Britannica Book of the Year 2011

ENCYCLOPÆDIA

Britannica

2011

BOOK OF THE YEAR

®

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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ENCYCLOPÆDIA

Britannica

2011

BOOK OF THE YEAR DIRECTOR AND EDITOR Karen Jacobs Sparks

®

SUPERVISOR, COMPOSITION Carol A. Gaines

HEAD LIBRARIAN Henry Bolzon

SENIOR EDITOR Melinda C. Shepherd

COMPOSITION STAFF Cate Nichols

CURATOR/GEOGRAPHY Lars Mahinske

EDITORIAL STAFF Patricia Bauer Heather Campbell John C. Cunningham Robert Curley Brian Duignan Virginia Gorlinski Erik Gregersen Kathleen Kuiper J.E. Luebering Amy McKenna Lorraine Murray Jeannette L. Nolen Kenneth Pletcher John P. Rafferty Michael Ray Kara Rogers Matt Stefon Noah Tesch Jeffrey Wallenfeldt

ILLUSTRATION STAFF Christine McCabe

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN Robert M. Lewis

MANAGER, MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT Jeannine Deubel

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF Barbara A. Schreiber

DIRECTOR, STATISTICAL STAFF Rosaline Jackson-Keys SENIOR EDITOR, STATISTICAL STAFF Stephen Neher EDITOR, STATISTICAL STAFF Thad King MANAGER, MEDIA ACQUISITION Kathy Nakamura MEDIA EDITORS Kimberly L. Cleary Nicole DiGiacomo DIRECTOR, ART AND COMPOSITION Steven N. Kapusta

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Foreword

I

n 2010 much of the world continued to be fraught with tension and uncertainty. Troubling economic news dominated headlines worldwide, while other events—including the explosion of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which resulted in the spewing of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico—added to the bad news. Worries also emerged about cyberwarfare attacks on governments and the prospect of invasive species’ thriving in temperatures that were getting warmer by the year. In Yemen al-Qaeda stirred up trouble and gained a foothold in the south of the country by encouraging secessionists to break away from the north, and the militant group established a base from which to coordinate terrorist activities. In the U.S. the grassroots Tea Party movement brewed up a tempest in the political arena with its credo to oppose excessive taxation, immigration, and government intervention in the private sector. In Africa 17 countries, 14 of them former French colonies, marked the 50th anniversary of their independence. The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile brought to the fore the need for smart engineering of buildings to sustain the shocks from massive temblors. On the bright side, the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C., provided spills and chills early in the year, and epicureans everywhere savoured the new and interesting concoctions that resulted from the culinary applications of Molecular Gastronomy. All of these topics are covered in Special Reports. Significant elections took place in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., where the midterm elections resulted in the Republicans’ taking majority control in most states and in the House of Representatives. Some believed that the new and unpopular U.S. health care bill initiated by the administration of Pres. Barack Obama was one factor that led to the Democrats’ defeat. The cataclysmic Haiti earthquake, which killed about 220,000 persons, led to billions of dollars in pledges from countries worldwide, but by year’s end that country had yet to receive many of the donations. Europe had its fair share of economic woes, especially the countries of the so-called PIIGS; Greece and Ireland had to accept massive bailouts to keep their economies afloat. Putting a positive spin on the news, wind turbines were helping to conserve energy, and China’s commercial wind farm began providing electricity to Expo 2010 Shanghai China, a world’s fair that attracted some 70 million visitors. In the realm of sports, the first Summer Youth Olympic Games were held in Singapore, and the association football (soccer) World Cup featured a final duel between Spain and the Netherlands, with the former emerging victorious. These stories appear as Sidebars. A number of sports legends died during the year, including basketball coach John Wooden and three baseball legends: New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, longtime manager Sparky Anderson, and Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob (“Rapid Robert”) Feller. Hollywood had its share of losses, notably actors Tony Curtis, Dennis Hopper, and Lynn Redgrave. Other prominent deaths included those of Polish Pres. Lech Kaczynski, civil rights activist Dorothy Height, fashion designer Alexander McQueen, writers J.D. Salinger and José Saramago, opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland, and songstresses Lena Horne and Kate McGarrigle. The personalities of the year featured in biographies include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, British Prime Minister David Cameron, film director Kathryn Bigelow, pop-culture icon Lady Gaga, golfer Phil Mickelson, and baseball pitcher Roy Halladay. In the Britannica family of authors, we salute longtime geology and geochemistry expert Peter J. Wylie, who is retiring after 34 years. Though the news was mostly bad in 2010, it was a year in which exciting discoveries were made, technology took greater strides forward, and people bid a final farewell to the decade. There are many more compelling stories to read between the pages of this volume, the Britannica Book of the Year 2011. I invite you to discover them. Karen Sparks Director and Editor

Contents

2011 DATES OF 2010

EVENTS OF 2010

Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Anthropology and Archaeology . . 200

Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Architecture and Civil Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Sports and Games . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Automobile Racing; Baseball; Basketball; Bobsleigh, Skeleton, and Luge; Boxing; Cricket; Curling; Cycling; Equestrian Sports; Football; FIFA WORLD CUP 2010; Golf; Gymnastics; Ice Hockey; Ice Skating; Sailing (Yachting); Skiing; Squash; Swimming; THE YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2010; Tennis; Track and Field Sports (Athletics); Volleyball; Weightlifting; Wrestling; Sporting Record

PEOPLE OF 2010 Nobel Prizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Art and Art Exhibitions . . . . . . . . 209 Art, Art Exhibitions, Photography

Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Business Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Computers and Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . 218

SPECIAL REPORTS The Persistent Economic Slump . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 By Joel Havemann

BP’s Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill . . . . . . . . . . . . .174 By Richard Pallardy

Freedom from Empire: An Assessment of Postcolonial Africa . . . . . . . . . . . .176 By Ebenezer Obadare

Yemen’s Perilous State . . . . . . . . .180 By Robert Burrowes

Cyberwarfare: The Invisible Threat . . . . . . . . . . .182 By John B. Sheldon

The Tea Party: A New Force in U.S. Politics . . . . . . . . . .184 By Michael Ray

Invasive Species: Exotic Intruders . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186 By John P. Rafferty

Engineering for Earthquakes . . . .190 By Robert Reitherman

Molecular Gastronomy: The Science Behind the Cuisine . . . . . . . . . . .192 By Hervé This

The XXI Olympic Winter Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194 By Melinda C. Shepherd

Earth Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Geology and Geochemistry, Geophysics, Meteorology and Climate Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Primary and Secondary Education, Higher Education The Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 International Activities, National Developments, Environmental Issues, Wildlife Conservation, WIND TURBINES: A NEW SPIN ON ENERGY Fashions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

THE WORLD IN 2010 World Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 United Nations, European Union, Multinational and Regional Organizations, Dependent States, Antarctica, Arctic Regions Countries of the World . . . . . . . . 360 THE DEBT CRISIS IN THE EURO ZONE; AUSTRALIAN ELECTION OF 2010; THE SHANGHAI EXPO; HAITI’S CATASTROPHIC EARTHQUAKE; THE BRITISH ELECTION OF 2010; U.S. 2010 MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Health and Disease . . . . . . . . . . . 240 THE PROVISIONS OF THE LANDMARK 2010 U.S. HEALTH CARE REFORM LEGISLATION

CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Life Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Zoology, Botany, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Paleontology

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857

Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese Military Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 WMD, Arms Control, and Disarmament; Conflicts; Military Technology; Armed Forces and Politics; Military and Society Performing Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Music, Dance, Theatre, Motion Pictures Physical Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Space Exploration

WORLD DATA

. . . . . . . . . 497

In 2010, as economies around the world struggled to recover from the Great Recession of 2008–09, continuing high unemployment, particularly in developed countries, triggered protests, including this banner in London’s Parliament Square depicting a long line of job seekers. Facundo Arrizabalaga—EPA/Landov

Dates of 2010

A few lone individuals wander amid the wreckage on a street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the city and surrounding areas were severely damaged by a devastating earthquake and several aftershocks in January. Gregory Bull, File/AP

January Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. Haitian Pres. René Préval, describing effects of the previous day’s earthquake, January 13

A suicide truck bomber attacks a crowd watching a volleyball match in the village of Shah Hasan Khel outside South Waziristan in Pakistan, killing some 91 people; it is thought that the assault is aimed against an anti-Taliban militia being organized in the village. • The yearlong celebration marking the bicentennial of composer Frédéric Chopin’s birth begins with a ceremony in his birthplace, Zelazowa Wola, Pol., and a concert in Warsaw.

Afghanistan’s legislature rejects 17 of the 24 people nominated for cabinet positions by Pres. Hamid Karzai for his second term of office. • A magnitude-5.3 earthquake in the eastern Pamir Mountains devastates the villages of Rog and Gishkon in Tajikistan; some 20,000 people are left homeless.

The United States and the United Kingdom close their embassies in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, in view of apparent threats from the terrorist 8

organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The price of a barrel of crude oil closes at $81.51, its highest price since October 2008. • The world’s tallest building is ceremonially opened in Dubai, U.A.E.; the 160-story, 828-m (2,717-ft)-high tower, which dwarfs the Taipei 101, the previous record holder, is given the name Burj Khalifa in honour of the leader of Abu Dhabi, which gave financial assistance to Dubayy at the end of 2009.

Pres. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland vetoes legislation passed in 2009 to compensate the governments of Britain and the Netherlands for funds they used to repay depositors who lost money when the Icelandic banking system collapsed in late 2008. • Beset by demands and intimidation from the Islamist militant group alShabaab, the UN World Food Programme announces the indefinite suspension of much of its program in southern Somalia.

Hirohisa Fujii resigns as Japan’s finance minister just before the presentation of the budget for the next fiscal year to the legislature; he is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan. • In Turkmenistan, Turkmen Pres. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ceremonially open a natural gas pipeline that runs from Turkmenistan to Iran. • A suicide car bomber detonates his weapon outside a traffic police station in Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan; seven police officers are killed.

China’s central bank raises its short-term interest rate slightly; the move is regarded as a significant one. • In southern Egypt thousands of Coptic Christians riot in response to an overnight drive-by shooting in Naj! Hammadi in which six Christians were killed. • The University of Alabama defeats the University of

Texas 37–21 in college football’s Bowl Championship Series title game in Pasadena, Calif., to win the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision championship.

Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court rules that the Financial Market Supervisory Authority overstepped its authority when it ordered the banking giant UBS to give U.S. investigators financial data on some 300 clients suspected of tax evasion. • Pres. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela announces a devaluation of the country’s currency; Venezuela’s economy shrank by 2.9% in 2009. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in December 2009 remained at 10% but that the economy lost 85,000 jobs.

Togo withdraws from the African Cup of Nations association football (soccer) tournament after the team bus was ambushed and three of those aboard, including an

January

assistant coach, were killed en route to a match in Cabinda, Angola.

After three days of race riots in Rosarno, Italy, in southern Calabria, some 1,000 guest workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been evacuated to immigrant centres. • Ivo Josipovic of the opposition Social Democratic Party wins the runoff presidential election in Croatia. • Voters in the French overseas départements of Martinique and French Guiana both reject proposals for greater autonomy from France in referendums. • Solar physicist Jacob Heerikhuisen reports that the ribbon of energetic neutral particles found by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft at the edge of the solar system in 2009 may indicate a galactic magnetic field reflecting solar particles back into the solar system.

Peter Robinson temporarily steps down as Northern Ireland’s first minister as a scandal unfolds involving loans taken by his wife for her lover. • Figures are released showing that China has passed the U.S. to become the largest automobile market in number of vehicles sold; data released a day earlier showed that it has also passed Germany to become the biggest exporter of manufactured goods. • Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, who holds the Major League Baseball record for home runs in a single season, publicly admits that he used steroids throughout the

1990s; his record of 70 home runs was set in 1998. • The Pak Institute for Peace Studies reports that 3,021 Pakistanis were killed in terrorist attacks in 2009, 33% more than in the previous year, and that 667 people were killed in air strikes from American drones.

The Internet company Google announces that it will cease cooperating with censorship of search results in China and that it may withdraw from China entirely; it cites cyberattacks that took place the previous month, many of which appeared to target Google e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. • A devastating magnitude7.0 earthquake flattens Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, and the death toll is feared to be enormous; among the buildings destroyed or heavily damaged are the national cathedral, the presidential palace (photo below), those housing the parliament, the tax office, and the Ministries of Commerce and Foreign Affairs, and the headquarters of the UN mission in the country.

• Hundreds of people march in Abuja, Nigeria, to protest the lengthy absence of Pres. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who has been in Saudi Arabia getting medical treatments since late November 2009. • Saudi Arabia announces that its forces have killed hundreds of al-Huthi insurgents in the border village of Al-Jabri, and fighting between Yemeni forces and al-Huthi rebels takes place in Sa!dah, Yemen.

The UN releases a report saying that in 2009 in Afghanistan 2,412 civilians were killed—a 14% increase from the previous year—and that 1,630 of them were killed by Taliban and other insurgent groups; the figure is the highest since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. • The journal Nature publishes online a study led by Jennifer Hughes and David Page of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., in which it was found that the human Y chromosome, the male-determining chromosome, constantly renews itself and undergoes rapid evolutionary change; it had been thought that the chromosome was decaying.

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission surprises observers by barring 499 candidates from running for office in upcoming legislative elections because of their ties to the outlawed Ba!th Party. • The European Central Bank leaves its benchmark interest rate at 1%, and its president, Jean-Claude Trichet, warns that Greece should not expect special treatment from the bank. • Aid begins to trickle in to the decimated city of Port-auPrince, where Haitian Pres. René Préval says that 7,000 people have been buried in a mass grave, and the death toll is thought to be in the neighbourhood of 200,000.

After three days of negotiations, Moussa Dadis Camara, leader of the ruling junta in Guinea, agrees to remain in exile in Burkina Faso and to allow the deputy leader, Sékouba Konaté, to oversee a transition back to democracy. • Russia’s legislature ratifies a protocol to reform the European Court of Human Rights; with this final ratification, the court may now

Logan Abassi—Minustah/Getty Images

9

January

commence implementing the procedures set forth in the protocol. • Radio Mashaal, a Pashtolanguage station of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, begins broadcasting in the border regions of Pakistan.

Iraq’s legislature rejects 10 of the new cabinet choices offered by Pres. Hamid Karzai and the following day begins its winter break. • The Dakar Rally concludes in Buenos Aires; the winners are Spanish driver Carlos Sainz in a Volkswagen automobile, French driver Cyril Despres on a KTM motorcycle, Russian driver Vladimir Chagin in a Kamaz truck, and Argentine driver Marcos Patronelli in a Yamaha ATV.

Violent fighting between Christians and Muslims breaks out in Jos, Nigeria; over the next three days, some 400 people, most of them Muslims, are killed. • Conservative candidate Sebastián Piñera wins the runoff presidential election in Chile, defeating Eduardo Frei of the ruling Concertación coalition, which has held power for some 20 years. • At the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., best picture honours go to Avatar and The Hangover; best director goes to James Cameron for Avatar.

An attack by a group of armed militants on the central bank in downtown Kabul is repulsed, leading to a street battle pitting the militants against Afghan soldiers and police that lasts for hours; all seven militants, 10

three soldiers, and two civilians are killed. • Jean-Marie Doré, head of the opposition coalition Forces Vives, is chosen to serve as prime minister of a transitional government in Guinea. • At Thoroughbred horse racing’s 2009 Eclipse Awards, the four-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra is named Horse of the Year. • Sylvie Kauffmann is named the first woman to become executive editor of Le Monde in the respected French newspaper’s 65-year history.

Japan Airlines, Japan’s flagship carrier, files for bankruptcy protection; the airline faces wrenching reorganization. • In Massachusetts, Republican candidate Scott Brown wins election over Democrat Martha Coakley to fill the seat in the U.S. Senate that was long held by Ted Kennedy. • After lengthy and contentious negotiations, the venerable British candy maker Cadbury agrees to be acquired by the Americanbased food and beverage giant Kraft Foods.

A riot between rival gangs breaks out in the prison in Parral in Mexico’s Durango state; 23 inmates die in the violence. • A magnitude-6.1 aftershock rattles Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where people continue to die for lack of medical attention; the dearth of infrastructure is one element hampering the efficient deployment of aid.

In a politically explosive ruling, the U.S.

Supreme Court overturns two previous decisions that were issued in 1990 and 2003 and rules that spending on political campaigns by corporations is protected free speech and cannot be curtailed by the government; Justice John Paul Stevens files a vigorous dissent. • Angola’s legislature approves a new constitution that, among other things, replaces the direct election of the president with a system in which the party that wins the majority of seats in legislative elections will choose the president. • NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies releases figures showing that the decade 2000–09 was the warmest on record, agreeing with conclusions earlier disseminated by the National Climatic Data Center. • The carmaker Toyota Motor Corp. issues a recall for 2.3 million cars from model years 2005–10 to fix a reported problem with accelerators’ becoming stuck, causing unintended acceleration; in November 2009 Toyota recalled 4.2 million vehicles to address a problem of accelerator pedals’ getting stuck under floor mats. • The American television network NBC agrees to pay The Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien $32.5 million to quit the network; it plans to return Jay Leno as host of the show, which he left in May 2009, undoing a plan that was put in place in 2004.

of 124 would-be migrants who had apparently been put ashore the previous night is found; many of the migrants are Kurds from Syria.

U.S. government figures reveal that unemployment rates rose in December 2009 in 43 states, reaching record highs in Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. • On a beach of the French island of Corsica, a boatload

A far-reaching new constitution, the country’s 38th, is proclaimed in the Dominican Republic. • The carmaker General Motors announces that it has found a buyer for its Swedish unit Saab; Spyker Cars, a Dutch manufacturer

British officials say that the owner of ATSC Ltd. has been arrested on fraud charges; hundreds of bomb detectors the company supplied to the Iraqi government have been found to be useless. • Yokozuna Asashoryu defeats ozeki Harumafuji to win his 25th Emperor’s Cup at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo.

Heavy rains cause mud slides in the area of Machu Picchu in Peru, killing some five people and cutting off road and rail access to the Inca site; hundreds of stranded visitors have to be airlifted to safety. • The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan postpones the country’s legislative elections from May 22 to September 18, saying that the logistic challenges are too great to make the earlier date possible.

Bombs go off at each of three large hotels that cater largely to foreign journalists and businesspeople in Baghdad; at least 36 people are killed.

January Raveendran—AFP/Getty Images

cuts in an effort to decrease its budget deficit; unemployment in Spain in the last fiscal quarter of 2009 is reported at 18.8%.

of elite sports cars, has agreed to acquire the unit. • A military and cultural parade in New Delhi marks Republic Day on the 60th anniversary of India’s constitution. (Photo above.) • The ticket sales of the movie Avatar, directed by James Cameron, reach $1.86 billion, making it the highestgrossing film in history; the previous sales leader was the 1997 movie Titanic, also directed by Cameron.

Voters in Sri Lanka reelect Pres. Mahinda Rajapakse in a landslide in the country’s presidential election. • Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya flies into voluntary exile in the Dominican Republic, and Porfirio Lobo is sworn in as Honduras’s new president. • U.S. Pres. Barack Obama delivers his first state of the union address; he focuses on initiatives to create more jobs and increase employment.

• In San Francisco, Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs introduces a tablet computer called the iPad; it combines features of laptops, smartphones, and electronic readers.

At an international conference on Afghanistan in London, Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai says that he plans to attempt reconciliation with Taliban members and that it could take as long as 10 years for the Afghan military to be able to take over responsibility from U.S.-led coalition forces. • Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin is acquitted of charges that he was part of a conspiracy to besmirch the reputation of Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy in 2004 with false information; three other defendants are found guilty. • The U.S. Senate confirms Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

• The Fall of Heaven, the first play written by crime novelist Walter Mosley, adapted from his novel The Tempest Tales, has its world premiere at the Cincinnati (Ohio) Playhouse in the Park. • A report in Science magazine online describes findings that the amount of water vapour in the stratosphere has decreased by about 10% over the past 10 years, reducing the rate of global warming by approximately 25%; in 1980–2000 increased water vapour from methane emitted in the industrial period likely increased the rate of warming.

The U.S. Commerce Department reveals that the country’s GDP in the last fiscal quarter of 2009 expanded at an annual rate of 5.7%, its fastest expansion since the third quarter of 2003, but that the economy shrank drastically for the year as a whole. • Spain’s government proposes broad and deep spending

A large group of masked gunmen attack a house in Juárez, Mex., where high school students are attending a party; at least 16 people are shot to death. • American Serena Williams defeats Justine Henin of Belgium to win the Australian Open women’s tennis championship; the following day Roger Federer of Switzerland defeats Briton Andy Murray to take the men’s title and extend his record string of Grand Slam victories to 16. • Top awards at the annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, go to Winter’s Bone, Restrepo, Happythankyoumoreplease, and Waiting for Superman.

At the African Union’s annual summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Eth., Pres. Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi succeeds Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi as chairman of the union. • Egypt wins the African Cup of Nations in association football (soccer) for a record seventh time when it defeats Ghana 1–0 in the final match in Angola. • At the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, the top winner is Beyoncé, who wins six awards, including song of the year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”; the award for record of the year goes to the Kings of Leon for “Use Somebody”; the album of the year is Taylor Swift’s Fearless; and the best new artist is the Zac Brown Band. 11

February He had a dream to participate in the Olympic Games. He trained hard, and he had this fatal accident. I have no words to say what we feel. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogges after the accidental death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili hours before the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, February 12

UN officials announce that 55 countries, representing 78% of global greenhouse gas emissions from energy use, submitted emission-reduction plans to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by the deadline set by the Copenhagen Accord; the pledges, which do not include submissions from Russia or Mexico and are not enough to meet the goals of the agreement, are regarded as a positive step. • Outside Baghdad a female suicide bomber kills at least 38 Shi!ite pilgrims making their way to Karbala# for a religious observance.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, support the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, in place since 1993, that prevents people who are openly gay from serving in the armed forces. 12

• The British medical journal The Lancet retracts a 1998 article that suggested that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella childhood vaccination is a cause of autism, in light of a finding by a medical panel that Andrew Wakefield, lead author of the paper, had been dishonest.

The European Commission approves Greece’s plan to reduce its deficit, currently 12.7% of GDP. • A bomb goes off in Karbala#, Iraq, killing at least 21 Shi!ite pilgrims. • Pres. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina formally dismisses Martín Redrado as president of the country’s central bank and replaces him with Mercedes Marcó del Pont. • A report posted online by The New England Journal of Medicine describes a study in which MRI testing revealed that some persist-

ently unconscious patients show brain activity in response to instructions and are capable of using thoughts to signal answers to yes-or-no questions. • Walking Man I, a bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, sells at Sotheby’s auction house for £65,001,250 (about $104.3 million), a new world record price for a work of art sold at auction.

