening to pop music and knitting.

* Israelis voted out Benjamin Netanyahu, installing One Israel's Ehud Barak as Prime Minister.

* Violence in East Timor suggested an unhappy future. Was New Zealand military equipped to take a peacemaking role?

* Indian air-strikes against guerrillas in disputed territory of Kashmir raised Pakistan-India tensions.

* Manchester United beat Bayern Munich 2-1 in the last minute to add European soccer's Champions Cup to its English FA Cup and league titles.

* Second Alps tunnel, a link between Germany and Italy, closed after accident triggered fire that claimed at least one life.

* New Zealand's question of the year was resolved: Taine Randall retained the All Black captaincy. But Jed Rowlands, coach of the poorly performed Blues' Super 12 team, was sacked as Auckland's NPC coach before he even took up the position.

* Parliamentary debate over Alamein Kopu's Mana Wahine party qualifying for $77,000 in funding for research and office expenses had the Speaker expressing concern that Parliament had "dragged itself to the bottom of the sewer."

* Constable Murray Stretch beaten to death when investigating a burglary in Mangakino.

* Star Wars: Episode 1 - the Phantom Menace, the new addition to the Star Wars chronicle, topped $US200 million ($392 million) in box-office takings in 13 days.

JUNE

* Slobodan Milosevic said Yugoslav troops would withdraw from Kosovo. Refugees headed for home. Russians jumped the gun as Nato allies divided Kosovo into areas of responsibility. Returning Albanian Kosovars took anger out on Serb homes.

* Master tennis player Steffi Graf said farewell to the French Open on a winning note; Martina Hingis departed in tears.

* The ANC recorded a landslide in South African elections; the New National Party, the face of the old white-dominated rule, trailed in a very distant fourth. Thabo Mbeki took over from Nelson Mandela as President.

* Meanwhile, Indonesians settled in for a long wait after their first open elections in 44 years.

* Prince Edward married public-relations executive Sophie Rhys-Jones in a glittering ceremony at St George's chapel, Windsor. For many people, the bride bore a haunting resemblance to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The couple became known as the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

* The Olympic scandal reached far and wide: the Australian International Olympic Committee representative, Phil Coles, was forced to resign from the Sydney 2000 organising committee after the IOC board reprimanded him for "serious negligence."

* "Century" judgments began in earnest: Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn judged actors of the century.

* Earthquake in central Mexico killed 15 and devastated the heart of the city of Puebla.

* Australia crushed Pakistan in cricket's World Cup final, New Zealand departed in the semifinal with the satisfaction of having been one of only two teams to beat the champions.