Events January January 1 - the Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States of America January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral. January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 6 Spanish aid workers and three soldiers, and seriously wound another. January 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city. January 20 – Bill Clinton is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. January 23 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State of the United States, after confirmation by the United States Senate. February February 4 On their way to Lebanon, two Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide, killing all 73 on board. After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake strikes North Khorasan province, Iran, killing 88 people and injuring 1,948. February 10 – Sandline affair: Australian newspapers publish stories that the government of Papua New Guinea has brought mercenaries onto Bougainville Island. February 13 – STS-82: Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery. February 28 – North Hollywood shootout: Two robbers, wearing kevlar body armor, and armed with AK-47s containing armor-piercing bullets, injure 17 police officers and civilians in a gun battle. The incident sparks debate on the appropriate firepower for United States patrol officers to have available in similar situations in the future. March March 4 – U.S. President Bill Clinton bans federal funding for any research on human cloning. March 7 – In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers overrun a military base and kill over 100 Sri Lankan troops. March 13 India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala, to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader. The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China creates a new Chongqing Municipality, out of part of Sichuan. March 14 – A study of gender reassignment of a boy who lost his penis to a botched circumcision is refuted by a follow-up study. The supposedly successful outcome had been widely cited as proof that