The Democratic Unionist Party members of Northern Ireland’s legislature approve a government agreement negotiated with Sinn Fein to transfer police and justice functions to local control on April 12. • Indian linguist Anvita Abbi reports that with the January 26 death of Boa Sr, the last known speaker of the Andamanese language of Bo, the language, which is thought to be among the oldest in the world and is believed to have originated in Africa, is extinct.

• A team of paleontologists publishes in Science magazine online a full-colour portrait of the extravagant plumage of Anchiornis huxleyi, a 150-million-yearold theropod. (Illus. right.) • Yokozuna Asashoryu announces his retirement from sumo in the face of reports that he had attacked a man outside a nightclub in Tokyo the previous month.

At least two explosions take place in Karbala#, Iraq, among the crowd of Shi!ite pilgrims marching to the final resting place of Imam Hussein on the final day of a religious observance; a minimum of 27 people die. • In Karachi, a bomb mangles a bus carrying Shi!ites to a religious procession, and within a few hours another bomb explodes in a hospital where the wounded from the first attack were taken; at least 25 people are killed in the attacks.

February

• The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in January fell to 9.7% although 20,000 jobs were lost from the economy during the same period.

In Northern Ireland, the Irish National Liberation Army declares that it has surrendered its weapons; of the groups that signed the 1997 truce bringing peace to the province, it is the last to lay down its arms. • A winter storm that began the previous day leaves the mid-Atlantic U.S. states buried in snow, with more than 51 cm (20 in) in Washington, D.C., and a record 76 cm (30 in) in Baltimore, Md.; the governors of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia declare states of emergency.

Former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych wins the runoff presidential election in Ukraine, though his opponent, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, does not concede. • Laura Chinchilla of the ruling National Liberation Party is elected president of Costa Rica. • In Miami Gardens, Fla., the New Orleans Saints defeat the Indianapolis Colts 31–17 to win the National Football League’s Super Bowl XLIV; it is the first time the Saints have won the championship.

• The Escogido Lions (Leones) of the Dominican Republic defeat the Caracas Lions (Leones) of Venezuela 7–4 to win baseball’s Caribbean Series.

Former opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka is brutally arrested by the military police in Sri Lanka; the following day Pres. Mahinda Rajapakse dissolves the legislature to force early elections. • The space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to the International Space Station; it carries a seven-windowed cupola and the Tranquility module, which is the last major U.S. component to be installed on the station. • Nielsen figures show that some 106.5 million people watched the Super Bowl on February 7, passing the 105.97 million people who watched the series finale of the television program M*A*S*H to make the football game the most-watched TV program in American history.

Nigeria’s legislature passes a motion to recognize Vice Pres. Goodluck Jonathan as the country’s acting president in view of the lengthy absence of its president; the constitution requires the president to transfer authority in the event of his absence or

incapacity, but he has not done so. • Pres. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Pres. Idriss Déby of Chad agree to stop supporting rebels in each other’s countries and to engage in direct talks and joint projects. • Haiti’s government raises the death toll from the earthquake that took place on January 12 to 230,000.

Civil servants in Greece engage in a one-day strike to protest austerity measures proposed by the government to reign in its budget deficit. • Iran slows Internet service and shuts down text messaging in an effort to prevent large opposition demonstrations for the following day’s celebration of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution; it also blocks Gmail (Google’s e-mail service) in a stated effort to persuade people to use a recently announced national e-mail service.

At a summit meeting in Brussels called by European Council Pres. Herman Van Rompuy, EU leaders agree to aid Greece in order to safeguard the euro but, at the behest of Germany, offer

no specifics beyond monitoring the country’s austerity plan. • South Korean news organizations report that North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-Il the previous week apologized for the country’s currency reform, which had caused inflation and deprivation, and lifted the ban imposed under the reform on the use of foreign currency. • Pres. !Ali !Abdallah Salih of Yemen announces an immediate cease-fire with alHuthi rebels; a rebellion had flared up in late 2009.

Pres. Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire declares the government dissolved and asks Prime Minister Guillaume Soro to form a new government; Gbagbo also disbands the electoral commission. • The XXI Olympic Winter Games officially open in Vancouver, though the opening ceremony is overshadowed by the accidental death earlier in the day of Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili during a practice run for the luge competition. • Renowned chef Ferran Adrià announces that he will close his storied avant-garde restaurant, elBulli, in Roses, Spain, at the end of 2011.

Afghan, U.S., and British military forces begin a major offensive to take the town and area of Marjah in Afghanistan from the Taliban; Marjah is a Taliban stronghold. • Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai issues a decree giving the responsibility for appointing members of the Election Complaint Commission to the president; the commission, which documented

Lisa Dejong—The Plain Dealer/Landov

13

February

irregularities in the 2009 presidential election, previously had membership appointed by the UN. • U Tin U, the deputy leader and cofounder of the National League for Democracy, is freed from house arrest in Myanmar (Burma); he had been under detention since 2003. • The first gold medal of the Vancouver Winter Olympics is awarded to Simon Ammann of Switzerland in the normal hill individual ski jump; a week later Ammann also wins gold in the large hill final.

Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas suspends his chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, and appoints a committee to investigate accusations, backed up by videotape, that Husseini attempted to trade political favours for sex. • During an intense battle in the offensive in Marjah, Afg., an American rocket strike misses its target and instead hits a civilian compound; at least 10 civilians are killed. • In Daytona Beach, Fla., the 52nd running of the Daytona 500 NASCAR race is won by Jamie McMurray. • After two and a half years of court battles, American challenger BMW Oracle, owned by Larry Ellison, wins the America’s Cup yacht race 2–0 in a head-to-head competition; its yacht, USA-17, comes in five minutes ahead of Swiss defender Alinghi 5 in the final race off the coast of Valencia, Spain.

A police camp in India’s West Bengal state is attacked by some 100 Maoist rebels, who kill at least 15 14

police officers before setting the camp on fire. • Gov. Felix Camacho of the U.S. territory of Guam issues an executive order to government agencies to henceforth in all official communications refer to the island territory as Guahan, which is believed to reflect the island’s original name in the Chamorro language.

The council of European Union finance ministers agrees that if Greece has not complied with austerity demands by the meeting of March 16, it will have spending cuts imposed. • The winners of the George Polk Awards for excellence in journalism are announced; they include a new award for videography, which this year honours the anonymous people responsible for recording and disseminating the video of the killing of a woman at a prodemocracy protest in Iran in June 2009. • The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes the results of a new genetic and medical study of the mummies buried in the pharoah Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt; among the findings are the identification of the mummy of Tutankhamen’s father and predecessor as pharoah, Akhenaton, and evidence that Tutankhamen died from the combination of a degenerative bone disease and malaria. • Roundtown Mercedes of Maryscot wins Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club’s 134th dog show; the Scottish terrier, known as Sadie, becomes the first dog to take the Triple Crown, having previously won at the National Dog Show and the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship.

Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey V. Bagapsh, president of Georgia’s separatist republic of Abkhazia, announce an agreement for a Russian military base to be established in Abkhazia. • A three-judge panel in North Carolina rules that Gregory Taylor was wrongly convicted of a 1991 murder and frees him from prison after hearing the recommendation of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission; the state, which established the commission in 2006, is the only U.S. state to have such a panel.

A military coup d’état takes place in Niger, and the increasingly unpopular Pres. Mamadou Tandja is taken into military custody; the coup leader is named as Salou Djibo. • At a meeting of militants in a mosque in the Khyber region of Pakistan, a bomb explosion leaves at least 30 people dead. • Yvo de Boer, who leads UN climate change negotiations, announces his resignation as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. • The U.K. unexpectedly posts a budget deficit for January, the month in which its tax receipts are usually highest; it is the country’s first recorded January deficit. • In Vancouver, American Evan Lysacek wins the Olympic gold medal in men’s figure skating.

Officials in the Philippines say that the country is in the grip of a drought that has caused $61 million

in damage to crops and is threatening electrical power from hydroelectric dams; Filipinos are asked to recycle water within their homes. • Pope Benedict XVI approves sainthood for Sister Mary of the Cross (Mary Helen MacKillop), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart; she will be Australia’s first Roman Catholic saint.

The government of the Netherlands falls over bitter disagreement as to whether Dutch troops should continue to fight as part of the NATO forces in Afghanistan. • Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine withdraws her court challenge to the election of Viktor Yanukovych as president, saying that she does not believe that she would get a fair hearing. • Roslyn M. Brock is announced as the new chairperson of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); she will replace Julian Bond, who has held the position since 1998. • Short-track speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno becomes the most decorated American Winter Olympian in history with his seventh career medal, a bronze in the men’s 1,000-m final; on February 26 he adds an eighth Olympic medal, also bronze, in the men’s 5,000-m relay. • The Turkish-German film Bal (Honey), directed by Semih Kaplanoglu, wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. (Photo right.)

Israel’s air force introduces a fleet of Heron TP

February

drones with wingspans of 26 m (86 ft) that are capable of remaining in the air for a full day and flying as far as the Persian Gulf. • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson releases a detailed five-year plan for the restoration of the Great Lakes, the plan sets out specific goals and actions that are to be taken by federal agencies in concert with state, local, and tribal governments.

After opposition leaders refuse to join a proposed new government in Côte d’Ivoire, violent demonstrations take place in Abidjan in which at least two protesters are killed. • Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi pleads guilty to three charges of terrorism in New York City, admitting that he had intended to carry out a suicide bombing on the city’s subway system. • The publishing company Macmillan introduces DynamicBooks, an electronic textbook that professors can freely modify; the digital books, as edited by the professors, will be available for students to purchase.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemns an announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a plan to recognize as an Israeli national heritage site the so-called Cave of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, in the West Bank city of Hebron, declaring that the action could lead to war. • Niger’s military junta appoints Mahamadou Danda prime minister of a transitional government. • Prime Minister Guillaume Soro announces the formation of a new unity government in Côte d’Ivoire. • Leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) agree to join with Latin American countries to create a new regional grouping provisionally called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States; details of the proposed new bloc are to be determined at a meeting in July 2011. • The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government releases a report showing that state tax revenues in the U.S. shrank in the final quarter of 2009, which makes five consecutive quarters of falling state revenues.

A second 24hour strike against new austerity measures takes place in Greece, and thousands of aggrieved citizens march in Athens. • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issues new rules restricting certain short sales of stocks. • Carmaker General Motors announces that the withdrawal of China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. from a deal to purchase GM’s Hummer division means that the division must be shut down. • British Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologizes for a program that between the 1920s and the 1960s sent some 130,000 children, many living in orphanages and institutions, to other Commonwealth countries, often without their families’ knowledge.

In a ceremony attended by the governor of Helmand province, the flag of Afghanistan is raised over Marjah, symbolizing the reclaiming of the area from the Taliban. • In Vancouver, Kim Yu-Na of South Korea wins the Olympic gold medal in ladies’ figure skating with the highest score ever recorded in the event. • The U.S. National Medal of Arts is awarded to, among others, actor and director Clint Eastwood, musician Bob Dylan, architect Maya Lin, soprano Jessye Norman, and composer and conductor John Williams. • The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan meet for informal talks, the first between the countries since the terrorist attack that took

place in Mumbai (Bombay) in November 2008.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court strikes down a proposed referendum to ask voters to allow Pres. Álvaro Uribe to run for a third term of office; the constitution limits the president to two consecutive terms. • With the appointment of a new electoral commission, the opposition in Côte d’Ivoire agrees to join the new government.

A magnitude-8.8 earthquake strikes central Chile, causing major damage in the area around Concepción, and is followed by a tsunami, which devastates Talcahuano and Constitución; at least 562 people are killed, and more than a million are left homeless. • A court in Italy declines to suspend a corruption trial against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; a bribery charge against his lawyer had earlier been dropped, and Berlusconi is charged in the same crime. • On the island of Basilan in the Philippines, members of the Muslim militant organization Abu Sayyaf attack the town of Tubigan, leaving at least 11 people dead.

Legislative elections in Tajikistan result in a large win for the ruling People’s Democratic Party; the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says the election failed to meet democratic standards. • On the final day of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada defeats the U.S. 3–2 in overtime to win the gold medal in men’s ice hockey.

Christian Charisius—Reuters/Landov

15

March We have just now enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, on signing health care reform into law, March 23

Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev visits Paris, where he and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy agree to negotiate the sale of four amphibious assault ships from France to Russia. • José Mujica takes office as president of Uruguay.

Guatemala’s national police chief and its antinarcotics unit leader are arrested on drugtrafficking charges stemming from a shootout the previous April between rival drug gangs over stolen cocaine.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko loses a no-confidence vote in the legislature. • After talks with the European Union commissioner for monetary affairs, Greece announces new austerity measures. • Car bombings at government and campaign offices, followed by a suicide bombing in a hospital emergency room, leave at least 33 people dead in Ba!qubah, Iraq. 16

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announces that U.S. aid to Honduras, which was suspended after the overthrow of its president in 2009, will be resumed. • Faure Gnassingbé wins reelection as president of Togo.

9.7%; the number of jobs lost, 36,000, is lower than was anticipated. • The American car manufacturer General Motors announces plans to reopen 661 of the more than 1,000 dealerships that it shut down in 2009 as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. • A study published in the journal Science describes new research on Arctic undersea permafrost that has been found to be melting, causing the release of heat-trapping methane gas into the atmosphere. • Biologists in California’s Pinnacles National Monument confirm the presence of the first condor egg laid by wild condors within the park in more than 100 years.

Youssouf Saleh Abbas resigns as prime minister of Chad; he is replaced by Emmanuel Nadingar. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in February remained steady at

Russia’s Federal Security Service reports that militant leader Aleksandr Tikhomirov (nom de guerre Said Buryatsky) was killed in a raid in the republic of Ingushetiya several days previously and that proof had been found that Tikhomirov’s organization

• Meeting in Cairo, the foreign ministers of the Arab League endorse a plan for U.S.-mediated indirect peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials. • Leonid V. Tyagachev resigns as head of Russia’s Olympic Committee because of Russia’s poor showing in the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

was behind several recent attacks, including the bombing of the Nevsky Express train in November 2009. • American musician Stevie Wonder accepts an award as Commander of Arts and Letters from France; the honour was originally announced in 1981. (Photo right.)

Closely contested, pivotal legislative elections take place in Iraq; it is expected to take weeks to tally the vote. • Near Jos, Nigeria, attacks on the primarily Christian villages of Dogo na Hauwa, Ratsat, and Zot leave as many as 500 people dead; the attacks appear to be revenge for violence that occurred in January against Muslims. • At the 82nd Academy Awards presentation, hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, Oscars are won by, among others, The Hurt Locker (best picture) and its director, Kathryn Bigelow (the first woman to win the award for best director), and

March

actors Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz, and Mo’Nique. • The synagogue and office of the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides is quietly unveiled after a major restoration in Cairo.

The government of Myanmar (Burma) declares that it has completed an election law; the law sets draconian limits on political participation, including conditions that would bar the candidacy of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. • Guinea’s interim government announces that a presidential election will be held on June 27.

China and India formally agree to join the Copenhagen Accord, the nonbinding international agreement to attempt to ameliorate global warming that was arrived at in December 2009. • The Central and Southern Andes GPS Project reports that the February 27 earthquake in Chile caused Santiago to move 28 cm (11 in) and Concepción 3 m (10 ft) to the west.

• The United Nations holds a memorial service to honour the 101 UN employees who died in the earthquake in Haiti in January. • The $250,000 A.M. Turing Award for excellence in computer science is granted to Chuck Thacker for his pioneering work as a cocreator of the early Alto personal computer and of Ethernet networking.

Shortly after a visit to Afghanistan by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran meets with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai in Kabul. • China reports a 46% yearon-year increase in its exports in February; this is a much larger increase than was expected. • The board of the troubled school district of Kansas City, Mo., votes to close 28 of the city’s 61 schools.

Two strong aftershocks of the February 27 earthquake in Chile, the first measured at 7.2 magnitude and the second at 6.9, startle dignitaries attending the

inauguration of Sebastián Piñera as president of Chile. • Mykola Azarov takes office as prime minister of Ukraine. • At the Laureus World Sports Awards in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is named sportsman of the year, while American tennis star Serena Williams wins sportswoman of the year; South African swimmer Natalie du Toit takes the award for sportsperson of the year with a disability.

At a market in Lahore, Pak., two suicide bombers leave at least 45 people dead, about a dozen of whom are Pakistani soldiers. • Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets in New Delhi with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; the leaders sign agreements to cooperate on nuclear, military, and space projects.

At least four bombings take place in Kandahar, Afg.; one explosion causes buildings to collapse near the prison, and at least 35 people are killed. • An employee of the U.S. consulate and her husband are shot to death in an attack in Juárez, Mex., and the husband of another consular worker is also killed; in addition, some 50 people die in drug-related violence throughout Mexico over the weekend.

Tens of thousands of supporters of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, known as redshirts, march in Bangkok to demand the resignation of Thailand’s government.

• Katie Spotz, age 22, lands in Georgetown, Guyana, after having left Dakar, Senegal, on January 3 and rowed for 4,533.5 km (2,817 mi) across the Atlantic Ocean to become the youngest person and first American to row solo across an entire ocean.

Somalia’s transitional government agrees to give government posts, including five ministries, to leaders of the militia Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a in return for their military support against Islamist insurgents. • Peter Hullermann, the Roman Catholic priest at the centre of a child molestation controversy in Germany that dates to 1980, is for the first time suspended from duty. • In a ceremony in New York City, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts musician Jimmy Cliff, the groups Abba, Genesis, the Hollies, and the Stooges, songwriters Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman, and Otis Blackwell, and producer David Geffen.

The Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Uganda comprising the burial places of four kings of the historic kingdom of Buganda, is destroyed by fire; the cause of the fire is unknown. • Lance Mackey wins the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for a record fourth consecutive year, passing under the Burled Arch in Nome, Alaska, after a journey of 8 days 23 hours 59 minutes 9 seconds.

Goodluck Jonathan, acting president of

O. Corsan—Maxppp/Landov

17

March

Nigeria, dissolves the cabinet; he had earlier dismissed the national security adviser in the wake of mass killings near Jos. • A U.S. Court of Appeals upholds an injunction barring the prosecution of minor children for “sexting”—transmitting sexually suggestive text messages and images by cell phone or over the Internet—in a case in which parents of children whose images were found on cell phones objected to the prosecution. • The Dresden Historians’ Commission publishes a report after five years of research on the 1945 Allied bombings of Dresden, Ger., during World War II; it concluded that about 25,000 people were killed, fewer than had been widely believed.

According to unverified news reports in South Korea, North Korea’s chief financial official, Pak NamGi, appears to have been arrested and may have been executed. • In an effort to balance its budget during a time of fiscal crisis, Arizona eliminates its Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covered about 47,000 children in the state. • At a meeting in Doha, Qatar, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora rejects U.S.-backed proposals to ban international trade in the severely depleted bluefin tuna and to protect polar bears.

India’s central bank raises its benchmark repurchase interest rate to 5% from 4.75% after having not raised its rates for almost two years; both Aus18

tralia and Malaysia previously raised rates in March.

Pope Benedict XVI sends a pastoral letter to Roman Catholics in Ireland, offering a passionately worded apology for decades of abuse of children at the hands of Irish clergy and condemning church leaders for having allowed the abuse to go on. • With its 12–10 defeat of England, France wins the Six Nations Rugby Union championship, having achieved a record of 5–0; the previous day the women’s championship had gone to England for the fifth consecutive year.

Both Prime Minister Nuri alMaliki and Pres. Jalal Talabani of Iraq express support for calls for a recount of the country’s parliamentary election held on March 7; the election commission, which has not yet released the complete results, rejects the calls. • In London Spring Awakening wins four Laurence Olivier Awards: best new musical, best actor in a musical or entertainment (Aneurin Barnard), best supporting performance in a musical or entertainment (Iwan Rheon), and best sound design.

The Internet company Google closes its online search service in mainland China, directing users there to its service in Hong Kong, where search results are not censored, as they were in mainland China. • Former British cabinet members Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon, and Patricia Hewitt—having been caught in a televised sting in which they offered to sell access to

government contacts—are suspended from the Labour Party. • The ruling Justice and Development Party in Turkey proposes changes to the constitution that would weaken the independence of the judiciary. • Air pollution in Hong Kong reaches a record level, exceeding 400; a level above 200 is considered severe, and the previous record, set in July 2008, was 202.

After a long and bruising legislative battle, a sweeping and complex health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is signed into law by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama. • At New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, French architect Jean Nouvel unveils his Bedouin-inspired design for the National Museum of Qatar. • The winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is announced as Sherman Alexie for his story and poem collection War Dances.

Japan’s legislature approves a record ¥92.3 trillion (about $1 trillion) budget intended to stimulate the economy; the government also announces a reversal of a plan started by former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi to privatize the postal banking system. • A small island in the Bay of Bengal claimed by both India (which called it New Moore Island) and Bangladesh (which called it South Talpatti Island) is reported by the School of Oceanographic Studies in Kolkata (Calcutta) to have disappeared, a victim of rising sea levels.

• The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awards its annual Abel Prize for outstanding work in mathematics to American mathematician John T. Tate for his contributions to the theory of numbers.

The countries of the euro zone agree on a rescue package for Greece that includes bilateral loans from the members of the grouping and from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to be used if Greece cannot find funding in the commercial markets; in addition, the European Central Bank announces that it will not tighten lending rules until 2011. • Francisco J. Ayala, a Spanish-born American evolutionary biologist and geneticist, is named the winner of the Templeton Prize for his contributions to affirming the roles of both science and religious faith in advancing human understanding. • Pakistan makes air strikes on two Taliban targets in the northwest of the country, killing nearly 50 people, 38 of whom are militants, according to the government. • In the U.A.E., the emirate of Dubayy announces plans to recapitalize and restructure the investment company Dubai World and to take over its real-estate arm, Nakheel. • The journal Nature publishes online a study of the DNA of a fossil finger bone found in Siberia’s Altai Mountains in 2008; the analysis indicates that the bone may belong to a previously unknown hominin species whose lineage diverged from that of Neanderthals and modern humans about a million years ago.

March

The results of the March 7 election in Iraq are announced: the alIraqiyyah bloc, headed by former prime minister Ayad !Allawi, wins 91 seats—the highest number won by any party—while the State of Law coalition, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, wins 89 seats; in order to form a government, a coalition must control 163 seats. • Two bombs explode near a cafe and a restaurant in Khalis, Iraq, in Diyala province; at least 59 people are killed. • A South Korean navy patrol ship near disputed waters west of the Korean peninsula is sunk by what is believed to be a torpedo attack from North Korea; 46 crew members are killed.

Pres. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt returns to the country after having undergone an operation to remove his gallbladder and convalesced for three weeks in Germany. • Gloria de Campeao wins the Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest horse race, in a photo finish with Lizard’s Desire.

• Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev orders that the Pacific Far East time zone be eliminated and drops a second time zone in central Russia, reducing the number of time zones in the country to nine. • Thieves make off with at least £22 million (about $32.8 million) in cash and jewelry from safe-deposit boxes in the vault of a Crédit Lyonnais bank in Paris that was closed for renovations; the thieves had tunneled in through walls from a neighbouring basement the previous night. • Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the Tokyo-based firm SANAA are named winners of the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize; among their works are the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, and the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Kensington Gardens in London. (Photo below.)

Moscow subway line during the morning rush hour; 40 commuters are killed. • In Myanmar (Burma), the opposition National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, announces that it will boycott the asyet-unscheduled election; under new election laws, this means that the party must be dissolved. • Human Rights Watch reports that in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the brutal Ugandan militia the Lord’s Resistance Army in December 2009 rounded up and kidnapped hundreds of people from villages outside Niangara, killing at least 320 of them. • After FBI raids in the U.S. states of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, indictments are unsealed against nine members of a Michigan-based apocalyptic Christian militia called the Hutaree; the militia is said to have planned to kill police officers in hopes of triggering an antigovernment revolution.

Two female suicide bombers blow themselves up at two stations on a

Pakistan’s Supreme Court orders the arrest of Ahmad Riaz Sheikh,

the head of the white-collarcrime division of the country’s Federal Investigation Agency, who is under investigation for corruption. • For the first time, physicists succeed in creating collisions between subatomic particles in the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva.

The opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement announces that its candidate for president, Yasir Arman, will not take part in national elections in Sudan that are to begin April 11; Arman was widely considered to have been the principal challenger to Pres. Omar al-Bashir. • U.S. Pres. Barack Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar unveil proposals to open much of the Atlantic coastline, parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s north coast to offshore oil and natural gas drilling. • The U.S. Federal Reserve ends its program, begun in November 2008, of buying mortgage-backed securities; the program was, to date, the Fed’s largest single effort to stabilize the economy.

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama makes an unannounced visit to Afghanistan (his first as president), where he meets with troops and sits down with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai; Obama asks Karzai for greater progress on a number of fronts—in particular, the fight against corruption in the Afghan government. • The American car company Ford Motor agrees to sell its Swedish-based subsidiary Volvo to the Chinese conglomerate Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. Zak Hussein—PA Photos/Landov

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April We drew up a plan. We took difficult and painful measures. But the markets did not respond. Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou of Greece, requesting financial aid from the other euro zone countries, April 23

A law making universal primary education both compulsory and free goes into effect in India. • Several opposition parties announce that they intend to boycott upcoming elections in Sudan. • The U.S. government announces new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks that will require vehicles to reach an average of 35.5 mi per gallon of gas by the 2016 model year, which is about 10 mi per gallon more efficient than the current requirements.

In the Iraqi village of Hawr Rajab, near Baghdad, men claiming to be part of a joint American-Iraqi military unit go from house to house rounding up members of a prominent family that was active in the Awakening Council movement; 25 adult family members are then slaughtered. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in March remained steady at 9.7% and that the economy added 162,000 nonfarm jobs. 20

• Artist, playwright, director, and choreographer Robert Wilson is announced as the recipient of the $100,000 Jerome Robbins Award.

Tens of thousands of antigovernment redshirt protesters block

the main commercial district in Bangkok, vowing to continue the protest until new elections have been scheduled. • Shortly after departing from the port of Gladstone, the Shen Neng 1, a Chinese freighter carrying tons of coal and bunker fuel and Rebecca Blackwell/AP

traveling 14.5 km (9 mi) outside its shipping lane, runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia in what is feared to be an ecological catastrophe. • As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Senegal’s independence, a 50-m (164-ft) copper-clad statue of a man, woman, and child, intended as a monument to Africa’s renaissance, is unveiled. (Photo left.) • Cambridge comes from behind to defeat Oxford in the 156th University Boat Race; Cambridge now leads the series 80–75.

Three suicide car bombings in Baghdad’s diplomatic quarter kill at least 30 people and injure scores.

At least six Pakistanis are killed in a massive but unsuccessful assault by militants on the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pak. • Thousands of people march in downtown Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia,

April

demanding that the legislature be dissolved and that promises made in 2008 to share profits from the country’s mineral wealth with the citizens be honoured. • Apple Inc. reports that more than 300,000 iPads were sold on the initial day of sale of the device. • The NCAA championship in men’s basketball is won by Duke University, which defeats Butler University 61–59; the following day the University of Connecticut defeats Stanford University 53–47 to win the women’s title and become the first team in women’s college basketball to have two consecutive undefeated seasons.

Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s acting president, installs a new cabinet and fires the head of the national oil company. • In the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, Naxalite (Maoist) insurgents ambush a paramilitary unit returning to base after a two-day patrol in the forest; at least 73 officers are killed. • Seven bombings, including five from bombs placed in apartment buildings, leave at least 35 people dead in Baghdad. • It is reported that a team of Russian and American scientists working at the Dubna cyclotron particle accelerator on the Volga River in Russia believe that by means of smashing isotopes of calcium into radioactive berkelium, they have produced six atoms of the previously unknown element 117.

After a day of fighting in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, between antigovernment protesters and police in which at least 85 people

are killed, opposition politicians succeed in forcing Pres. Kurmanbek Bakiyev to flee the city; former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva is said to be in charge. • A ceremony is held in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre of some 22,000 Poles by the Soviet secret police; for the first time Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited Polish officials to join in the ceremony, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk takes part in the observations.

Pakistan’s National Assembly unanimously approves a change to the constitution that repeals many of the changes put in by previous military governments, transfers most authority from the president to the legislature, and gives the North-West Frontier Province a new name: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. • In legislative elections in Sri Lanka, the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance wins 60.3% of the vote. • In a ceremony in Prague, Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Pres. Barack Obama sign the New START nuclear arms control treaty. • Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva cancels plans to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), scheduled to take place in Hanoi, because of the crisis caused by increasingly vehement antigovernment redshirt protests.

Russia suspends adoptions of Russian children by Americans the day after a sevenyear-old boy who had been adopted by an American woman in Shelbyville, Tenn.,

arrived alone in Russia carrying a note from his adoptive mother saying that for reasons of safety she no longer wants to be the child’s parent. • U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announces that he plans to retire at the end of the present term of the court, of which he has been a member since 1975.

A Tupolev Tu-154 plane carrying Polish Pres. Lech Kaczynski to a Polish memorial for the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre crashes near Smolensk, Russia, in bad weather, killing all 97 people aboard, among them Kaczynski, several legislators, the chiefs of the army and the navy, and the national bank head. • Thai military forces attempt to break up the antigovernment red-shirt occupation of the commercial centre of Bangkok and are repulsed by the protesters; 25 people are killed in the violence. • Favourite jumper Don’t Push It, ridden by jockey Tony McCoy, wins the Grand National steeplechase horse race at the Aintree course in Liverpool, Eng., by five lengths.

Three days (later extended to five) of state, regional, and national elections get under way in Sudan. • Leaders of the 16 countries of the euro zone announce that they can offer Greece as much as >30 billion ($40.5 billion) at 5% interest, in addition to money that the IMF might be able to offer, to help the country meet its debt obligations. • Phil Mickelson of the U.S. wins the Masters golf tour-

nament in Augusta, Ga., finishing three strokes ahead of British golfer Lee Westwood.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 8.62 points to finish at 11,005.97, its first close above 11,000 points in 19 months. • A study of maternal deaths from pregnancy and childbirth is published in the medical journal The Lancet; among its findings is that the number of such deaths worldwide decreased from an annual figure of 526,300 in 1980 to 342,900 in 2008. • In New York City the winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prizes are announced: four awards go to the Washington Post, which wins for international reporting, feature writing, commentary, and criticism; winners in letters include Liaquat Ahamed in history and Rae Armantrout in poetry.

The day after the freighter Shen Neng 1, which ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia on April 3, was refloated, an Australian government scientist estimates that it could take up to 20 years for the coral reef to recover from the damage; the ship left a scar 3 km (1.9 mi) long and as much as 250 m (820 ft) wide. • The magazine Consumer Reports warns that the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV has a handling problem that can cause a rollover; the manufacturer, Toyota, quickly suspends sales of the vehicle. • The winner of the 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is named as Eleanor Ross Taylor.

China’s Qinghai province, near its border with 21

April U.S. Coast Guard—Reuters/Landov

Sichuan province, is struck by a magnitude-6.9 earthquake, whose epicentre is in Yushu county; the town of Jiegu on the Plateau of Tibet is largely destroyed, and at least 2,260 people perish. • The U.S. Library of Congress announces an agreement to add the public content of the microblogging service Twitter to its archives.

Airspace over the British Isles and some airports in France and Germany are closed because of the cloud of silicate ash drifting over Europe from the previous day’s eruption of the glacial volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. • The first-ever televised debate between candidates for prime minister of the U.K. takes place in Manchester, Eng., as incumbent Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, Conservative Party leader David Cameron, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats answer questions from a moderator on ITV1. • Kurmanbek Bakiyev resigns as president of Kyrgyzstan and goes into exile. • Rallies of generally conservative libertarian Tea Party groups take place in several cities in the U.S.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission files suit against the investment firm Goldman Sachs, accusing it of having created and sold a mortgage investment vehicle that was intended to fail, causing investors to lose money to a hedge fund that the company also created; stocks drop precipitously in response. • Volcanic ash from the continuing eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Ice22

land spreads eastward across northern Europe, expanding the area closed to air travel and thus stranding thousands of passengers and disrupting trade, business, and performance schedules. • The major American bank Bank of America reports a profit in the first fiscal quarter of the year, following two successive losing quarters; its CEO, Brian T. Moynihan, says that trading revenue from its subsidiary Merrill Lynch covered losses from home loans in the parent bank.

The UN endorses Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai’s appointment of former Supreme Court justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi to head the country’s discredited election commission and agrees to a plan to let the UN appoint two (rather than the previous three) members of the five-member Electoral Complaints Commission, with those members given veto power.

Dervis Eroglu is elected president of the unilaterally

declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. • The last working sardine cannery in the U.S., owned by Bumble Bee Foods since 2004 but open for several decades, shuts down in Prospect Harbor, Maine.

Pakistani Pres. Asif Ali Zardari signs into law an amendment to the constitution that makes Pakistan a parliamentary democracy, with more power belonging to the prime minister than to the president. • Arizona’s state legislature passes a bill that requires police to ask for documentation from people whom they suspect of being illegal immigrants and to arrest those who fail to produce proof of legality and that makes failure to carry such documents a crime; Gov. Jan Brewer signs it into law on April 23. • The 114th Boston Marathon is won by Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot of Kenya with a time of 2 hr 5 min 52 sec; the fastest woman is Teyba Erkesso of Ethiopia, who posts a time of 2 hr 26 min 11 sec.

Brazil’s electrical regulatory authority grants a consortium of companies the right to build a controversial hydroelectric dam that will be the third largest ever built; the deal to construct the Belo Monte dam, on the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, is approved just a day after a federal judge suspended bidding on the project. • The deep-sea oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, leased by energy company BP and working in the Gulf of Mexico some 80 km (50 mi) off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana, suddenly explodes in what is thought to be an unprecedented accident; 17 crew members are injured, and 11 are lost, and the platform continues to burn the next day. (Photo above.) • The musical American Idiot, with music by punk rock band Green Day and based on its 2004 album American Idiot, opens in New York City to rapturous reviews.

Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger open a

April

joint military headquarters in Tamanrasset, Alg., in order to coordinate responses to terrorism and crime related to drug trafficking.

The oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded two days previously, suffers more explosions and sinks in the Gulf of Mexico, raising the spectre of ecological catastrophe. • In Belgium the Liberal Party leaves the five-party ruling coalition during a dispute over language rights in a bilingual district, and the government falls. • Eurostat revises its estimate of Greece’s budget deficit in 2009 to 13.6% of GDP, higher than the Greek government’s estimate of 12.9%, and the rating agency Moody’s downgrades its rating for Greek bonds. • Pope Benedict XVI accepts the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland in more fallout from the sex abuse scandal there. • In Bangkok’s business district, near an area where progovernment demonstrators are gathered to shout at a much larger antigovernment red-shirt protest, five grenades explode; one person is killed, and 75 are injured. • At the National Magazine Awards in New York City, Glamour wins the inaugural Magazine of the Year award, for which both print and online publications are eligible; general excellence award winners are National Geographic, Men’s Health, GQ, New York, Mother Jones, and San Francisco.

Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou formally requests financial

aid from his country’s euro zone partners and the IMF. • Three bombs explode near the headquarters of Shi!ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad, and other bombings take place elsewhere in Baghdad; at least 58 people are killed. • Fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and an Arab militia leaves at least 58 people dead in the Darfur area of Sudan. • Five federal police officers and a city policeman are ambushed by a large number of gunmen and killed in a hail of bullets in Juárez, Mex.

The front half of the South Korean warship that sank on March 26 after an explosion believed to have resulted from a missile attack is lifted from the water; the rear half of the ship was salvaged earlier. • An election in Nauru fails to break the deadlock between rival parties, as all 18 of the legislators running for office are reelected.

Runoff elections are held in several legislative districts in Hungary two weeks after the first-round elections; the conservative opposition Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Alliance wins a convincing majority of seats. • Heinz Fischer wins election to a second term of office as president of Austria. • Officials reveal that it has been found that the deepwater well drilled by the nowsunken oil rig Deepwater Horizon is leaking 159,000 litres (42,000 gal) of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico; BP is attempting to activate a blowout preventer to seal the well 1,525 m (5,000 ft)

below the ocean’s surface and is using chemical dispersants to break up the oil. • Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia wins the London Marathon with a time of 2 hr 5 min 19 sec, and Liliya Shobukhova of Russia is the fastest woman in the race, with a time of 2 hr 22 min 0 sec.

Pres. Omar alBashir is announced as the winner of presidential elections held in Sudan on April 11–15; international observers say that the elections fell short of democratic standards. • King Albert II of Belgium accepts the resignation of Prime Minister Yves Leterme, though Leterme will remain as the head of a caretaker government. • The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports that in the six-month period ended March 31, American newspaper weekday circulation fell 8.7% from the same period the previous year.

The rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgrades Greece’s government bonds to junk status. • In spite of brawling and the throwing of eggs and smoke bombs, Ukraine’s legislature agrees to extend Russia’s lease on a naval base in Sevastapol, Ukr., for 25 years in return for lower prices on natural gas from Russia. • Germany opens an offshore wind farm some 45 km (28 mi) off the coast in the North Sea with a test field of 12 wind turbines; it is the country’s first offshore wind farm.

The U.S. Department of the Interior

authorizes the construction of the Cape Wind project, which is anticipated to be the country’s first offshore wind farm; it is to be built in Nantucket Sound some eight kilometres (five miles) off the coast of Massachusetts. • A man enters a primary school in China’s Guangdong province and stabs 15 children and a teacher; all victims survive. • Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater announces that choreographer Robert Battle will succeed Judith Jamison as the company’s artistic director upon Jamison’s retirement in June 2011.

The day after an announcement that oil from the undersea well drilled by the sunken oil rig Deepwater Horizon is spilling at a rate of 5,000 bbl, or 757,080 litres (200,000 gal), a day—five times the previous estimate—the U.S. government adds resources from the U.S. Navy to the Coast Guard and BP personnel trying to stop the spread of oil. • In China’s Jiangsu province an unemployed man enters a school in Taixing and stabs 3 adults and 28 kindergarten students, critically injuring at least 5 of them.

Tens of thousands of protesters rally in Tirana, the capital of Albania, to demand a partial recount of the votes in the election that took place on June 28, 2009; the opposition believes that there was vote rigging. • Opening ceremonies for the six-month World Expo, expected to be attended by as many as 70 million people, are held in Shanghai. 23

May The government cannot turn back. Ending the rally is the only way to prevent calamity. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, in a televised address to the country, as the military and red-shirt protesters clash, May 15

A smoke-filled Nissan Pathfinder is reported to police by two street vendors who noticed it parked with its engine running near New York City’s Times Square; it proves to contain a failed car bomb that would have caused a massive explosion if it had succeeded. • Two bomb explosions take place in a mosque that is frequented by leaders of the al-Shabaab rebel group in Mogadishu, Som.; at least 39 people are killed in the blasts. • Super Saver, ridden by Calvin Borel, wins the Kentucky Derby by two and a half lengths.

Greece signs an agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund that commits it to deep cuts in the public sector, tax increases, and tax reform in return for bailout funds. • The Islamist militant organization Hizbul Islam seizes the pirate stronghold port city of Xarardheere, Som.; the pirates flee. 24

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva offers antigovernment red-shirt protesters a reconciliation plan that, in return for concessions from the protesters, calls for elections to be held in November, well before the end of Abhisit’s term of office. • United Airlines announces its purchase of Continental Airlines; the combined company will be the world’s largest airline. • The U.S. Supreme Court announces that as a security measure, it will no longer permit those seeking access to the courthouse to use the front door of the building; instead, they must enter through lower-level side doors.

Transportation ministers from the member countries of the EU, meeting in Belgium, agree to accelerate plans for unified control over EU airspace and to develop guidelines for determining what conditions make it unsafe to fly and rules for responding to such conditions.

Pres. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who left Nigeria in political crisis when he departed from the country for emergency medical treatment in November 2009 without transferring executive power, dies in Abuja; the following day Goodluck Jonathan is sworn in as president. • During a demonstration in Athens by tens of thousands of people against announced austerity measures, groups of people identified as anarchists engage in violent behaviour, throwing rocks and gasoline bombs; a firebomb thrown into a bank kills three people. • The Washington Post Co. puts the weekly newsmagazine Newsweek, which it has owned since 1961 and which has been published since 1933, up for sale.

In legislative elections in the U.K., no single party wins a ruling majority, with the Conservatives taking 306 seats, Labour 258, and the Liberal Democrats 57; this result makes a coalition government necessary for the first time since World War II.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls nearly 1,000 point in minutes in a “flash crash,” though the market rebounds to close with a less-drastic loss. • A containment dome is lowered into the Gulf of Mexico by the energy company BP; the company hopes the dome will capture most of the estimated 794,900 litres (210,000 gal) of oil spewing daily from the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon before the rig exploded and sank in April.

The legislature of Turkey passes a package of constitutional changes; they must be approved in a referendum in order to become law. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in April rose to 9.9%, although the economy added 290,000 nonfarm jobs, the biggest increase in job creation in four years. • The Maoist party ends its indefinite strike in Nepal; the strike caused hardship, but it failed to topple the government.

May

Near the encampment of antigovernment red-shirt protesters in Bangkok, shooting and explosions kill one police officer and injure five other police officers and two civilians.

The U.S. government announces that the first round of agreedto indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, with U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell shuttling between them, has taken place. • Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics pitches the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball history when he dismisses 27 consecutive batters in his team’s 4–0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Finance ministers of the member countries of the European Union agree to provide $560 billion in new loans and $76 billion under an existing program to shore up countries suffering debt crises; stock markets in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. react positively. • Benigno Aquino III handily wins election to the presidency of the Philippines; in addition, boxing star Manny Pacquiao wins a seat in the country’s legislature. • Two car bombs in the parking lot of a newly renovated textile factory in Al-Hillah, Iraq, kill at least 41 people; other bombings and attacks by gunmen that take place in cities throughout Iraq bring the total death toll above 100. • U.S. Pres. Barack Obama nominates Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. (Photo right.)

• As the containment dome intended to capture most of the escaping oil from the oil well under the Gulf of Mexico is stymied by a buildup of gas hydrates, executives of the oil company BP declare that they will attempt to place a smaller containment cap on the spewing well. • Violent storms that spawn several tornadoes leave destruction in their wake in Oklahoma; at least two people are killed.

Conservative leader David Cameron takes office as British prime minister in a Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government; Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is to serve as deputy prime minister. • In the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) world chess championship in Sofia, Bulg., reigning champion Viswanathan Anand of India defeats challenger Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the 12th and final game to take the match 6.5–5.5 and retain the title.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announces a series of austerity measures,

including decreases in public pay, that are intended to reduce the country’s deficit. • A man armed with a meat cleaver attacks a small kindergarten in the village of Linchang in China’s Shaanxi province, killing at least seven children between the ages of two and four as well as the school’s teacher and her elderly mother; he later kills himself. • The price of gold reaches record heights, selling for more than $1,240 a troy ounce in London and trading for >982. • The Spanish association football (soccer) team Club Atlético de Madrid defeats Fulham FC of Britain 2–1 in extra time to win the inaugural UEFA Europa League title in Hamburg.

The Thai military announces a blockade of the encampment of antigovernment red-shirt protesters in Bangkok, and hours later Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, who joined the protesters, is shot in the head and fatally wounded while being interviewed by a reporter. • In Kyrgyzstan protesters storm government buildings in the three regional capitals

of the southern part of the country and restore the former governor and seize the airport in Osh, one of the capitals; the following day supporters of the government retake the government buildings in several violent confrontations.

Thai troops move against antigovernment red-shirt protesters in Bangkok, and demonstrators fight back; at least 16 people are killed in the confrontation. • After some 13 years of negotiations, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda sign the Cooperative Framework Agreement in Entebbe, Ugan.; the agreement, which Egypt and Sudan declined to sign, is intended to replace treaties from 1929 and 1959 governing the use and sharing of the waters of the Nile River system.

The Thai military continues to press against the antigovernment red-shirt protesters in Bangkok as the death toll in the three days of confrontation rises to 24; Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva appears on television to explain the government crackdown. • Lookin at Lucky, under jockey Martin Garcia, wins the Preakness Stakes, the second event in U.S. Thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown, by three-quarters of a length; Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver finishes eighth.

Iraq’s election commission declares that at the conclusion of the partial recount of votes from the March 7 election, the results remain the same, with a very narrow victory for the coalition led by former interim prime minister Ayad !Allawi. Larry Downing—Reuters/Landov

25

May

Iran announces that it has reached an agreement with Brazil and Turkey to ship about half of its lowenriched uranium to Turkey in return for high-enriched uranium for medical uses. • In India’s Chhattisgarh state, a bus carrying Indian police officers and civilians hits a bomb near the Dantewada district, and at least 23 people are killed; police believe that Naxalite (Maoist) insurgents are to blame. • Sweden’s Polar Music Prize Foundation announces that the winners of the Polar Music Prize are Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk and Italian composer Ennio Morricone.

The U.S. announces that it has reached agreement with Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany on a new set of proposed sanctions against Iran for its continued uranium enrichment; the sanctions must be voted on by the UN Security Council. • A suicide bomber kills at least five U.S. soldiers in Kabul, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed in the conflict in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war in 2001 above 1,000; three of the Americans were high-ranking NATO officers, and a Canadian NATO officer also perishes. • The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers, a musical piece composed by Peter Boyer with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, has its world premiere in Boston, performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by Keith Lockhart (second from left), with celebrity narrators Robert De Niro, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman. (Photo right.)

The Thai military moves in to put an end to what remains of the encampment of antigovernment red-shirt protesters, and leaders of the protest are arrested; 12 people are killed in the crackdown, and rioting and arson take place in response elsewhere in Bangkok and in provinces in northeastern Thailand. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that in April consumer prices fell 0.1% from the previous month and that the core index for consumer prices for the 12month period that ended in April was 0.9%, the lowest rate of increase since the 1960s.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announces that he has decided to honour a 2006 agreement to move the U.S. air base on Okinawa to a less-populated part of that island, in spite of widespread support in Japan for Hatoyama’s previous promise to insist that the base be moved off Okinawa entirely. • South Korean officials publicly present the results of an

investigation, based on forensic evidence, that they say proves that North Korea was responsible for the March sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in international waters near the border between the two countries. • The journal Science publishes a report by a team led by J. Craig Venter that describes the creation of what Venter calls the first “synthetic cell”—a procedure in which the genetic code of one species of bacterium was synthesized and then placed into another species of bacterium, where the synthetic DNA began operating. • Stocks in the U.S. and Europe drop in value, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 376.36 points, or 3.6% of its value; the price of a barrel of sweet crude oil falls to $68.01.

Germany’s legislature narrowly passes an agreement to pay the German contribution to a package intended to stabilize the euro. • Salva Kiir, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation

Movement, is sworn in as the first president of the semiautonomous region of southern Sudan; a referendum on independence for the region is to be held in 2011. • Workers at the Honda car parts factory in Foshan, China, begin a strike that leads to the shutdown of four automobile factories that depend on the parts factory for supplies.

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, in an address at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., lays out a new national security strategy that is more modest than the previous strategy, outlined in 2002; the new strategy emphasizes alliances and diplomacy. • In association football (soccer), Inter Milan of Italy defeats the German team Bayern Munich 2–0 to win the UEFA Champions League title in Madrid.

Insurgents attack areas of Mogadishu, Som., that are under the control of the transitional national government and

Michael Lutch—Boston Symphony/AP

26

May

African Union peacekeepers; at least 14 people are killed in the fighting. • Legislative elections take place in Ethiopia; as expected, the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front wins an overwhelming victory in elections that fail to meet international standards. • The finale of the six-year science-fiction mystery television series Lost, which has caught the imagination of a large audience, is broadcast; the following day sees the final episode of the influential political thriller 24, which debuted in 2001.

• After a three-day standoff, police storm the Tivoli Gardens slum in Kingston, Jam., in an attempt to arrest the gang leader Christopher Coke, whom the government has agreed to extradite to the U.S., where he is wanted for drug and firearms trafficking; residents of the neighbourhood, who regard Coke as a benefactor, resist, and at least 70 people die in the fighting. • A Malaysian oil tanker suffers a collision with a merchant ship in the Singapore Strait; its hull is punctured, and some 18,000 bbl of oil are spilled into the strait.

Four regional savings banks in Spain agree to merge some of their operations in a joint banking group in an effort to strengthen their assets; two days earlier the Spanish government had taken control of another savings bank, CajaSur, when its merger negotiations with Unicaja fell through. • Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s People’s National Movement party loses a snap election in Trinidad and Tobago to the People’s Partnership coalition; Kamla Persad-Bissessar is sworn in as prime minister two days later. • The final episode of the television series Law & Order is broadcast; the police procedural, which debuted in 1990, won a large and loyal audience and spawned several spin-offs.

The energy company BP begins an attempt to fill the drill pipes of the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico with heavy drilling fluid; the maneuver, known as “top kill,” has never been tried on a well at such an extreme depth as this one, and the attempt is halted the next day. • Apple Inc. overtakes Microsoft Corp. to become the world’s most valuable technology company. • After late-day losses, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 9974.45, its first close below 10,000 since February 8. • The space shuttle Atlantis lands in Florida, having completed its final planned mission; Atlantis first took wing on Oct. 3, 1985.

A large group of armed men gain entrance to what was considered a secure area of Baghdad, prevail in a firefight against Iraqi police officers and soldiers, and violently rob several jewelry stores, killing at least 14 people.

U.S. federal officials raise their estimate of the rate at which oil has been flowing into the ocean daily since the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April to between 12,000 and 19,000 bbl a day; the previous estimate,

released on April 27, was 5,000 bbl a day. • Spain’s legislature passes by a single vote a package of spending cuts proposed by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The leaders of the three major parties in Nepal reach an 11th-hour agreement to extend the term of the constituent assembly, extending the peace process for a further year; as part of the agreement, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal will eventually resign. • Two mosques at which members of the minority Ahmadi sect worship in Lahore, Pak., are attacked by suicide bombers and by fusillades of bullets and grenades; more than 80 people are killed. • An express train in the Indian state of West Bengal derails, apparently as a result of sabotage, between the stations of Khemasuli and Sardiha, and 13 cars that have fallen onto an adjacent track are then struck by a freight train; at least 135 passengers perish.

Two days of legislative elections in the Czech Republic lead to a narrow victory for the Social Democratic Party, with 22.1% of the vote as against 20.2% for the conservative Civic Democratic Party, but 27.6% of the vote goes to two smaller conservative parties. • Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitches the 20th perfect game in Major League Baseball history in his team’s 1–0 victory over the Florida Marlins only 20 days after the previous perfect game. • In Oslo, German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut wins the

Eurovision Song Contest with her song “Satellite.”

A presidential election in Colombia results in the need for a runoff, to be held in June. • The Social Democratic Party drops out of the three-party coalition governing Japan because it disagrees with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s decision to keep the U.S. air base on Okinawa. • The 94th Indianapolis 500 automobile race is won by Dario Franchitti of Scotland.

As an aid flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement and a charitable Turkish organization heads toward Gaza, Israeli commandos descend from a helicopter and board one of the ships in international waters; when activists on the ship resist, the commandos open fire, and nine passengers, most Turkish, are killed. • Horst Köhler resigns as president of Germany after having said that German soldiers in Afghanistan and on other peacekeeping missions are deployed to protect German economic interests. • The carmaker Honda Motor announces a 24% pay raise for striking workers at a Honda parts factory in China; the strike shut down all Honda automobile manufacture in China. • An acclaimed and popular retrospective of the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic, “The Artist Is Present,” closes at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; in the retrospective’s best-known component, Abramovic sits silently and still, looking at an audience member sitting across from her. 27

June This is a siege across the entire gulf. This spill is holding everybody hostage, not only economically but physically. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, describing the effects of the continuing oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, June 6

Iraq’s highest court ratifies the results of the March 7 election, making it necessary for the legislature to convene to choose a president and prime minister. • The U.S. Supreme Court rules that suspects who wish to invoke their right to remain silent must explicitly state that they are invoking that right; otherwise, any statement they make may be construed as waiving the right. • Five presidential candidates in Burundi announce their intention to boycott the upcoming presidential election, saying that local elections the previous month were rigged.

Yukio Hatoyama resigns as prime minister of Japan; his popularity had waned as a result of his failure to move a U.S. air base from Okinawa. • Foxconn Technology, a Taiwan-based company whose factories manufacture components for computers sold by companies that include Apple, Dell, and HewlettPackard, announces a 33% 28

pay raise for many of its workers in China; there has been a well-publicized rash of suicides at Foxconn factories in southern China. • American automobile company Ford Motor announces that it will discontinue the manufacture of the 71-yearold Mercury brand by fall; the original Mercury Eight went on sale in 1939. • In a crime that shocks Britain, a cab driver in England’s Lake District shoots down three other drivers and then drives through the district, shooting passers-by; at least 12 people are murdered and 25 injured before the gunman turns his weapon on himself.

The energy company BP successfully places a containment dome over the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico; the device allows BP to collect some of the oil and send it to a ship on the surface to be processed. • A gala celebration of the life and career of National Ballet of Cuba founder Alicia Alonso is hosted by the American Ballet Theatre, where Alonso danced in 1941 and 1943–48;

the occasion is part of the 2010 celebration of Alonso’s 90th birthday and the company’s 70th anniversary.

Former finance minister Naoto Kan takes office as prime minister of Japan. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in May fell to 9.7% and that the economy added 431,000 nonfarm jobs; the vast majority of those jobs are temporary hiring by the Census Bureau, however, and the stock markets fall on the news. • The Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) makes its first successful test launch of its Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida. • The 83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee is won by Anamika Veeramani of Incarnate Word Academy in Parma Heights, Ohio, when she correctly spells stromuhr.

Francesca Schiavone of Italy defeats Australian Samantha Stosur to win the women’s

French Open tennis title; the following day Rafael Nadal of Spain defeats Robin Söderling of Sweden to capture the men’s championship for the fifth time. • Long shot Drosselmeyer, with jockey Mike Smith aboard, wins the Belmont Stakes, the last event in Thoroughbred horse racing’s U.S. Triple Crown. • The Derby at Epsom Downs in Surrey, Eng., is won by an astonishing seven lengths by Workforce, ridden by Ryan Moore.

Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai ousts the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, Amrullah Saleh, and Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar, to the surprise of NATO leaders. • The energy company BP finds that it must limit the amount of oil it is capturing from the gushing oil well under the Gulf of Mexico lest it overwhelm the company’s processing capacity on hand, and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen warns that the oil will continue to be a problem long after the well has been capped.

June

At a legislative session attended by leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s cabinet undergoes a major reshuffle, with a number of technocrats demoted; Kim YongIl is replaced as prime minister by Choe Yong-Rim. • The first criminal convictions stemming from the 1984 chemical leak at a Union Carbide plant that left some 5,000 people dead in Bhopal, India, occur in a courtroom in Bhopal: eight former executives of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary are found guilty of negligence, and the seven still living are sentenced to two years in prison. • After two and a half years at the head of a UN commission for fighting corruption in Guatemala, Carlos Castresana resigns in frustration. • German Chancellor Angela Merkel presents an austerity package intended to reduce the country’s budget deficit. • Helen Thomas, a groundbreaking journalist known as the unofficial dean of the White House press corps, of which she has been an increasingly famous member since the early 1960s, abruptly retires in the face of a furor over impolitic remarks she made about Israel.

In legislative elections in the Netherlands, the ruling Christian Democratic Appeal comes in fourth, with just 13.7% of the vote; the top vote getters are the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, with 20.4%, and the centre-left Labour Party, with 19.6%. • In Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, a bomb goes off at the wedding celebration of a man who was a member of a recently formed anti-Taliban militia; at least 40 wedding guests are killed. • Barbara Kingsolver wins the Orange Prize, an award for fiction written by women and published in the U.K., for her novel The Lacuna. (Photo below.) • The Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 4–3 in sudden-death overtime to win the Stanley Cup, the National Hockey League championship trophy, for the first time since 1961.

Researchers for a U.S. government panel raise the estimate of the amount of oil that has been flowing from the oil well under the Gulf of Mexico since the explosion

A spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that the agency has been told that it must leave Libya, where it has operated since 1991 and serves as the country’s only asylum system. • It is reported that a cache of 75 silent films that have been found in the New Zealand Film Archive will be sent to the U.S. for restoration; the films include the only copy of Upstream (1927), directed by John Ford, and the earliest Mabel Normand film.

and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April to 25,000–30,000 bbl a day, nearly double the previous estimate. • Guatemala’s constitutional court removes Conrado Reyes as attorney general, a position he was appointed to on May 25 despite his suspected links to organized crime.

Attacks that began the previous night involving rival drug-trafficking organizations leave some 85 people dead throughout Mexico.

U.S. officials reveal that geologists have found in Afghanistan many previously unknown mineral deposits, including iron, copper, gold, cobalt, and lithium, worth an estimated $1 trillion, enough to become a major component of the country’s economy, which is presently based largely on opium production. • Abby Sunderland, a 16-yearold girl from California who is attempting to sail solo around the world, is rescued some 3,200 km (2,000 mi) west of Australia after losing a mast in heavy seas in the Indian Ocean.

In legislative elections in Belgium, the largest percentage of the vote goes to the New Flemish Alliance, a Flemish separatist party, followed by the French Socialist Party; no party wins an absolute majority. • Kyrgyzstan’s national news agency reports that three days of ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, largely in and around Osh, has killed at least 114 people and that tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled.

• In the 78th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance automobile race, the Audi team consisting of Mike Rockenfeller of Germany, Romain Dumas of France, and Timo Bernhard of Germany takes the victory, completing 397 laps, a new distance record. • The filly Zenyatta comes from behind to win the Vanity Handicap in Inglewood, Calif., her 17th consecutive victory, which is a new record in top-tier Thoroughbred horse racing; Citation and Cigar achieved 16 straight wins in 1948–50 and 1994–96, respectively. • The 64th annual Tony Awards are presented in New York City; winners include Red (which takes six awards), Memphis, Fences, and La Cage aux Folles and the actors Denzel Washington, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Douglas Hodge, and Scarlett Johansson. • The Golden Ticket, an opera based on Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has its world premiere with the Opera Theater of Saint Louis in Missouri; the score is by Peter Ash, and the libretto is by Donald Sturrock. • For the second consecutive year, the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will not be awarded; its administrators say no worthy candidates have emerged.

Iraq’s new legislature convenes, takes the oath of allegiance, and is immediately suspended, as no new government has been agreed on and no bloc commands a majority. • Scientists head to South Australia for the capsule of the Japanese space explorer

Alastair Grant/AP

29

June

Hayabusa, which landed there overnight after a sevenyear journey to collect samples from an asteroid and return them to Earth.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asserts that the ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan was deliberately orchestrated; it is thought that at least 100 people were killed. • Speaking before the House of Commons, British Prime Minister David Cameron apologizes for the “Bloody Sunday” killings in 1972 in which 14 unarmed demonstrators in Londonderry, N.Ire., were killed by British soldiers; Cameron asserts that the shootings had no justification.

National Basketball Association championship.

Six member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States sign an agreement in Castries, St. Lucia, to form an economic union; the remaining three members are expected to sign on within a few weeks. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that in May unemployment rates fell in 37 states and rose in 6 others; the highest rate, 14%, was in Nevada. • The 2010 winners of the Kyoto Prize are announced: medical scientist Shinya Yamanaka (advanced technology), mathematician Laszlo Lovasz (basic sci-

ences), and visual artist William Kentridge (arts and philosophy). • The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new theme park within the Universal Orlando entertainment complex, opens to the public in Orlando, Fla.; at opening there is a six-hour wait to enter. (Photo below.)

China announces that it will allow its currency, the renminbi, to move a little more freely in relation to the U.S. dollar; in later days it is seen that the change is quite small. • Kurdish militants attack a Turkish military post near the Iraqi border, killing 8 soldiers and triggering an attack by Turkish warplanes

A Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off from Kazakhstan, carrying two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station, where they will remain for six months. • Bob King is elected president of the United Automobile Workers union, replacing Ron Gettelfinger.

Estonia becomes the 17th country to become a member of the euro zone. • Switzerland’s legislature agrees to adhere to the terms of an agreement made in August 2009 for the bank UBS to disclose information on 4,450 accounts held by Americans suspected of tax evasion. • The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics 83–79 in game seven of the best-of-seven tournament to secure the team’s 16th overall and 2nd consecutive

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces an easing of Israel’s land blockade of Gaza, including plans to facilitate the passage of larger amounts of civilian goods and plans to issue a list of prohibited items to replace the currently used list of permitted items. • Conservative economist Juan Manuel Santos convincingly wins election as president of Colombia, defeating Antanas Mockus of the Green Party in a runoff. • Two simultaneous car bombs outside the Bank of Trade in Baghdad kill at least 26 people. • Kyrgyz soldiers begin bulldozing the makeshift barriers ethnic Uzbeks used to defend themselves from ethnic violence in Osh, Kyrgyz. • Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland secures a onestroke victory over Gregory Havret of France to win the U.S. Open golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Faisal Shahzad pleads guilty in a U.S. federal court to having created the failed car bomb found on May 1 in Times Square in New York City, explaining in detail how and why he engineered the attempted attack. • After two large demonstrations by people angry about Red Huber—MCT/Landov

30

that leaves 12 Kurdish insurgents dead. • Gunmen thought to be associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula storm a jail used by Yemeni intelligence services in Aden, Yemen, killing at least 11 people and escaping with several prisoners.

June

the lack of services, especially the chronic shortage of electricity, Karim Wahid resigns as the minister of electricity in Iraq’s caretaker government.

Mari Kiviniemi becomes prime minister of Finland, replacing Matti Vanhanen, who resigned on June 18. • George Osborne, British chancellor of the Exchequer, unveils an austerity budget of deep spending cuts and tax increases. • A bighead Asian carp is caught in a fishing net in Lake Calumet, about 9.7 km (6 mi) from Lake Michigan and beyond the electric fence designed to keep the voracious invasive species out of the Great Lakes system.

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama fires Gen. Stanley McChrystal and replaces him as top commander in the war in Afghanistan with Gen. David Petraeus; the dismissal follows an interview published in the magazine Rolling Stone in which McChrystal and his staff had criticized administration officials. • At a meeting of the International Whaling Commission, compromise talks aimed at controlling commercial whaling by Japan, Norway, and Iceland collapse. • The U.S. Census Bureau releases statistics that show that the sales of new homes in May fell to the lowest level since 1963, when reporting began; sales plunged 32.7% from the previous month.

Jamaican gang leader Christopher Coke, after

having been arrested outside the U.S. embassy, is extradited to the U.S., where he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking and on weapons charges. • Kevin Rudd resigns as prime minister of Australia; he is replaced by Julia Gillard, who is Australia’s first female prime minister. • Five American Muslim men who were arrested in Pakistan are found guilty in a court in Sargodha, Pak., of having conspired to carry out terrorist attacks and are sentenced to 10 years in prison. • At Wimbledon the longest match in the history of professional tennis concludes— after three days and 182 games—with a victory by American John Isner over Nicolas Mahut of France in five sets: 6–4, 3–6, 6–7, 7–6, 70–68.

Hong Kong’s Legislative Council approves a plan to expand the legislature by 10 seats beginning in 2012 and for the first time makes most of the seats subject to direct popular election; the committee that chooses the chief executive is enlarged to 1,200 members.

A presidential election is held in Somalia’s self-declared independent enclave of Somaliland; on July 1 opposition candidate Ahmed Silanyo is declared the winner of the race.

Free elections take place in Guinea for the first time in the country’s history; they result in the need for a presidential runoff.

• A referendum on a proposed new constitution that reduces the power of the president and makes the country a parliamentary democracy takes place in Kyrgyzstan; the document is overwhelmingly approved. • Darci Kistler, who is the last working ballet dancer to have been trained by the legendary choreographer George Balanchine, makes her farewell performance with the New York City Ballet after a 30-year career. • Cristie Kerr of the U.S. wins the Ladies Professional Golf Association Championship tournament by 12 strokes over Kim Song-Hee of South Korea.

Pres. Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic names Petr Necas, the leader of the centre-right Civic Democratic Party, prime minister. • Five couples who were arrested in New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia the previous day are charged with conspiracy to act as unlawful agents of a foreign government as part of a Russian espionage ring; an 11th person is also charged but has not been apprehended. • In a presidential election in Burundi, Pres. Pierre Nkurunziza is the sole candidate as opposition parties boycott the polls; the parties later denounce the election as a farce. • Rodolfo Torre Cantú, a front-running candidate for governor of Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, is gunned down together with at least four other people near Ciudad Victoria; it is believed that drug cartels are responsible for the assassination.

• Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who served a record 51 years in the U.S. Senate and was also the longest-serving member of Congress, having spent an additional 6 years in the House of Representatives, dies at the age of 92 in Virginia.

In Chongqing, China, representatives of China and Taiwan sign a framework trade agreement that will, among other things, remove tariffs from hundreds of goods exported from Taiwan to China as well as some goods exported from China to Taiwan. • Larry King, host of the once-essential cable television talk show Larry King Live since 1985, announces his retirement. • Ukraine’s minister of the interior announces that a Caravaggio painting known as The Taking of Christ or The Kiss of Judas, which was stolen from a museum in Odessa in 2008, has been recovered in Germany, where the thieves were attempting to sell it.

In accordance with an agreement with the Maoist party in Nepal, Madhav Kumar Nepal resigns as prime minister. • The World Trade Organization releases a ruling that the European airplane manufacturer Airbus has for some 40 years received improper subsidies in the form of low-interest and interest-free loans from European governments— subsidies that gave it an unfair advantage over its American rival Boeing. • Christian Wulff is chosen to replace Horst Köhler as president of Germany. 31

July We can’t rule anything out. This was obviously terrorism, from the way it was targeted at World Cup watchers in public places. Ugandan police inspector Kale Kayihura, after bombs killed dozens of World Cup spectators in Kampala, July 11

Two suicide bombers attack the Data Ganj Baksh, a major Sufi shrine, in Lahore, Pak.; at least 42 worshippers are killed. • The East African Community, consisting of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, launches a common market for products, capital, and workers. • China’s state-run news service, the Xinhua News Agency, publicly introduces CNC World, a 24-hour English-language news channel; it also announces plans to open a newsroom in New York City. • James H. Billington, the American librarian of Congress, names W.S. Merwin the country’s 17th poet laureate; Merwin succeeds Kay Ryan.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in June fell to 9.5% and that the private sector added 83,000 jobs, though the economy as a whole lost 125,000 nonfarm jobs as

temporary Census Bureau jobs ended. • The UN General Assembly approves the creation of a new umbrella agency, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to be called UN Women.

American Serena Williams defeats Vera Zvonareva of Russia to take her fourth All-England (Wimbledon) women’s tennis championship; the following day Rafael Nadal of Spain wins the men’s title for the second time when he defeats Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. • Roza Otunbayeva is sworn in as Kyrgyzstan’s transitional president under the country’s new constitution; she will also serve as prime minister until legislative elections take place in October. (Photo right.)

defeats Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of Lech Kaczynski, whose death in a plane crash in April left the office vacant.

A one-day strike accompanied by large protests against an increase in the cost of fuel takes place across India. • The leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan sign an agreement forming a customs union of the three countries.

• A new and controversial law allowing an unrestricted right to abortion within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy goes into effect in Spain.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, three civilians are killed when Indian police fire on protesters throwing stones; at least 14 people, mostly protesters, have been killed in the past three weeks, and this has led to a rise in violent anti-Indian demonstrations.

In Poland’s runoff presidential election, acting president Bronislaw Komorowski of the ruling Civic Platform party Igor Kovalenko—EPA/Landov

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July

• China’s first full-size commercial offshore wind farm, the 102-MW Donghai Bridge Wind Farm in the East China Sea, begins transmitting power; it initially is providing electricity to the Shanghai Expo but is expected eventually to generate enough power for 200,000 households in Shanghai. • The automobile manufacturer Chrysler announces that it plans to open about 200 dealerships in 2010 in the U.S. to sell the subcompact Fiat 500; they will be the first Fiat dealerships in the country in 26 years.

As hundreds of thousands of Shi!ite worshippers head toward the Imam Musa alKadhim mosque in Baghdad for a religious observation, a suicide bomber at a checkpoint kills nearly 60 people. • Turkey’s Constitutional Court strikes down parts of the country’s proposed new constitution, including provisions that increase the authority of the president over the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors and that allow people without legal backgrounds to serve on the board; a referendum on the document is to be held in September. • British researchers announce the discovery near Norfolk, Eng., of 78 flint tools that date to some 800,000 years ago, suggesting the earliest-yet-discovered hominin occupation in northern Europe.

The European Parliament agrees to reactivate a program that allows the U.S. to monitor banking and financial transfers in Europe for possible financing of terrorist activity; the program was suspended in February.

• The U.S. and Russia agree that the 10 people recently arrested as unregistered Russian spies in the U.S. will be released to Russia in exchange for the release of 4 men held in Russian prisons for their contacts with Western intelligence agencies. • Bombs targeting Shi!ites taking part in the final day of a religious observance in Baghdad leave at least 15 people dead. • In Boston, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro rules that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which allows only oppositesex couples to marry, violates the Constitution in that it interferes with the rights of states to define marriage. • Striking union members at a nickel mining and processing plant in Sudbury, Ont., agree to a new contract though it gives them less than they had sought, ending a strike that began on July 13, 2009.

In Mohmand agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a suicide bomber on a motorbike kills at least 102 people outside the headquarters of the agency’s civilian government. • The conservation organization WWF announces that the global population of wild tigers has fallen to as low as 3,200. • The last Chrysler PT Cruiser rolls off an assembly line in Mexico; the retro-style car model was a major hit when it was introduced a decade earlier and inspired many imitators, but sales had stagnated more recently.

The energy company BP removes a cap that partially contained the gushing of

oil from the broken oil well under the Gulf of Mexico in order to be able to attach a tighter cap. • The first performance of The Demons, a 12-hour Italian theatrical adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novel also known as The Possessed, takes place on Governors Island in New York City.

Bombs explode in a restaurant and a rugby club in Kampala, Ugan., both crowded with fans watching the association football (soccer) World Cup final; at least 76 people are killed, and suspicion falls on the al-Shabaab militants of Somalia. • In elections for the House of Councillors, the upper house of Japan’s legislature, the ruling Democratic Party wins only 44 seats, leaving it short of a majority. • In Johannesburg, Spain defeats the Netherlands 1–0 with a goal in the 116th minute by Spanish striker Andrés Iniesta to win the country’s first association football (soccer) World Cup. • Paula Creamer of the U.S. scores a four-stroke victory over Choi Na-Yeon of South Korea and Suzann Pettersen of Norway to win the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament in Oakmont, Pa.

Britain’s Office for National Statistics releases revised figures showing that the recession in 2008–09 in the country cut deeper into the economy than previously thought and that economic growth in the first quarter of 2010 was only 0.3%. • Switzerland rejects a U.S. request to extradite film director Roman Polanski to face charges in a 1977 case involving sex with an under-

age girl and sets Polanski free; he was arrested in Zürich in September 2009.

The Russian Grain Union, an industry lobbying group, declares that amid the heat wave engulfing Russia, the country is also suffering its worst drought in 130 years and has lost about a fifth of the total planted grain area. • The first 7 of the 52 political prisoners that Cuba has agreed to release arrive in Madrid, together with members of their families. • Éric Woerth, France’s labour minister, announces his resignation as treasurer of the ruling party due to his suspected connection to a burgeoning scandal that involves an illegal campaign donation from Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal cosmetics heiress.

Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, after several days of negotiations with NATO military leaders, agrees to a program to create local defense forces to bolster military and police forces.

The U.S. Congress passes a major bill to increase government oversight of financial companies and markets in an effort to remedy the causes of the severe recession that began in 2008; Pres. Barack Obama signs it into law on July 21. • The energy company BP successfully tests a new containment cap on the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico, completely stopping the flow of oil for the first time in 86 days. • The U.S. military in a ceremony cedes control of 33

July

detainment facilities in Iraq to the Iraqi government. • A double suicide bombing leaves at least 26 people dead at a gathering of Revolutionary Guards outside a mosque in Zahedan, Iran. • Rioting in Roman Catholic areas of Belfast, N.Ire., continues for a fourth night. • An explosives-laden car is detonated in Juárez, Mex., by a cell phone call, and four people, among them two federal police officers, are killed; it is believed to be the first car bomb in Mexico’s drug wars. • Argentina’s legislature legalizes same-sex marriage on an equal basis with conventional marriage. • The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration releases a report that says, among other things, that June 2010 surpassed June 2005 as the warmest June on record worldwide and that the month also recorded a record low in Arctic sea ice.

Two oil pipelines in Dalian, China, explode after an oil tanker unloaded its cargo into the pipelines; a fire and a large oil spill follow.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard sets the national legislative election for August 21. • Talks on a financial rescue package for Hungary between the IMF, the EU, and Hungary break off.

As Awakening Council members await paychecks at an Iraqi army base in Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonates his weapon, leaving at least 45 people dead. 34

• Gunmen invade a birthday celebration in Torreón, Mex., and open fire, killing at least 17 people, including the celebrant. • A strike against government policies in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar comes to an end after 12 days. • Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa defeats England’s Lee Westwood by seven strokes to win the British Open golf tournament on the Old Course at St. Andrews in Fife, Scot.

Hungary’s minister of the economy, Gyorgy Matolcsy, responds to pressure from the IMF and the European Union with a declaration that the country will not undertake further austerity measures. • Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations reports that 77 people trying to cool off during the country’s ongoing heat wave have drowned over the past two days, adding to July’s total of more than 400; the numbers are similar to those in most summers, however, and most drowning victims are deemed likely to have been drunk. • Syria’s Ministry of Education issues a ban on the wearing of the niqab, a veil that covers the face and leaves only the eyes visible, by students and faculty at schools and universities at all levels. • The online bookseller Amazon.com announces that for the past three months its sales of e-books have been greater than its sales of hardcover books.

A conference of international leaders takes place in Kabul; the confer-

ees agree to grant a larger portion of foreign aid to the Afghan government rather than to individual ministries or nongovernmental organizations and approve a timetable proposed by Pres. Hamid Karzai for a transition to Afghan-led security. • A firefight that began the previous night with an attack by militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkish soldiers near the border with Iraq leaves six of the soldiers dead.

Five days after the explosion of an oil pipeline in Dalian, China, the oil has spread over 427 sq km (165 sq mi) of the Yellow Sea; it is the largest oil spill ever reported in China. • The IMF cancels Haiti’s debt of $268 million and approves a loan of an additional $60 million. • In the Shi!ite village of Abe Sayeda, Iraq, a car bomb explodes in a crowd, killing at least 13 people.

In response to Colombia’s presentation to the Organization of American States of evidence of what it says are 1,500 Colombian insurgents taking refuge in Venezuela, Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez publicly severs diplomatic ties with Colombia. • The International Court of Justice rules, in response to a complaint lodged by Serbia, that Kosovo did not violate international law when it declared itself independent in February 2008. • In a cricket Test match in which Sri Lanka defeats India, Sri Lankan spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan, in his final Test cricket match, becomes the first

cricketer ever to take 800 Test wickets.

During an African Union summit meeting in Kampala, Ugan., Guinea agrees to send a battalion to join African Union peacekeepers in Somalia; together with a force from Djibouti, these will be the first African Union peacekeepers in Somalia from predominately Muslim countries. • Financial regulators report that all but 7 of the 91 European banks subjected to stress tests passed the tests; those that failed included 5 small Spanish savings banks, a Greek bank, and a German bank.

In Duisburg, Ger., the Love Parade, an annual techno music festival that originated as a peace demonstration in Berlin in 1989, takes place in an old freight railway station, but overcrowding in a tunnel that is the only entrance to the venue leads to a panic in which 21 concertgoers are crushed to death.

The organization WikiLeaks.org posts on its Web site tens of thousands of pages of classified U.S. military field reports on the war in Afghanistan. • The U.S. and South Korea begin joint war games in the Sea of Japan, mobilizing 20 ships, led by the nuclearpowered aircraft carrier George Washington, and more than 200 warplanes. • Tony Hayward is removed as CEO of the energy company BP; his replacement is announced two days later as Robert Dudley, who will be the first American to head the company.

July

• Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador wins the Tour de France for the second year in a row. • Brazil wins the FIVB World League championship in volleyball in Córdoba, Arg., defeating Russia to take a record ninth World League title. • Yokozuna Hakuho defeats ozeki Baruto to win the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament, becoming the first wrestler in the history of sumo to win three consecutive meets without a single defeat. • The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., inducts slugger Andre Dawson, manager Whitey Herzog, and umpire Doug Harvey.

Afghan officials declare that 52 civilians in a house where women and children were taking refuge from a firefight between NATO and Taliban forces in Helmand province on July 23 were killed by a rocket fired by NATO troops. • Bomb attacks kill some 20 Shi!ite pilgrims traveling from Al-Najaf to Karbala# in Iraq; also, a car bomb explodes in front of the Baghdad offices of the news channel Al-Arabiyah, and six people, none of them journalists, die. • In Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes tribunal’s first verdict, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who oversaw the torture and executions of thousands of prisoners at the Tuol Sleng prison under the Khmer Rouge regime, is found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison; his sentence is lessened to 19 years for time served and

for a period of illegal military detention. • The U.S. Library of Congress grants an exception to a copyright law; the exception gives owners of smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone, the right to engage in “jailbreaking”— that is, to install software that has not been approved by the phone’s creator. • In Jerusalem the Israel Museum reopens after a three-year renovation, expansion, and redesign under the direction of James S. Snyder.

Heavy rains continue in China, and a resultant landslide in Sichuan leaves 21 people missing, while waters threaten to overtop the Three Gorges Dam; China’s State Flood Control and Drought Prevention department reports that at least 823 people have died in flooding in 2010. • The U.S. Forest Service announces that caves on federal land in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South

Dakota, and Wyoming will be closed to explorers for a year in an effort to contain the spread of white-nose syndrome, a disease that has killed more than one million bats.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm calls on the U.S. federal government for additional help in cleaning up an oil spill of more than 3,028,330 litres (800,000 gal) that resulted from a broken pipeline on July 26 on Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River; Granholm calls the effort so far by the pipeline’s owner, Enbridge Energy Partners, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “wholly inadequate.” • In Spain the legislature of Catalonia votes to ban the Spanish tradition of bullfighting in the region.

South African Pres. Jacob Zuma announces that 6 of the 13 black ethnic monarchies

within the country are to be abolished. • Pres. !Ali !Abdallah Salih of Yemen invites leaders of the al-Huthi rebels to join talks between the Yemeni government and assorted opposition parties. • Mexican soldiers in a firefight kill Ignacio (“Nacho”) Coronel, one of the top leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, in what is viewed as a major victory in the Mexican government’s fight against the cartels. • Shipping officials in the United Arab Emirates attempt to ascertain the cause of damage, including a dented hull and broken windows, sustained by the Japanese oil tanker M. Star the previous day in the Strait of Hormuz.

Violent fighting between those who support and those who oppose ongoing peace talks with the Sudanese government break out in a refugee camp in the Darfur region of Sudan, and some 10 people are killed; UN reports indicate that about 600 people have died in violence in Darfur in the past few months. • American marine conservationist Rick Steiner declares that the oil spill into the Yellow Sea following a pipeline explosion in Dalian, China, two weeks earlier was likely to have spilled more than 430,000 bbl of oil, rather than the 11,000 bbl reported by China.

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former U.S. president Bill Clinton, weds Marc Mezvinsky in a ceremony in Rhinebeck, N.Y. (Photo left.) Genevieve De Manio—UPI/Landov

35

August The 33 of us in the shelter are well. Note from miners trapped 17 days earlier in the collapse of a gold and copper mine in Chile, found attached to a rescuer’s drill, August 22

A government official in Pakistan declares that flooding in the country has cost 1,100 lives thus far; some 10,000 people are thought to be stranded in the Swat valley and Dir Ismail Khan. • The Netherlands withdraws its forces from Afghanistan; it is the first NATO member to end its mission there. • Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng captures the Women’s British Open golf tournament.

Raza Haidar, the head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement political party, is assassinated in Karachi; violent antiPashtun rioting breaks out within hours and continues for two days, leaving at least 78 people dead. • In Indian-administered Kashmir, officials say that two days of violent clashes between armed security forces and stone-throwing protesters have raised the number killed so far to 33 people. • A rocket strikes near the InterContinental resort hotel in Al-!Aqabah, Jordan, killing a taxi driver, and the remains of another rocket 36

are found on the grounds of the Eilat resort in Israel; the provenance of the rockets is unknown. • A U.S. federal team of scientists and engineers estimates that the amount of oil that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the energy company BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20 is roughly 4,900,000 bbl, about 800,000 bbl of which was captured, making it the largest-ever accidental release of oil into marine waters; the previous record was 3,300,000 bbl in the Bay of Campeche, where a well dug by the Ixtoc I oil platform blew out in 1979.

Israeli and Lebanese troops stationed at the border between the countries exchange gunfire, reportedly leaving four Lebanese and at least one Israeli dead; each side blames the other for starting the incident. • New York City zoning officials clear the way for the building of a community centre and mosque to be constructed two blocks north of the site of the World Trade Center, commonly referred to since the

terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as “ground zero”; opposition to the planned centre, often fanned by right-wing commentators, has appeared in much of the country and frequently takes on an anti-Islam tone.

A new constitution that decreases the power of the presidency and includes a bill of rights is resoundingly approved by the electorate in Kenya; it is signed into law on August 27. • The U.S. government says that the energy company BP’s use of a so-called static kill to seal the broken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico by filling it with mud is a success and that there should be no further leaking from the well; the following day cement is used to plug the pipe for the first time. • Naxalite rebels ambush a police patrol in India’s Chhattisgarh state; some 70 police officers are missing after the attack.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signs a decree banning the export of grain from August 15 through the

end of the year because of the continuing drought, which has decimated the wheat harvest. • An iceberg covering at least 251 sq km (97 sq mi) breaks off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier; it is the largest ice island to break free in the Northern Hemisphere since 1962.

In the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan, 10 members of a medical aid group—6 Americans, 2 Afghans, 1 Briton, and 1 German—are lined up and executed. • Pal Schmitt is sworn in as president of Hungary. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in July remained steady at 9.5% and that, though the private sector added 71,000 jobs, the economy as a whole lost 131,000 jobs. • Investigators for the United Arab Emirates report that the damage suffered by the Japanese oil tanker M. Star on July 28 as it traveled through the Strait of Hormuz was caused by a terrorist attack involving homemade explosives.

August

At least 43 people are killed by an explosion in a marketplace in Basra, Iraq. • Elena Kagan is sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. • The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, inducts running backs Emmitt Smith and Floyd Little, wide receiver Jerry Rice, cornerback Dick LeBeau, linebacker Rickey Jackson, guard Russ Grimm, and defensive tackle John Randle.

South Korean Pres. Lee Myung-Bak carries out a cabinet shuffle; he names Kim TaeHo to replace Chung UnChan as prime minister, but Kim withdraws his name on August 29.

Pres. Paul Kagame is overwhelmingly elected to a new sevenyear term as president of Rwanda. • The head of Russia’s weather service declares that the heat wave engulfing the area around Moscow is the worst the country has ever experienced; tens of thousands of people flee the heat, which has doubled the city’s death rate, and 557 fires are burning, with 747,722 ha (1,847,661 ac) having been consumed by fires.

China reports a slowing of its economy’s growth, the Bank of England reduces its forecast for the country’s economy, and the U.S. reports decreased exports; in response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 265 points. • Russia announces that it has deployed an advanced air defense missile system in the separatist Georgian enclave Abkhazia. • The Mecca Clock Tower, with four faces 46 m (151 ft) in diameter and illuminated by LED lights, begins marking time in Saudi Arabia; it runs on Arabia Standard Time and is intended to challenge Greenwich Mean Time as the world standard. (Photo below.)

Dési Bouterse, who twice led the country at the

The U.S. Federal Reserve announces that it intends to buy long-term government debt in hopes of preventing a slowing of the tenuous economic recovery. • Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez and Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos meet in Santa Marta, Colom., and agree to exchange ambassadors.

head of a military junta and was on trial for murder at the time of his election by the legislature, takes office as president of Suriname. • French Minister of the Interior Brice Hortefeux declares that the government has dismantled some 40 illegal Roma camps over the past two weeks and will deport 700 camp residents to Bulgaria and Romania; the day of the announcement a Roma camp in Choisy-le-Roi is shut down.

In Sri Lanka retired general Sarath Fonseka, who led the military campaign that defeated the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and who later unsuccessfully ran against Pres. Mahinda Rajapakse for president, is convicted in a courtmartial of having engaged in politics while in uniform and is dishonourably discharged.

• The ruling junta of Myanmar (Burma) announces that elections will take place on November 7. • Patrice Trovoada of the opposition Independent Democratic Action party is named as prime minister of Sao Tome and Principe after elections on August 1; his government is sworn in the following day. • The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., inducts as members NBA players Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Dennis Johnson, and Gus Johnson, WNBA star Cynthia Cooper, Brazilian player Maciel Pereira, owner Jerry Buss, and high school coach Bob Hurley, Sr., as well as the U.S. Olympic teams from the Games of 1960 and 1992.

In California’s Mojave Desert, at the California 200, a popular 80-km (50mi) off-road nighttime race attended by hundreds of spectators, a modified Ford Ranger going over a steep hill spins and rolls over into the crowd; eight spectators are killed. • The opening ceremonies for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games take place in Singapore, where some 3,600 athletes 14 to 18 years of age from 204 countries will compete in two dozen summer sports over the next 12 days.

In a speech marking the 65th anniversary of the end of Japanese rule in Korea, South Korean Pres. Lee Myung-Bak suggests that the time has come to consider a special tax to finance the eventual reunification of South and North Korea. • At the Whistling Straits golf club in Kohler, Wis., Martin Kaymer of Germany defeats Essa Mohammad/AP

37

August

Bubba Watson of the U.S. in a three-hole playoff to win the PGA championship tournament. • Danielle Kang of California wins the U.S. women’s amateur golf title in Charlotte, N.C. • The 51st Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contributions to the arts is awarded to American jazz composer and musician Sonny Rollins at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H.

Japanese government figures are released showing that the country’s economy in the second fiscal quarter was valued at $1.28 trillion, thus resulting in China (which posted $1.33 trillion in the same quarter) surpassing Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world. • Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago sign an agreement regarding the sharing of the Loran-Manatee gas field, which straddles the maritime border between the two countries.

At an Iraqi army recruiting centre in Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonates his weapon among a crowd of applicants, killing at least 61 people. • Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai orders that all private security companies, both domestic and foreign, be phased out within four months, a deadline that is widely regarded as impossibly short. • Lebanon passes a law granting Palestinians in the country, of whom there are an estimated 400,000, the same rights to work that other foreigners enjoy. 38

• It is reported that 51 people died in drug-related violence August 13–15 in Juárez, Mex.

and Cédric Villani; also, the inaugural Chern Medal for lifetime achievement goes to Louis Nirenberg.

The body of Edelmiro Cavazos, the kidnapped mayor of Santiago, Mex., is found on the side of a road; five police officers, one of whom was part of the mayor’s security detail, and a transit officer are later arrested in connection with the crime. • Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, recalls 380 million eggs that have been sold throughout the country; an outbreak of salmonella was traced to some of the company’s facilities. • The New England Journal of Medicine publishes online a study that found that cancer patients who received palliative care beginning at the time of diagnosis outlived those who received standard cancer treatment without palliative care.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announces that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will engage in direct talks with Israel in hopes of finding a way to return to the peace process. • Aleksey Savinov is fired as head of Russia’s forestry service for his handling of the forest fires that burned 809,370 ha (2,000,000 ac) of land and left at least 54 people dead.

Taliban fighters attack sleeping private security guards hired to safeguard a road-construction project in the Helmand River valley in Afghanistan; at least 21 of the guards are slaughtered. • North Korea acknowledges that it is holding a South Korean squidding boat and its seven crew members, saying that they were fishing in North Korean waters. • The computer chip maker Intel announces an agreement to acquire the computer security company McAfee. • The Fields Medals, awarded every four years to mathematicians aged 40 or younger, are presented to Elon Lindenstrauss, Ngo Bao Chau, Stanislav Smirnov,

Legislative elections in Australia result in no clear majority for any party, with the ruling Labor Party taking 38% of the vote and the conservative Liberal-National coalition winning 43.6%. • Near Bushehr, Iran, officials from Iran and Russia ceremonially open Iran’s first nuclear power plant; it will be jointly operated with Russian technicians.

Officials from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and from the International Medical Corps report that they have learned that hundreds of members of the Hutu rebel group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda attacked and gang-raped at least 150 women July 30–August 3 in and around the village of Ruvungi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. • Seventeen days after the collapse of a gold and copper mine in northern Chile, 33 miners trapped 700 m (2,300 ft) underground tie a note to a rescuers’ drill that

has penetrated the area in which they have taken refuge, notifying those above of their survival; plans for their rescue begin.

A suicide bomber kills at least 26 people worshipping at a mosque in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan. • A former police officer who was fired in 2009 takes over a tour bus in Manila, holding the passengers hostage in an apparent bid to regain his job; there is a televised standoff for the next 12 hours before police commandos storm the bus, and the gunman and eight tourists from Hong Kong are killed. • Nepal’s legislature fails in its fifth attempt to choose a prime minister; the next vote is scheduled for September 5. • U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, to the shock of the scientific community, overturns an executive order allowing limited federal funding of stem cell research.

Al-Shabaab fighters wearing Somali government military uniforms invade a hotel in Mogadishu, methodically shooting from room to room; at least 33 people, including 4 members of the country’s legislature, are killed. • Peace talks between Yemen’s government and al-Huthi rebels begin in Qatar. • The bodies of 72 migrants from Central and South America, the victims of a massacre, are discovered in San Fernando, Tamaulipas state, Mex. • The National Association of Realtors in the U.S. reports that home sales in July were

August

25.5% lower than in the previous July, in spite of historically low mortgage interest rates and falling prices. • A small turboprop airplane carrying passengers to Lukla, Nepal, a popular starting point for the trek to Mt. Everest, crashes near the village of Shikharpur; all 14 aboard perish.

A car bomb goes off at a police station in Baghdad, marking the beginning of a day of attacks that strike 12 other Iraqi cities, including Al-Fallujah, AlRamadi, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Basra, Karbala#, and Mosul; at least 51 people die in the attacks, including 19 people killed by a car bomb in Kut. • The final unit of the 4.2million-kW Xiaowan Hydropower Station in China’s Yunnan province begins operating; the project, the second largest in China, gives the country the highest hydropower capacity in the world. • Danny Philip is chosen to be prime minister of the Solomon Islands.

France deports 300 Roma over the protests of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris and the EU justice commissioner. • Brazilian Pres. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ceremonially signs the contract for the building of the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the Xingu River; it is planned to be the third largest dam in the world and to supply electricity to 23 million homes. • The winners of the inaugural Horton Foote Prize for playwriting are announced: Ruined by Lynn Nottage wins the award for outstanding new American play, and

the prize for promising new American play goes to Middletown by Will Eno.

Than Shwe, Muang Aye, and Thura Shwe Man resign from the military in Myanmar (Burma); the move makes the men, the top three rulers in the country’s military junta, eligible to run for office under the new constitution. • Mexico’s largest airline, Grupo Mexicana, suspends operations. • The North American Lutheran Church is created in Grove City, Ohio, by 199 congregations that opposed the more accepting stance toward gay clergy recently adopted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, whom Pres. Hamid Karzai fired as deputy attorney general of Afghanistan on August 26, declares that he was sacked for pursuing corruption cases against high officials in the government; Western officials bear out his story about highlevel interference with corruption investigations.

• Conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck leads a rally of tens of thousands of people, many of them Tea Party partisans or libertarians, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; he calls for Christian religious revival.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ceremonially opens a new oil pipeline that runs 67 km (42 mi) from Skovorodino, Russia, to northeastern China. • The volcano Mt. Sinabung on the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupts for the first time in four centuries; another eruption takes place the following day. (Photo below.) • The Emmy Awards are presented in Los Angeles; winners include the television shows Modern Family and Mad Men and the actors Jim Parsons, Bryan Cranston, Edie Falco, Kyra Sedgwick, Eric Stonestreet, Aaron Paul, Jane Lynch, and Archie Panjabi. • At a meet in Rieti, Italy, Kenyan runner David Rudisha sets a new 800-m world record of 1 min 41.01 sec, breaking his own record time

set on August 22 by 0.08 sec; the previous record, 1 min 41.11 sec, was set in 1997 by Wilson Kipketer of Denmark. • In University Place, Wash., Peter Uihlein is the winner of the U.S. men’s amateur golf championship. • The Edogawa Minami team from Tokyo defeats the Waipio team from Waipahu, Hawaii, 4–1 to win baseball’s 64th Little League World Series.

After a long debate, India’s legislature ratifies the final legislation necessary to complete the implementation of a nuclear agreement made with the U.S. in 2005.

In a nationally televised address, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama announces an end to the country’s combat mission in Iraq, though 49,700 troops will remain in a supporting capacity for another year; the war began in 2003. • The much-anticipated, wellreviewed novel Freedom by Jonathan Franzen arrives in American bookstores.

Roone Patikawa/AP

39

September This is the first time in memory that an entire decade has produced essentially no economic growth for the typical American household. Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz, commenting on newly released Census Bureau information, September 16

After 10 days of battles in the streets of Mogadishu, Som., that have left at least 100 people dead, the city is calm. • Three suicide bombers attack Shi!ites observing an annual day of mourning in Lahore, Pak., killing at least 31 people; rioting breaks out in response. • In Washington, D.C., U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak, and King !Abdullah II of Jordan meet to begin a push to achieve agreement between Israel and Palestine.

The International Medical Corps says that the number of women and girls in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo who were raped during attacks on July 30–August 3 by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and the Mai Mai has been found to be more than 240, and it is expected that the number will rise with further investigation. 40

• The IMF declares that it will provide Pakistan with $450 million in emergency aid to help with the flooding disaster the country is experiencing. • The American fast-food chain Burger King agrees to be bought by the Brazilianbacked investment firm 3G Capital.

A suicide bomber kills at least 53 people in Quetta, Pak., when he detonates his weapon among a parade of Shi!ites who are marching to demonstrate their solidarity with Palestinians. • A magnitude-7.0 earthquake with its epicentre about 45 km (28 mi) west of Christchurch strikes in New Zealand; most major buildings in Christchurch are built to withstand earthquakes, though some $1.4 billion in damage, largely to infrastructure, does result.

The U.S. and Afghanistan reach a deal on bailing out Kabul

Bank, Afghanistan’s largest bank, as a run on the institution by worried depositors continues.

A referendum in Moldova on a constitutional amendment to allow direct popular election of the president fails to attract enough voters to be considered legally valid; the country’s legislature has not agreed on a successor to Pres. Vladimir Voronin, whose term ended in 2009. • The Basque militant organization ETA publicly declares a cease-fire in Spain.

Trade unions in South Africa suspend a strike by hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers that has gone on for nearly three weeks, though the government’s offer has not yet been accepted. • A suicide car bomber attacks a police station in the town of Lakki Marwat in Pakistan’s KhyberPakhtunkhwa province; at

least 19 people, including 9 police officers, are killed. • A 24-hour public-sector strike to protest pensionreform proposals that include raising the minimum retirement age begins in France, and a 24-hour transit strike in London opposes layoffs.

Julia Gillard forms a coalition that allows her to retain her position as Australia’s prime minister. • A bomb explosion kills at least 18 people in a residential compound in Kohat in Pakistan’s KhyberPakhtunkhwa province. • A government minister in Mozambique announces that the price of bread will be rolled back to its earlier level after a major increase in the cost caused riots. • Israel, the newest member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, signs the OECD Convention, pledging its dedication to the organization’s goals.

September

• A British parliamentary committee announces plans to hold an inquiry into the issue of phone hacking after reports surfaced that the tabloid The News of the World had intercepted cell phone messages of politicians and celebrities. • Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago announces that he will not seek a seventh term of office in 2011; observers are dumbfounded.

Sri Lanka’s legislature approves a constitutional amendment that allows the president to seek an unlimited number of terms of office and that in addition increases the president’s power of appointment. • China’s Foreign Ministry summons Japan’s ambassador to China for the second time to complain about Japan’s seizure the previous day of a Chinese fishing boat’s captain in the waters around islands called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan that are claimed by both countries. • The government of Ireland declares that it will break the troubled Anglo Irish Bank into two entities, one of which it intends to shut down.

U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips rules that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits the military from seeking to learn the sexual orientation of service members but permits the discharge of service members who are found through their own actions to be homosexual, is unconstitutional. • In Russia’s North Ossetia–Alania republic, a suicide car bomb explodes in the central market of

• Violent demonstrations take place in eastern Afghanistan over a widely publicized plan by Terry Jones, pastor of a small independent church in Gainesville, Fla., to burn copies of the Qur#an on September 11, despite the fact that Jones eventually canceled the plan; police fire into the unruly crowd, killing two.

Javier Velásquez resigns as prime minister of Peru; he is replaced the following day by José Antonio Chang. • Cuba announces plans to lay off 500,000 people from the government payroll by March 2011 in a major turn toward the private sector.

Fredrik Von Erichsen—EPA/Landov

Vladikavkaz; at least 17 people are killed. • India’s cabinet ratifies a plan to include data on caste status in the census scheduled for 2011; caste information was last collected in the 1931 census. • An enormous gas-line explosion destroys about 50 houses in San Bruno, Calif., and at least eight people are killed.

A report by a commission set up by the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium issues a report on its findings that sexual abuse of children by priests occurred throughout the country and involved hundreds of victims, with the most abuse occurring from the 1950s through the late 1980s. • The U.S. government announces that Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta will be granted the Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery during a battle in eastern Afghanistan in 2007; he will be the first living service member since the Vietnam War to receive the honour.

During the holiday of !Id al-Fitr, thousands of Muslims who had been given permission to march in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, engage in violent protests. • North Korea proposes the resumption of reunions of families that were divided by the Korean War; it is the first time that North Korea has proposed such meetings. • Kim Clijsters of Belgium defeats Russian Vera Zvonareva to win the women’s U.S. Open tennis championship for the third time; two days later in a final postponed by rain, Rafael Nadal of Spain defeats Novak Djokovic of Serbia to take the men’s title for the first time in his career.

Turkish voters resoundingly approve 26 amendments to the country’s constitution that increase civil rights, make the military responsible to civilian courts, and increase the control of the president and legislature over judicial appointments.

India’s government cancels all flights into and out of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, in response to continued bloodshed; two days earlier a round-theclock curfew was imposed. • UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announces that former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet will head the new agency UN Women. • Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers who apparently wandered into Iran in July 2009 and were held there on espionage charges, is released on bail and permitted to leave the country.

The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology publishes a study of a recently discovered skeleton of a bony-toothed bird with a wingspan of 5 m (17 ft) and sharp toothlike projections in its beak; the bird, which lived some 5 million–10 million years ago, is dubbed Pelagornis chilensis. (Photo above.) 41

September

• Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev signs a treaty with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg that settles a border dispute over a region of the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean that has undeveloped petroleum reserves. • The electoral commission in Guinea announces that the runoff presidential election that is scheduled to take place on September 19 will be postponed.

The U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the poverty rate in 2009 rose sharply to 14.3%, a 15-year high, that the median household income, which had experienced a big drop in 2008, remained steady in 2009, and that the number of those without health insurance rose from 46 million in 2008 to 51 million in 2009. • Kim Hwang-Sik is named prime minister of South Korea. • Seven people connected with the French nuclear engineering company Areva, five of them from France and one each from Togo and Madagascar, are kidnapped in Arlit, Niger. • The winners of the Automotive X Prize, a competition to create a usable vehicle that can achieve at least 100 mpg (miles per gallon), are announced in Washington, D.C.; Oliver Kuttner’s Edison2 Very Light Car, a fourseater that reaches a combined 102.5 mpg, is awarded the $5 million prize, and the runners-up are the Li-Ion Motors Wave II and the E-Tracer.

The Taliban in Afghanistan declare, apparently accurately, that they 42

have kidnapped 30 election officials and campaign workers, including one candidate, just before the country’s legislative elections. • Former Nepali prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known as Prachanda, head of the Maoist party, withdraws his name from consideration for the office of prime minister. • Rioting nearly shuts down Karachi; the violence is in response to the stabbing death in London of Imran Farooq, an exiled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the major political party in Karachi.

Sweden Democrats win 20 seats, the first time they have gained enough votes to reach the legislature. • A military convoy traveling through the Rasht Valley in Tajikistan is attacked in an ambush in which at least 23 and possibly as many as 40 servicemen are killed. • A bomb explodes near a branch office of Iraq’s Ministry of National Security in northern Baghdad, killing at least 19 people, and a car bomb outside the offices of the cell phone company Asiacell elsewhere in the city leaves 10 or more people dead.

Legislative elections take place in Afghanistan in spite of Taliban efforts to disrupt the polling; turnout is reported to be light, and complaints of irregularities begin within days. • An antinuclear demonstration takes place in Berlin with a crowd that numbers tens of thousands; protesters who oppose plans to extend the life of nuclear power generators surround the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Business Cycle Dating Committee declares that the recession in the U.S. ended in June 2009; it was the longest recession the country had experienced since World War II. • Authorities in Italy impound $30 million from the Vatican Bank and open a moneylaundering inquiry into actions engaged in by its top two officials. • The British minister for overseas territories announces that elections scheduled for the Turks and Caicos Islands in July 2011 will be postponed and that direct rule from the U.K. will continue.

The gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is declared permanently sealed and the spill over after the completion of a relief well allowed the sealing of the broken well from the bottom on September 17 and testing showed that the seal will hold; the well ruptured with the collapse of the energy company BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform in April. • In legislative elections in Sweden, the alliance of parties led by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt falls two seats short of a majority, and the anti-immigration

Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke resigns as prime minister of the transitional federal government of Somalia; Abdiwahid Elmi Gonjeh becomes interim prime minister. • Hundreds of people attend a two-day seminar in Rosemont, Ill., in talks dealing with the growing scourge of bedbugs in the U.S.

In the Iranian city of Mahabad, a bomb goes off along the route of a parade marking the anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq War; at least 10 people are killed. • Fighting takes place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians in East Jerusalem after a Palestinian man is killed by an Israeli guard; peace talks continue.

Financial data shows that Ireland’s economy, which expanded 2.2% in the first fiscal quarter of the year, shrank 1.2% in the second quarter. • Authorities in Colombia report that a multiday operation has resulted in a bomb raid against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in which the militant organization’s second in command, known as Mono Jojoy, was killed. • In a speech at the opening of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that it is widely believed that the U.S. government orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; 33 delegations respond by walking out. • The Thanet wind farm opens in the North Sea off the southeast coast of England; with 100 turbines (planned to be 341 in four years) expected to produce 300 MW of electricity, it is the world’s largest offshore wind farm. • The Prado Museum in Madrid announces that its curators have found that The Wine of Saint Martin’s Day, a painting that was brought in for cleaning and restoration, was painted by the Flemish master Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, only some 40 of whose paintings are known.

September

• In Ohio the Little Brown Jug, the second event of the pacing Triple Crown in harness racing, is won by Rock N Roll Heaven.

In the face of unrelenting pressure from China, Japan releases the captain of a Chinese trawler whom it had held since his boat collided with Japanese patrol vessels two weeks earlier near islands that both countries claim. • On its 12th attempt Nepal’s legislature elects as the country’s new president Sushil Koirala; a decisive vote on prime minister continues to elude it. • On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social-networking site Facebook, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker announce that Zuckerberg is donating $100 million to improve Newark’s public school system.

India announces a new approach to the unrest in Kashmir, including the relaxing of curfew, the release from jail of student protesters, the reopening of schools and universities, and opening of dialogue with various groups in Kashmir. • Ed Miliband is chosen as the new leader of the Labour Party in the U.K.

NATO military officials divulge that a battle to win Kandahar province from the Taliban in Afghanistan began five or six days earlier. • The Israeli freeze on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank expires.

• China announces the imposition of high tariffs on poultry imported from the U.S. • Patrick Makau of Kenya wins the Berlin Marathon with a time of 2 hr 5 min 8 sec; Aberu Kebede of Ethiopia is the fastest woman, with a time of 2 hr 23 min 58 sec.

In legislative elections in Venezuela, the opposition Democratic Unity Table coalition wins nearly half the votes and about one-third of the seats in the National Assembly, which is a significant increase. • Fatmir Sejdiu resigns as president of Kosovo after the Constitutional Court rules that he may not serve as head of state and leader of his political party simultaneously; Jakup Krasniqi becomes acting president. • Colombia’s inspector general, Alejandro Ordóñez, dismisses Sen. Piedad Córdoba and bars her from public service for 18 years, citing alleged ties with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). • The low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines announces its purchase of the smaller lowcost airline AirTran Airways.

• Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev dismisses political rival Yury Luzhkov as mayor of Moscow. • Banri Kaieda, Japan’s minister of economic and fiscal policy, declares that a weeklong de facto halt in the export of rare earth minerals from China to Japan, which China denies, is threatening Japan’s economy; the minerals are crucial in the manufacture of myriad products.

Public-sector strikes and demonstrations against government austerity measures take place in Madrid, Barcelona, Brussels, Athens, and other European cities. • Maatia Toafa replaces Apisai Ielemia as prime minister of Tuvalu following legislative elections on September 16. • A spokesman for Alberto Contador, the winner of the 2010 Tour de France, reveals that Contador tested positive for the banned musclebuilding drug clenbuterol on the final rest day of the race.

A three-judge panel in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh issues a ruling in a

case that was originally filed in 1950 over the rights to a place in Ayodhya believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of the god Ram and where the Babri Masjid mosque was built in the 16th century and burned down in 1992; it is ruled that two-thirds of the site belongs to Hindus and one-third to Muslims. • Pres. Rafael Correa of Ecuador is shaken up, teargassed, and briefly trapped in a hospital by police officers and military service members during a large and angry protest against a reduction in pay increases and benefits; it is unclear whether the protest also encompasses a coup attempt, and a state of emergency is declared. (Photo below.) • The U.S. government says that it has reached an agreement with the American International Group (AIG) for the firm to begin repaying the funds given to it under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which will expire on October 3. • The Dow Jones Industrial Average finishes the month 7.7% higher than it started, posting its best September in 71 years; the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gains 8.7% for the month, and the NASDAQ is up 12%.

North Korea’s official news agency reports that Kim Jong-Eun, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, along with Kim Jong Il’s sister and four other people, have been made four-star generals; it is widely assumed that Kim Jong-Eun has been made heir to the leadership of the country. • Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai appoints 70 people to a peace council that will be given considerable autonomy. Freddy Navas—dpa/Landov

43

October They do give us bags of money—yes, yes, it is done. Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, acknowledging receiving cash from Iran, October 25

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court overturns changes to the government structure made in 2004, thereby returning a greater proportion of power to the president. • At a parade in Abuja to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence, two bombs explode, killing at least 12 people and possibly many more; the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claims responsibility. • The U.S. government formally apologizes for a recently uncovered American program in which some 700 Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients were deliberately infected with gonorrhea and syphilis in order to study the effects of penicillin in 1946–48. • Kim Hwang-Sik takes office as prime minister of South Korea. • California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law a bill that reduces the penalty for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana to a fine of $100; offenders may not be arrested and will not have a criminal record. • The 2010 Lasker Awards for medical research are pre44

sented: winners are Douglas Coleman and Jeffrey Friedman, for their discovery of the appetite-regulating hormone leptin; Napoleone Ferrara, for his discoveries leading to a treatment for the wet form of macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in the elderly; and David Weatherall, for his career in biomedical research, including research on thalassemia.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi announces that arrests have been made in connection with the ongoing infection of computers in the country’s nuclear operations by the destructive Stuxnet worm, which is believed to have been created by a government for the purpose of disrupting Iran’s nuclear program. • In legislative elections in Latvia, the ruling Unity coalition retains power. • With his eighth-place finish in the Indy 300 race in Homestead, Fla. (the winner is Scott Dixon of New Zealand), Scottish driver Dario Franchitti wins his third overall IndyCar drivers’ championship. • The Collingwood Magpies defeat the St. Kilda Saints

16.12 (108)–7.10 (52) in the Australian Football League Grand Final Replay after a tie in the Grand Final a week earlier, thus winning the AFL title.

In elections for the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the moderate Bakir Izetbegovic wins the Muslim seat, Zeljko Komsic is reelected to the Croat seat, and separatist politician Milorad Dodik is elected to the Serb seat. • Presidential elections in Brazil result in the need for a runoff. • In spite of widely reported construction problems and delays as well as other difficulties in preparation, the 2010 Commonwealth Games begin on time with an opening ceremony in New Delhi. • Sébastien Loeb of France secures a record seventh successive world rally championship automobile racing drivers’ title with his firstplace finish in the Rallye de France.

At Ajka, Hung., a wall of a tailings dam of the Magyar

Aluminium plant collapses, sending a wall of highly alkaline and thus caustic red mud into nearby waterways and engulfing the nearby towns of Kolontar, Devecser, and Somlovasarhely; at least nine people are killed, as well as all life in the affected waterways, and some 1,000 ha (2,500 ac) of land is contaminated. • The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is awarded to British physiologist Robert Edwards for his development, with British physician Patrick Steptoe (1913–88), of in vitro fertilization; Edwards won the Lasker Award in 2001 for the same work. • In golf’s Ryder Cup competition in Newport, Wales, Europe defeats the U.S. with a 14½–13½ margin of victory.

Former French trader Jérôme Kerviel, whose illegal and risky trades in 2008 nearly led to the collapse of his employer, the bank Société Générale, is sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay back the entire amount of money (>4.9 billion [$7 billion]) lost by the bank; he appeals the decision.

October

• In Stockholm the Nobel Prize for Physics is awarded to Russian-born scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their work on the creation of graphene, a one-atom-thick form of carbon with many possible applications. • It is reported that linguists on an expedition to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh to research two little-known Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in a small area have found a third, previously unknown language, Koro, that is spoken by some 1,000 people and is not closely related to other Tibeto-Burman languages.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders declares that over the past six months more than 400 children in Nigeria’s Zamfara state have died of lead poisoning as a result of runoff from illegal gold mining that contaminated soil and water. • The Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to Richard Heck of the U.S., Ei-ichi Negishi of Japan and the U.S., and Akira Suzuki of Japan for their independent advances in the use of palladium as a catalyst in linking carbon atoms to form complex structures that are widely used in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

• The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in September remained at 9.6% (to which it had risen in August) and that, though the private sector added 64,000 jobs, the economy as a whole lost 95,000 nonfarm jobs. • A bomb at a mosque in Taliqan, the capital of Afghanistan’s Takhar province, kills at least 12 people, among them Muhammad Omar, the governor of neighbouring Kunduz province and the target of the attack. • The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11,006.48, its first close above 11,000 since May.

Pakistan announces that it will reopen its main border crossing with Afghanistan; the crossing was closed after NATO helicopters killed two Pakistani soldiers in a strike on a Pakistani border post on September 30 and dozens of

NATO and American supply trucks stranded at the closed crossing had been torched.

The first legislative elections under the constitution adopted in June are held in Kyrgyzstan; though the vote is fairly evenly split among five parties, the party with the largest percentage is the nationalist Ata-Zhurt party, which is opposed to the new constitution. • Liu Xia, wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, is permitted to visit her husband in prison but is then escorted to her home in Beijing and placed under house arrest. • The Netherlands Antilles ceases to exist as a legal entity; it is replaced by the autonomous states Sint Maarten and Curaçao, which join Aruba as part of the Netherlands, and the Dutch overseas special municipalities of Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba.

• Hanoi celebrates 1,000 years of history with a huge procession and other festivities. • The Chicago Marathon is won by Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya with a time of 2 hr 6 min 24 sec; the women’s victor is Liliya Shobukhova of Russia with a time of 2 hr 20 min 25 sec.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences goes to American economists Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen and Cyprus-born British economist Christopher Pissarides for their work on search theory, describing circumstances in markets in which buyers and sellers do not easily find each other.

The head of Armando Flores Villegas, Tamaulipas state police commander, is delivered to a military base in Mexico; he had been investigating the September 30 shooting of American tourist David Hartley on Falcon Lake on the border between Zapata, Texas, and Guerrero Viejo, Mex. • The Man Booker Prize goes to British writer Howard Jacobson for his comic novel The Finkler Question.

Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his first state visit to Lebanon, where he also addresses a large Hezbollah rally. • In a dramatic rescue, the 33 Chilean miners who have been trapped underground since an August 5 explosion in the San José gold and copper mine are lifted to the surface, one by one, over 22½ hours in a specially designed capsule. (Photo left.)

Two explosions seconds apart kill at least seven people at a major Sufi shrine in Karachi. • The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to imprisoned Chinese democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo. Cezaro De Luca—EPA/Landov

45

October

• The UN Security Council agrees to extend for a year the authorization for the NATOled mission in Afghanistan. • In Tokyo the Japan Art Association awards the Praemium Imperiale to Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, German sculptor Rebecca Horn, Italian painter Enrico Castellani, Italian actress Sophia Loren, and Japanese architect Toyo Ito.

Gotthard Base Tunnel, is drilled through under the Swiss Alps; a high-speed railroad through the 57-km (35-mi) tunnel is planned to open in 2017.

Mark Rutte is sworn in as prime minister of the Netherlands at the head of a minority government. • Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed is named to replace Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke as prime minister of Somalia’s transitional national government; he is approved by the country’s legislature on October 31. • The UN Food and Agriculture Organization announces that the virus rinderpest, which for millennia was a worldwide scourge of livestock, with an 80% mortality rate, but was last reported in Kenya in 2001, has been eradicated; this is the second disease ever declared eliminated.

Shootings that began the previous day leave at least 25 people dead in Karachi; the violence is believed to be in connection with the election to replace a member of the provincial legislature who was killed in August. • Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission postpones the announcement of the results of the September 18 legislative election hours before it was expected; the reason is thought to be the pervasive fraud associated with the balloting.

Georgia’s legislature approves constitutional amendments that will increase the power of the prime minister after the presidential election scheduled for 2013 takes place. • Israel announces plans to build 238 housing units in Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future country; this ends an unofficial suspension of construction there. • The final section of the world’s longest tunnel, the 46

Hundreds of U.S. and Afghan troops begin an air assault on an area of Afghanistan from which Taliban forces have launched attacks on Kandahar.

Chinese Vice Pres. Xi Jinping is named vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission; Xi is on track to succeed Pres. Hu Jintao. • The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says that Lake Mead, impounded by the Hoover Dam to provide water to people across the Southwest, has fallen to the record low level of 330.13 m (1,083.09 ft) above sea level. • The journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publishes findings that Paleolithic humans some 30,000 years ago ground plant roots to make flour used for flatbread; this is 10,000 years earlier than the previous earliest evidence for flour making.

China’s central bank raises its key interest rate 0.25%; markets around the world drop in response. • It is revealed that China’s unofficial embargo on shipping rare-earth minerals to Japan has spread to Europe and the U.S. • At a meeting in Ilo, Peru, Pres. Alan García of Peru and Pres. Evo Morales of Bolivia add to a 1992 agreement giving Bolivia 163 ha (403 ac) of land, including 5 km (3.1 mi) along the coast; the new agreement allows Bolivia to build facilities for import and export in Ilo. • The winner of the annual $100,000 TED Prize is announced as French guerrilla artist J R, who pastes large photographs of ordinary people on building walls in slums in cities throughout the world.

The British government announces a 19% reduction in public spending, the deepest cut in six decades; the plan includes the elimination of 490,000 public-sector jobs and cutbacks in social welfare programs. • Pope Benedict XVI names 24 new cardinals.

Rioting takes place in the Italian towns of Terzigno and Boscoreale, near Naples, as residents object to the opening there of waste-disposal sites. • The government of Myanmar (Burma) changes the country’s official designation from Union of Myanmar to Republic of the Union of Myanmar; it also introduces a new flag. • Col. David Russell Williams, a decorated military pilot

and former commander of the largest air base in Canada, pleads guilty to two counts of murder and 84 other sexually related crimes, ranging from the stealing of underwear to sadistic sexual attacks; he is given sentences that will keep him in prison for a minimum of 25 years. • NASA scientists report that the LCROSS mission, in which a spacecraft was deliberately crashed into the Moon’s Cabeus Crater to send data on the dust thus dislodged, has revealed a multitude of minerals reflecting the history of objects that have struck the Moon and also a surprisingly large amount of water ice, perhaps as much as 8.5% of the mixture.

The World Health Organization reports that at least 150 people have succumbed in an outbreak of cholera centred in northwestern Haiti; it is the first appearance of the disease in the Caribbean region in some 50 years. • Gunmen attack a house party in Juárez, Mex., slaughtering at least 13 people. • The Web site WikiLeaks posts hundreds of thousands of documents from U.S. military archives about the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009.

The death toll in the cholera outbreak in Haiti rises to 208. • Prime Minister David Thompson of Barbados dies in St. Philip; Freundel Stuart is sworn in to replace him.

Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court rules that the legislature, which has not met since an 18-minute

October Reuters/Landov

session in March, must resume holding sessions. • A geologic study of the earthquake that occurred in Haiti in January reveals a previously unknown fault as the source of the quake; the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, originally thought to be the source, remains dangerously stressed. • In a drug-rehabilitation centre in Tijuana, Mex., 13 people are gunned down.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake off South Pagai in the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia triggers a tsunami that destroys several villages and leaves at least 500 people dead or missing. • Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai publicly acknowledges that his government does regularly receive infusions of cash from Iran. • For the first time since early 2008, a shipment of food aid—5,000 tons of rice— departs South Korea for delivery to North Korea. • The European Union formally requests the European Commission to assess the suitability of Serbia for membership in the union, thereby beginning the process of Serbia’s joining the organization. • The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, financed by American and South Korean evangelical Christians, opens in North Korea.

The British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline settles for $750 million a U.S. lawsuit brought by a whistle-blower complaining that the company knowingly sold contaminated and substandard prod-

ucts made in a plant with quality-control problems. • Tariq Aziz, once Iraq’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, who frequently represented Iraq at UN and other international meetings, is sentenced to death in Baghdad after having been convicted of persecuting members of the Shi!ite Dawa Party. • On Java in Indonesia on the outskirts of Yogyakarta, the volcano Mt. Merapi begins a major eruption; at least 34 people perish. • Water at China’s Three Gorges Dam reaches a level of 175 m (574 ft), achieving its maximum capacity for the first time. (Photo right.)

At least 15 people at a car wash in Tepic, Mex., are killed in the third mass shooting in Mexico in five days. • Néstor Kirchner, former president (2003–07) of Argentina and husband of current president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, unexpectedly dies in El Calafate, Arg. • The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize is awarded to Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe.

Strikes and demonstrations against pension reform in France take place in spite of the passage of the reform by the legislature, but the number of participants is smaller than in earlier rallies. • China’s undeclared embargo on the export of rare earth minerals appears to end.

Two packages of toner cartridges packed with

strong explosives are found in England and in Dubayy, U.A.E., after a tip from Saudi Arabia; the packages were shipped from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago. • The UN Convention on Biological Diversity agrees on the Nagoya Protocol, a set of 20 goals, among them to at least halve the rate of extinction of species by 2020; it is also agreed that profits from pharmaceutical and other products derived from genetic material will be shared with both advanced and lessdeveloped countries. • The U.S. Department of Commerce reveals that in the third fiscal quarter, the country’s economy grew by only 2%. • A suicide bomber kills at least 21 people at a café in Balad Ruz in Iraq’s Diyala province.

About 100 families separated by the Korean War (1950–53) begin a multiday reunion at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea; it is the first such meeting in more than a year. • On the National Mall in Washington, D.C., tens of

thousands of people attend the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” organized by satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

In a runoff presidential election in Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who was endorsed by Pres. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, wins handily over José Serra. • A presidential election takes place in Côte d’Ivoire for the first time in 10 years; it results in a need for a runoff between Pres. Laurent Gbagbo, whose term of office ended in 2005, and Alassane Ouattara. • Gunmen, after attacking the stock exchange in Baghdad and killing two security guards, enter a Chaldean Catholic church and take the parishioners hostage; Iraqi forces later storm the church, and at least 58 people die in the siege. • A suicide bomber detonates his weapon in Taksim Square in central Istanbul; 15 police officers and 17 civilians are injured. • The Pontiac car brand, which began in 1926 in Pontiac, Mich., is retired by its owner, General Motors. 47

November We haven’t seen each other for so long. I have so much to tell you. Aung San Suu Kyi addressing her supporters on her release from house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), November 13

China’s decennial census gets under way; a change in method is expected to more accurately count city residents who have moved from their hometowns. • Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev makes a visit to the Kuril Islands (photo right), claimed by both Russia and Japan; it is the first time the islands have been visited by a Russian leader, and the following day Japan recalls its ambassador to Russia. • In the World Series, the San Francisco Giants defeat the Texas Rangers 3–1 in game five to win the Major League Baseball championship; it is the first championship for the Giants since 1954, when the franchise was in New York City.

• A small package bomb mailed from Athens to German Chancellor Angela Merkel is found in the chancellery’s mail room; package bombs are also sent to the Athens embassies of Switzerland, Bulgaria, Chile, and Germany, while the previous day package bombs were sent to the embassies of Mexico, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and one was addressed to French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy.

• British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy sign an agreement creating a defense partnership between France and the U.K. • A no-confidence vote in Kosovo’s legislature brings down the government. • Voters in Niger approve a new constitution that restores term limits to the presidency and adds other

The U.S. Federal Reserve states that because of the “disappointingly slow” pace of the economic recovery, it will purchase $600 billion in long-term Treasury securities in hopes of speeding progress.

An engine on an Airbus A380 flown by the Australian carrier Qantas explodes over Indonesia, and the plane returns safely to Singapore, from which it had departed; Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and Lufthansa immediately ground their A380 fleets. • A small package bomb is delivered to the French embassy in Athens, and the Greek government charges two people in connection with the mailings. • Ireland announces plans to slash public spending and raise taxes to reduce its budget deficit; interest rates on Irish government bonds rise dramatically.

In legislative elections in the U.S., the Republican Party gains 63 seats to win control over the House of Representatives, and the Democratic Party retains a narrow majority in the Senate; many Republican victors are champions of the Tea Party movement. Mikhail Klimentyev—RIA Novosti Kremlin/AP

48

limits to presidential power; the constitution is to be the first step in the country’s return to civilian rule.

November

Pres. Jakaya Kikwete is declared the winner of the October 31 presidential election in Tanzania; losing candidates complain of fraud in vote counting. • Two mosques are attacked near the town of Darra Adam Khel in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province; in the worst assault a suicide bomber kills at least 60 people. • The U.S. Department of Labor reports that in October the unemployment rate was 9.6% for the third successive month and that after four months of losses, the economy added 151,000 nonfarm jobs. • Marine biologists report having found dead and dying coral reefs in an area of the Gulf of Mexico where plumes of oil from the BP oil spill were documented about 11 km (7 mi) southwest of the site of the broken well; it is considered almost certain that oil from the spill caused the damage. • The employees of the monthly newsmagazine U.S. News & World Report are told that the December issue will be its last regular printed issue; it will continue online and with printed issues on single topics and rankings of institutions.

Authorities in Mexico report that 18 of the bodies in a mass grave found a few days earlier outside Acapulco are those of some of the 20 men who were kidnapped in October when they went to the resort city for a vacation. • The famed House of the Gladiators located in the ancient Roman city and archaeological site Pompeii in Italy collapses.

Legislative elections take place in Myanmar (Burma) for the first time since 1990; as expected, the military-backed party wins by a large margin. • In legislative elections in Azerbaijan, the ruling party and independent parties affiliated with it win the vast majority of the seats; election monitors report widespread fraud. • The Chiba Lotte Marines defeat the Chunichi Dragons 8–7 in 12 innings to win baseball’s Japan Series. • Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeats CoCo Vandeweghe of the U.S. to clinch Italy’s victory in tennis’s Fed Cup. • Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia wins the New York City marathon with a time of 2 hr 8 min 14 sec, and Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat is the fastest woman, with a time of 2 hr 28 min 20 sec. • The Breeders’ Cup Classic Thoroughbred horse race is won by Blame at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.; Blame defeats the previously undefeated Zenyatta by less than a head.

Pres. Raúl Castro of Cuba announces that the ruling Communist Party will hold a congress in April 2011; it will be the first party congress since 1997. • Hours before a meeting in Manhasset, N.Y., between representatives of Morocco and of the Polisario Front over Western Sahara’s future, a tent camp outside the territory’s capital, Laayoune, that is made up of thousands of protesters demanding economic equality is violently broken up by Moroccan security forces; at least 13 people are said to have been killed. • Ice hockey players Dino Ciccarelli, Cammi Granato, and

Angela James, manager Jim Devellano, and owner Daryl (“Doc”) Seaman are inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Legislative elections, boycotted by the Islamist main opposition party, take place in Jordan for the first time since the legislature was dissolved in November 2009; candidates who support King !Abdullah II win the majority of seats. • It is reported that the cholera epidemic in Haiti has reached Port-au-Prince and that at least 583 people have died of the disease in the country. • The World Health Organization says that polio has broken out in the Republic of the Congo, with most cases in Pointe Noire; in the past two weeks, 104 people have died of the disease and 201 people have become paralyzed, and a state of emergency is declared. • Scientists using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope declare that they have found that there are two enormous bubbles containing a vast amount of energy near the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy; the finding is unexpected and unexplained. • The 13th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is awarded to Tina Fey in a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Students protesting a proposal to nearly triple university tuition costs riot outside the Conservative Party headquarters in London, and tens of thousands of people also protest outside the Parliament building.

• Political leaders in Iraq tentatively agree on the composition of a new government; the agreement calls for Nuri al-Maliki to serve a second term as prime minister.

Armed men attack a heavily guarded area of Karachi and, in a firefight, succeed in detonating a car bomb at a building housing a counterterrorism office; at least 18 people are killed. • UNICEF and WHO declare a campaign to immunize some three million people in the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola against polio in response to the outbreak of the disease in the Republic of the Congo. • At the Latin Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, Mexican pop group Camila wins record of the year for “Mientes,” and the award for album of the year goes to Dominican merengue star Juan Luis Guerra for A son de Guerra.

A meeting in Seoul of the Group of 20 countries with industrialized and emerging economies agrees to increase the amount of capital banks must hold but defers other major decisions; U.S. Pres. Barack Obama flies from Seoul to Yokohama for a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum. • The Daily Beast, a Web site founded by Tina Brown, and the newsmagazine Newsweek announce a merger agreement; the new entity is to be called the Newsweek Daily Beast Co., and Brown will serve as editor in chief for both the magazine and the Web site. 49

November

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest in Myanmar (Burma) and is greeted by a jubilant crowd; she has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, with her most recent detention beginning in 2003. • Final vote tallies are released in Arizona on a proposition that narrowly passed, making the state the 15th in the U.S. to approve the medical use of marijuana. • In Arlington, Texas, Manny Pacquiao, who was recently elected to the legislature in the Philippines, defeats Antonio Margarito of Mexico by unanimous decision to capture the vacant WBC junior-middleweight boxing title.

French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy shuffles his cabinet, giving the body a rightward tilt; Éric Woerth, who was tainted by the complex scandal involving heiress Liliane Bettencourt, loses his position as minister of labour, and François Fillon is reappointed prime minister. • The APEC forum in Yokohama concludes with an agreement to work toward a free-trade zone. • With his win in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, German driver Sebastian Vettel secures the Formula One automobile racing drivers’ championship.

The British government announces a settlement in which it will pay millions of dollars in compensation to 15 men who had been released from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and one person still detained there; the detainees say that they were tortured with the collusion of British intelligence agencies. • In Baltimore, Md., Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York City is elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; he replaces Francis Cardinal George of Chicago. • A panel of the U.S. House of Representatives finds Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York guilty of 11 counts of ethics violations; two days later the House ethics committee recommends that Rangel be formally censured. • Phusion Projects, maker of the caffeinated malt beverage Four Loko, declares that it will stop using caffeine

and other ingredients common in energy drinks in making the beverage; the drinks, which were linked to several cases of alcohol poisoning, had come under fire from several state and local governments in the U.S. • Apple, Inc., announces that as a result of an agreement with the music company EMI, the music of the Beatles is now for the first time available on Apple’s online music store, iTunes. • The engagement of Prince William of Wales, son of Charles, prince of Wales, and Diana, princess of Wales, to his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, is announced in London. (Photo below.)

On the day of a national referendum on a new constitution, several army officers declare that they have overthrown the government of Madagascar; they do not appear to have the backing of all of the army,

The National Independent Electoral Commission in Guinea declares that Alpha Condé won the runoff presidential election on November 7; supporters of his opponent, Cellou Dalein Diallo, violently protest the results. John Stillwell—PA/AP

50

however, and the coup attempt fails. • In the first civilian trial of a former detainee at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is found guilty of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property and acquitted on more than 280 other counts in a U.S. federal court; the judge had disallowed important parts of the prosecution’s case as being the fruit of torture. • The automobile manufacturer General Motors, bailed out by the U.S. government in 2008, returns to the stock market in an eagerly anticipated initial public offering that proves to be the largest American IPO in history and halves the government’s ownership of the company.

Hundreds of protesters in Port-auPrince, Haiti, throw stones at a UN peacekeeping patrol, and rioting against UN peacekeepers has taken place for several days in Cap-Haïtien; it has been reported that the source of cholera in the country, which has killed more than 1,110 people to date, was UN troops from Nepal. • NASA reports that a photograph taken by the spacecraft Deep Impact during its November 4 flyby of Comet Hartley 2 unexpectedly shows a cloud of particles and chunks of ice and snow being pushed upward by jets of carbon dioxide on the comet’s surface. • Activision, the publisher of the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Black Ops reports that it generated $650 million in sales worldwide in its first five days of release, breaking the introductory five-day sales record for a video game.

November

Meeting in Lisbon, the member countries of NATO agree on a common missile-defense system. • The U.S. Transportation Security Administration exempts uniformed airline pilots from new airline passenger screening procedures, including full-body scans and more intrusive pat-downs, which have raised objections from pilots and flight attendants in addition to passengers.

Incomplete results from the constitutional referendum held in Madagascar during an attempted coup on November 17 indicate that the document was approved; the new constitution allows Pres. Andry Rajoelina to remain in power until the next election and lowers the legal minimum age required for the presidency from 40 to 35.

Ireland formally applies for the financial rescue package put together by the European Union and the IMF. • U.S. officials state their belief that a recently revealed new uranium-enrichment facility at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant indicates an intention to build more nuclear weapons. • Blaise Compaoré is reelected president of Burkina Faso. • After the final auto race of the season, Jimmie Johnson is crowned winner of the NASCAR drivers’ championship for a record fifth consecutive year.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice president and presidential candi-

date in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, goes on trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, charged with having commanded a militia that committed war crimes in the Central African Republic in 2002–03. • The U.S. government issues new rules requiring medical insurance companies to spend a minimum of 80–85% of premiums collected on medical care.

Unexpected artillery shelling by North Korea kills two marines and two civilians on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong; the attack causes international consternation. • The National Association of Realtors reports that sales of existing American homes in October were 26% lower than they had been in October 2009; the expiration of a tax credit for first-time home buyers is thought to be a major cause of the drop.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen unveils an austerity plan that includes deep cuts in public spending as well as tax increases. • The final results of the September 18 legislative elections in Afghanistan are announced; though the UN endorses the results, Pres. Hamid Karzai challenges them.

Pres. Jalal Talabani of Iraq formally nominates Nuri al-Maliki to a second term as prime minister; Maliki has 30 days to form a new government. • South Korean Pres. Lee Myung-Bak accepts the resig-

nation of his defense minister and announces plans to put more troops and weapons on Yeongpyeong Island. • Ana Maria Matute of Spain is named the winner of the Cervantes Prize for literary achievement in the Spanish language.

Police and armed forces in Brazil declare that they have taken control of the favela Vila Cruzeiro in Rio de Janeiro, and they are fighting gang members in the Alemão favela complex; 41 people have died in violence in the favelas in the past six days. • Japan declares that its consumer prices fell for the 20th consecutive month in October, declining 0.6%.

Thousands of people march and rally in Dublin in protest against the government’s proposed austerity plan. • In Paris the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas votes to reduce the allowable catch of the dangerously overfished bluefin tuna in 2011 to 12,900 tons from 13,500 tons in 2010; conservationists believe a moratorium is necessary.

The WikiLeaks Web site posts the first installment of some 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables from the past three years or so, exposing many private opinions and other secrets; some of the leaked cables are also made available to major news organizations. • A runoff presidential election takes place in Côte d’Ivoire; results are not expected quickly.

• In spite of logistic challenges, a presidential election takes place in Haiti; many of the candidates charge widespread fraud, and results are not expected to be released for several days. • Elections take place in Egypt for a legislature that has been expanded to 518 seats with the addition of 64 seats reserved for women. • In legislative elections in Moldova, the highest number of seats is won by the Communist Party. • The Montreal Alouettes capture the 98th Canadian Football League Grey Cup, defeating the Saskatchewan Roughriders 21–18.

Riots take place in several places in Egypt over accusations of widespread fraud in the previous day’s legislative elections. • Bomb attacks are carried out by men on motorcycles against two of Iran’s most important nuclear scientists, killing one of them and injuring the other. • The UN reports that militias and the armed forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have created criminal networks to steal mineral resources in the country and attempt to sell them for private gain.

Early results of the legislative elections in Egypt indicate that the opposition Muslim Brotherhood may have lost all of the 88 seats it held in the body. • Eurostat reports that in October the unemployment rate of the 16 member countries of the euro zone rose to 10.1%, its highest level since 1998. 51

December This is what’s at stake: Either we assist in the installation of democracy in Ivory Coast or we stand by indifferent and allow democracy to be assassinated. Guillaume Soro, appointed prime minister of Côte d’Ivoire by Alassane Ouatara, on Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to leave office, December 31

The Muslim Brotherhood and the New Wafd Party, the two major opposition parties in Egypt, withdraw from future rounds of legislative elections, claiming widespread fraud in the first round, in which the Muslim Brotherhood lost all of its 88 seats and Wafd lost 4 of its 6 seats. • Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero introduces measures intended to reduce the country’s large public debt; they include selling stakes in assets and eliminating a new unemployment benefit. • At a European security summit meeting in Kazakhstan, Belarus agrees to give up its stocks of highly enriched uranium by 2012; the 220-kg (485-lb) stockpile will be shipped to Russia, which will convert it to lowenriched uranium. • The Health Ministry in Haiti reports the death toll from the cholera outbreak that began in October has reached 1,817. • Pres. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela opens the doors of 52

the presidential palace to 26 families who are among the more than 30,000 people who have been displaced by flooding in the past few weeks; 25 people have died because of flooding and landslides. • Astronomers Pieter van Dokkum and Charlie Conroy announce that they have found that elliptical galaxies have 10 times more dwarf stars per Sun-like star than the Milky Way does and that the universe may therefore contain three times as many stars as has been believed.

The electoral commission in Côte d’Ivoire announces that the winner of the runoff presidential election is opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara; the head of the Constitutional Council declares that the electoral commission lost the right to declare the winner because it missed the December 1 deadline to do so.

The Constitutional Council in Côte d’Ivoire, discounting votes in areas where opposi-

tion candidate Alassane Ouattara is favoured, declares Pres. Laurent Gbagbo the winner of the presidential election. • The UN International Atomic Energy Agency decides to create a bank for nuclear fuel that countries can use for nuclear reactors for energy production; it is hoped that this will free countries from the need to produce nuclear fuel on their own. • The U.S. and South Korea sign a far-reaching free-trade agreement that will eliminate tariffs on most exports; legislatures in both countries must ratify the deal, which is a revision of a 2007 agreement. • Chilean military personnel attempt to evict Rapa Nui activists occupying Chilean government buildings on their ancestral lands on Easter Island, and violent fighting breaks out; the native Rapa Nui now make up less than half of Easter Island’s population, and many feel that Chile, of which the island is a dependency, ignores their rights.

• The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in November jumped to 9.8%, while only 39,000 nonfarm jobs were created in the private sector, not enough to offset public-sector layoffs.

The day after Spain approved an austerity package that includes the partial privatization of the country’s two major airports, sparking a wildcat strike by air traffic controllers, the government for the first time since its 1975 return to democracy declares a “state of alarm,” which puts air traffic control under military supervision. • In Côte d’Ivoire both Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo are sworn in as president in rival ceremonies, and Ouattara reappoints Guillaume Soro prime minister, while the UN representative to the country affirms the organization’s recognition of Ouattara as the winner of the presidential election. • Seven bomb attacks against various Shi!ite targets in

December Dominic Lipinski—Press Association/AP

Baghdad leave at least 14 people dead.

Laurent Gbagbo appoints Gilbert Marie N’gbo Aké prime minister of Côte d’Ivoire, while Alassane Ouattara’s prime minister, Guillaume Soro, forms a government. • The annual Kennedy Center Honors are presented in Washington, D.C., to television talk show host Oprah Winfrey, country musician Merle Haggard, choreographer Bill T. Jones, musical theatre composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, and pop musician Sir Paul McCartney. • Serbia defeats France 3–2 to win its first Davis Cup in men’s international team tennis.

A campaign to use a newly developed vaccine to inoculate millions of people in western Africa against bacterial meningitis gets under way in Burkina Faso. • Suicide bombers kill more than 40 people at a meeting of tribal elders and government representatives who are working to devise antiTaliban strategies in the

Pakistani tribal agency Mohmand. • Britain’s Turner Prize is presented in London to Scottish artist Susan Philipsz; her winning entry, “Lowlands,” is a recording of her singing the 16th-century Scottish lament “Lowlands Away” under three bridges over the River Clyde in Glasgow. (Photo above.) • In a ceremony in Stockholm, the Right Livelihood Awards are presented to Nigerian environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey for his work exposing the ecological costs of oil production, to Erwin Kräutler for his work on behalf of indigenous peoples in Brazil, to Shrikrishna Upadhyay and his organization SAPROS for their work in Nepal helping communities improve their living conditions, and to the organization Physicians for Human Rights— Israel for providing access to health care to all people in Israel and Palestine.

Haiti’s electoral board announces that the November 28 presidential election resulted in the need for a runoff between Mirlande Manigat and ruling party candidate Jude Célestin;

supporters of Michel Martelly, who is said to have come in third, riot in response. • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange turns himself in to British authorities in London and is detained; he is wanted in Sweden on charges of sexual misbehaviour. • A copy of Birds of America by John James Audobon sells at a Sotheby’s auction in London for £6.5 million ($10.3 million), a new record for a printed book. • Elizabeth Edwards, estranged wife of former senator and one-time vice presidential candidate John Edwards, dies of cancer at the age of 61 in her home in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Rioting over the announced election results in Haiti brings the country to a virtual halt; four people are reported killed. • Supporters of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange launch denial-ofservice attacks against Web sites that stopped hosting and that stopped facilitating donations to WikiLeaks. • Falcon 9, a rocket built by the private company SpaceX, takes off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and places an empty capsule into Earth orbit in a successful demonstration for NASA.

In London, Parliament passes a steep increase in university tuition while violent student protests take place outside, including an attack on a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Lady Camilla, to the theatre. • The African Union suspends Côte d’Ivoire’s membership in the organization pending the yielding of power by

Laurent Gbagbo to Alassane Ouattara, who is internationally recognized as the winner of the November 28 presidential election. • In the face of widespread unrest, Haiti’s electoral council promises to review the preliminary results of the November presidential election.

At the ceremony to present the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, the winner’s chair is vacant and no representative attends to accept the award on his behalf; this is the first time since 1935 that this has happened. • A law is passed in Bolivia that lowers the retirement age from 65 for men and 60 for women to 58 and that extends pensions to people working in the informal economy.

Thousands of ethnic Russians engage in antiCaucasian rioting in Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square after an ethnic Russian was killed in a brawl against migrants from the Caucasus. • A car bomb and a suicide bomber create two blasts in a shopping district in downtown Stockholm; the detonations largely fail, however, and there are no casualties beyond the attacker himself. • A UN climate change conference in Cancún, Mex., concludes with an agreement that, among other things, creates a fund to help lessdeveloped countries cope with climate change, funds preservation of tropical forests, and strengthens emission-reduction promises from the 2009 conference; it also allows a further year to 53

December

decide whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol. • Steer roper Trevor Brazile wins the all-around cowboy world championship for a record eighth time at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas; he also wins titles in team roping and tie-down roping.

In legislative elections in Kosovo, the Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, wins the highest number of votes. • An attack on a government compound in Al-Ramadi, Iraq, leaves at least 13 people dead. • A high-speed rail link between Helsinki and St. Petersburg is inaugurated, with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Finnish Pres. Tarja Halonen taking part.

votes in each house of the country’s legislature, and violent protests against his government take place in Rome. • An Islamic party withdraws from the governing coalition of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. • A government commission in Russia approves a controversial plan to build a highway to link Moscow and St. Petersburg through the Khimki Forest. • Officials in Mexico declare that the death toll from drugrelated violence in Juárez in 2010 has reached 3,000; in 2007 the figure was 300.

Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surprises observers by dismissing Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki; Ali Akbar Salehi is named acting foreign minister. • American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, dies after heart surgery in Washington, D.C. • Scientists studying a massive eruption that covered a complete hemisphere of the Sun conclude that coronal events on the Sun are connected across vast distances, covering most of the body of the star, by magnetic fields.

Thousands of people riot in Athens, incensed over new austerity measures eroding workers’ rights and wages in public companies. • At least 39 people are killed when two suicide bombers detonate their weapons outside a Shi!ite mosque in Chabahar, Iran. • The International Committee of the Red Cross holds a news conference to express its dismay at the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, which is making it difficult for aid groups to assist victims of violence. • The Micex securities exchange in Moscow begins direct trading between the Russian ruble and the Chinese renminbi (yuan). • Pres. John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana ceremonially opens the Jubilee oil field, which is expected to produce initially 55,000 bbl and eventually 120,000 bbl per day of coveted light sweet crude oil.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi narrowly survives no-confidence

In Côte d’Ivoire, security forces loyal to Pres. Laurent Gbagbo, who refus-

54

es to give up power, fire on a march on the state television headquarters by supporters of winning presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara; some 15 people are killed. • A report prepared for the Council of Europe is released; it investigates criminal trafficking in human organs from executed Serbian prisoners during the 1999 conflict with Kosovo and names Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo as the head of a criminal network involved in the organ trade. • Julian Assange, founder of the organization and Web site WikiLeaks, is released on bond in London, though his movements are severely circumscribed.

opposition protest is violently suppressed. • Five Afghan army training officers are killed in an attack in Kabul, and another assault in Kunduz leaves at least eight security force members dead.

The Pan American Health Organization says that because of a worldwide shortage of cholera vaccine, a pilot program to test vaccination strategies should be instituted in Haiti, where 2,405 people have died of the disease since its outbreak in October. • U.S. federal regulators shut down two banks in Georgia and one in Florida, bringing the number of failed banks in 2010 to 154. • Carine Roitfeld announces that she will retire as editor in chief of French Vogue in January 2011 after 10 successful years.

The U.S. Congress repeals the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule, which prohibited openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military.

Nine months after the elections, Iraq’s legislature approves a new government headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. • Milo Djukanovic unexpectedly resigns as prime minister of Montenegro. • A report is published online by PLoS Biology of a genetic analysis that found that the savanna elephants and forest elephants of Africa, previously classified as a single species, in fact are two separate species. • The University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team, coached by Geno Auriemma, defeats Florida State University 93–62 to win its 89th consecutive game, breaking the record for Division I college basketball set by the UCLA men’s team coached by John Wooden in 1971–74.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka is reelected president of Belarus, and an

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama overcomes political opposition in the U.S.

Mass arrests of opposition leaders and protesters, including at least six losing presidential candidates, are carried out in Belarus. • South Korea conducts a livefire military exercise on Yeonpyeong Island, which was shelled by North Korea in November; in spite of bellicose threats of retaliation from North Korea, it does not react to the exercise.

December

Senate, which ratifies the New START treaty reducing nuclear stockpiles that Obama signed with Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev in April. • Tens of thousands of students march in Rome and other cities in Italy to protest a proposed overhaul of the country’s university system. • Tu’ivakano, a member of the nobles, is sworn in as prime minister of Tonga. • Government officials in Afghanistan complain that for the past 10 days, Iran has stopped delivering fuel to Afghanistan; there has been no explanation.

Ireland takes majority control of Allied Irish Banks, once the country’s largest banking institution. • Parcel bombs explode when opened at the Rome embassies of Switzerland and Chile, injuring the employees who received the packages. • In a news conference in Mogadishu, Som., the rival Islamist militant groups alShabaab and Hizbul Islam announce that they are joining forces to fight for control of Somalia.

A major Taliban offensive takes place in the Mohmand tribal agency in Pakistan; at least 11 members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps are killed. • Bomb attacks at Christmas Eve celebrations in villages near Jos, Nigeria, leave at least 32 people dead. • At the women’s world chess championship in Hatay, Tur., Hou Yifan of China, aged 16, defeats Ruan Lufei, also of China, to become the

youngest world chess champion in history; the previous record was held by Maya Chiburdanidze of the Soviet Union, who was 17 when she won the title in 1978.

In the Bajaur tribal agency in Pakistan, a suicide bomber detonates her weapon at a checkpoint next to a World Food Programme distribution centre; at least 43 people are killed. • China’s central bank raises its benchmark lending interest rate for the second time in 2010, to 5.81%.

Thousands of people demonstrate in Moscow in favour of ethnic tolerance and an end to friction between Russians and migrants from the Caucasus.

A minibus bomb and an ensuing suicide bomber kill at least 14 people outside government offices in Al-Ramadi, Iraq. • The imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is convicted of new counts of embezzlement in a court in Moscow; on December 30 he is sentenced to an additional six years in prison.

which in 2005 inflamed Muslim opinion with the publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. • Wild Oats XI is awarded line honours as the first boat to finish the 2010 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Australia; Secret Men’s Business 3.5 is later delcared the overall winner.

A major bomb explodes near downtown Athens; because of earlier warning calls, the area has been evacuated, and there are no casualties. • The utility Northern Ireland Water reports that water pipes that burst as a result of thawing after record cold temperatures have left at least 6,000 homes in Northern Ireland without running water since December 27; the utility says that it may be several more days before service is fully restored. • Moshe Katzav, who was in 2000–07 president of Israel, is convicted in a court in Tel Aviv of two counts of forcible rape. • The Vatican for the first time establishes a watchdog agency for the Vatican Bank and issues new rules prohibiting money laundering.

• U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who ran as a write-in candidate after she lost the Republican primary election to Joe Miller, is certified as the winner of the November 2 Senate election in Alaska after all legal challenges by Miller have been dismissed. • The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art opens in Doha, Qatar; it will exhibit work that dates from the mid-19th century to the present.

At a beer garden at an army barracks in Abuja, Nigeria, a bomb goes off, and some 30 people are reportedly killed. • Several days after Cyclone Tasha made landfall on Australia’s northeastern coast, nearly half of Queensland is covered by floodwaters. (Photo below.) • In defiance of international attempts to persuade him to step down, Laurent Gbagbo declares that he will not cede power as president of Côte d’Ivoire. • At the last bell of the year at the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 11% since the beginning of the year.

The Ministry of Commerce in China announces a 35% decrease in quotas of rare-earth minerals for export in the opening months of 2011.

Five men are arrested in Denmark and Sweden; authorities in Denmark say that they were planning a major terrorist assault on the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Anthony Skerman/AP

55

Disasters Listed here are MAJOR disasters that occurred in 2010. The list includes NATURAL and NONMILITARY mechanical disasters that claimed more than 15 lives and/or resulted in significant damage to PROPERTY.

Aviation January 25, Near Beirut. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, bound for Addis Ababa, Eth., goes down in a storm shortly after taking off; all 90 aboard are presumed to have been killed. April 10, Near Smolensk, Russia. A Tupolev Tu-154 jet carrying Polish dignitaries to a memorial observation of the Katyn Massacre crashes in a forest in heavy fog; all 96 aboard—including Polish Pres. Lech Kaczynski, the chiefs of the army and the navy, several legislators, and heroes of Polish liberation from the Soviet Union—are killed. May 12, Libya. An Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 that took off from Johannesburg crashes on its approach into Tripoli; 103 of those aboard, 66 of whom are Dutch tourists, are killed, but one nine-year-old Dutch boy survives. May 17, Afghanistan. A Pamir Airlines Antonov An-24 flying from Kunduz to Kabul disappears in heavy fog; the wreckage of the plane, which broke

into four parts, is found three days later in the Hindu Kush mountain range, and it is clear that all 44 aboard perished. May 22, Mangalore, India. An Air India Boeing 737-800 arriving from Dubai, U.A.E., overshoots the runway when landing and crashes into a concrete navigational aid before falling into a valley; 158 of the 166 people aboard die. July 28, Pakistan. An Airblue Airbus A321 airplane flying from Karachi to Islamabad crashes into a hillside while trying to land in heavy rain; all 152 aboard perish in the worst aviation disaster in Pakistan’s history. August 24, Heilongjiang province, China. An Embraer 190LR aircraft operated by the Chinese regional carrier Henan Airlines crashes when attempting to land at Yichun; at least 42 of the 96 aboard are killed. August 25, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Let L-410 twin turboprop passenger plane, which may have run out

Firefighters spray the wreckage of an Air India Boeing 737-800 that overshot the runway and crashed when landing at the airport in Mangalore, India, on May 22, killing 158 of the 166 people aboard.

UPI/Landov

56

of fuel, crashes while attempting to land at Bandundu; 20 of those aboard die. September 13, Venezuela. A Conviasa twin turboprop airplane crashes in Puerto Ordaz; 17 of the 51 on board the aircraft perish. November 4, Cuba. AeroCaribbean Flight 883 goes down and bursts into flames near the village of Guasimal; all 68 people aboard the turboprop plane, which was traveling from Santiago de Cuba to Havana, are killed. December 15, Nepal. A De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft that was flying from Lamidanda to Kathmandu crashes into the side of a mountain about 50 km (30 mi) west of Lamidanda, killing all 19 passengers and 3 crew members. Fires and Explosions February 9, South Africa. A fire kills 15 people, 13 of them children, at an orphanage in KwaZulu-Natal province. February 9, Arunachal Pradesh state, India. A fire breaks out in a school dormitory in the town of Palin; some 14 schoolchildren are believed to have been killed. February 25, Bangladesh. A fire breaks out at a clothing factory in Gazipur and burns for more than two hours; at least 21 people die in the conflagration. June 3, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The explosion of an electrical transformer ignites a fire that spreads quickly; at least 117 people, including 15 members of a wedding party, perish in the conflagration. July 2, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A fuel truck overturns on a highway and explodes in a fireball that engulfs homes and a market; at least 230 people in the area, including many who were attempting to siphon fuel from the disabled vehicle, are incinerated. July 15, Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. A fire breaks out and spreads quickly at a hotel in the northern Kurdish area; at least 28 people from several countries die.

Disasters Ulises Ruíz Basurto—EPA/Landov

December 13, Antarctic Ocean. A South Korean fishing boat sinks off Antarctica; five bodies are recovered, and 17 crewmen remain missing after rescue efforts end. December 15, Christmas Island. A boat carrying asylum seekers believed to be from Iraq and Iran crashes onto rocks; some 48 of the passengers are killed. December 16, Between Vietnam and China. A Vietnamese cargo ship capsizes in heavy seas; a Chinese maritime rescue team finds 2 seamen, but 25 are missing.

In San Martín Texmelucan, Mex., extensive destruction has resulted from a huge explosion of a state-owned oil pipeline on December 19; at least 28 people were burned to death. August 1, South Africa. A home for the elderly some 60 km (37 mi) outside Johannesburg is consumed by a fire; at least 18 residents perish. September 17, Karadiyanaru, Sri Lanka. Three trucks carrying explosives blow up in a police compound, and 25 people are killed; the military says the incident is an accident. October 12, Khorramabad, Iran. The spread of a fire of unknown cause is reported to be the source of an explosion in an ammunition depot in which 18 members of the Revolutionary Guard are killed. November 10, El Salvador. A fire, possibly caused by an electrical short circuit, breaks out at a prison in Ilobasco; at least 19 inmates lose their lives. November 15, Shanghai. A 28-story apartment building that is undergoing renovation catches fire and goes up in flames; at least 58 people die. December 8, Santiago. Fighting between rival gangs in the overcrowded San Miguel prison leads to a fire in which at least 81 of the inmates lose their lives. December 19, San Martín Texmelucan, Mex. Stealing of oil leads to a massive explosion in a state-owned oil pipeline; at least 28 people and many buildings are incinerated. Marine May 26, Peru. An immensely overloaded passenger ferry capsizes in the Amazon River near Santa Rosa; at least 21 passengers die, and 171 are rescued.

June 7, Northeastern Bangladesh. An overloaded ferry capsizes; at least 12 passengers lose their lives, and many more cannot be found. June 14, Northern India. A boat ferrying people to a temple across the Ganges River sinks under the weight of its passengers; at least 35 people are feared dead. July 28, Democratic Republic of the Congo. An overloaded boat carrying passengers and cargo hits a mud bank in the Kasai River and capsizes; at least 80 people die, and it is feared that the death toll may be as high as 140. July 31, Uganda. More than 70 people are thought to have lost their lives after an overloaded boat capsizes on Lake Albert. September 4, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A boat traveling at night without lights in Equateur province hits a rock and sinks, causing the drowning of at least 70 passengers; some 200 passengers are feared lost after an overcrowded boat on the Kasai River catches fire and capsizes. September 27, Gulf of Aden. As a U.S. Navy boat begins delivering aid to a skiff from Somalia carrying some 85 African migrants that was found adrift the previous day, passengers rush to one side of the skiff, which capsizes; at least 13 people drown, and 8 others are missing. October 7, Off Bangladesh. In the Bay of Bengal, 15 fishing boats are swamped in a storm; at least 200 fishermen are missing.

Mining and Construction March 28, Shanxi province, China. A flood in the Wangjialing coal mine traps some 153 miners; 108 others are airlifted to safety, and many of the remaining miners are rescued in the ensuing days, though at least 38 perish. April 5, Outside Montcoal, W.Va. A methane-gas explosion in the Upper Big Branch coal mine leaves 29 miners dead. May 8 and 9, Siberia, Russia. Two methane-gas explosions, four hours apart, collapse shafts, including the main air shaft, in the large Rapadskaya coal mine in the Kemerovo region; 90 miners and rescue workers are killed. May 17, Turkey. An explosion in the Karadon coal mine near Zonguldak traps 32 miners deep underground; none survive. June 16, Colombia. An explosion tears through the San Fernando coal mine in Amagá, killing 73 of the 163 miners working. June 21, Henan province, China. A powder magazine in a coal mine in Pingdingshan explodes, and at least 47 miners are killed. June 27, Ghana. An illegal gold mine in Dunkwa-on-Offin collapses after heavy rain; as many as 100 artisanal miners are thought to have lost their lives. July 17, China. The Xinhua news agency in China reports that a fire started by an electrical cable in the Xiaonangou coal mine in Shaanxi province has left 28 miners dead, an accident in a mine in Henan province has killed 8 miners, 2 miners have died in a mine in Hunan province, and 13 miners are trapped underground in a mine in Gansu province; the latter are later reported to have died. October 16, Henan province, China. An explosion in a coal mine in Yuzhou leaves 37 miners dead. November 19, New Zealand. A gas explosion in a coal mine near Atarau traps 29 miners; on November 24, following another explosion in the mine, the head 57

Disasters Octavio Passos/AP

of the rescue effort declares that the workers could not have survived. December 7, China. In Henan province a gas explosion in a coal mine kills 26 miners. Natural January 1, Brazil. Mud slides bury a resort on the island of Ilha Grande near Angra Dos Reis, killing at least 26 people; other mud slides on the mainland in southeastern Brazil, which follow days of torrential rain, leave at least 40 more people dead. January 12, Haiti. A devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.0 flattens Portau-Prince; more than 220,000 people are killed, and most buildings, among them the presidential palace, the parliament building, the national cathedral, and the headquarters of the UN mission, are destroyed. January 15, Cuba. The Ministry of Health declares that 26 of the patients of Havana’s psychiatric hospital died during a cold snap over the previous few days. February 8, Indian-administered Kashmir. In the Khelanmarg area, an avalanche sweeps away part of a military training camp, leaving at least 17 Indian soldiers dead. February 9, Afghanistan. A series of 17 avalanches that began the previous day in the Salang Pass in the Hindu Kush mountain range bury a more than three-kilometre (two-mile) stretch of the highway, block the Salang Tunnel, and leave at least 169 people dead; some 3,000 people are rescued. February 17, North-West Frontier Province, Pak. An avalanche buries the village of Bagaro Serai; at least 102 people perish. February 20, Madeira Islands. Torrential rains cause flash flooding and rock slides on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean; at least 48 people are killed. February 23, Indonesia. A landslide caused by heavy rains destroys buildings housing workers at a tea plantation in Jawa Barat near Bandung; at least 19 people are killed, with an additional 53 feared dead. February 27, Chile. A magnitude-8.8 earthquake in the central part of the country shatters the area around Concepción and is followed by a tsunami, which causes devastation primarily in Talcahuano and Constitución; more than 500 people are killed, and more than a million are left homeless. February 28, Europe. Officials report that Atlantic storm Xynthia has since the 58

Onlookers survey cars swept down a hillside outside Funchal, the capital of Portugal’s Madeira Islands, after torrential rains caused flash floods in February. previous day battered the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and France, leaving more than 60 people dead; 51 people died, mostly of drowning, in France alone. March 1, Uganda. Mud slides following torrential rain sweep away buildings in villages on the slopes of Mt. Elgon; some 300 people are feared dead. March 8, Eastern Turkey. A magnitude6.0 earthquake levels homes in three villages; at least 57 people are killed. March 11, Southern Kazakhstan. Two dams give way under the pressure of heavy rains and snowmelt; the resultant flooding and mud slides leave some 43 people dead and thousands homeless. March 23, Afghanistan. Afghan officials report that it has been learned that an avalanche took place two weeks previously in the northern province of Badakhshan and that at least 35 people and some 500 cattle and other animals were killed. April 6–7, Brazil. A storm that dumps some 28 cm (11 in) of rain on Rio de Janeiro and the surrounding area causes flash flooding and mud slides in which at least 246 people perish and 150 people are missing. April 9, Peru. The Pan American Health Organization reports that heavy rains in the departments of Huánuco, Cajamarca, and Ancash have caused flooding that has left at least 30 people dead and an additional 38 people missing. April 13, Eastern India. A cyclone makes landfall in Bihar, West Bengal,

and Assam, causing great destruction and leaving at least 139 people dead and some 100,000 homeless. April 14, China. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake strikes Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau; the city of Jiegu is left in ruins, and nearly 3,000 people lose their lives. May 7, Southern Tajikistan. Two days of flooding and mud slides brought on by heavy rain leave at least 40 people dead. May 16, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A landslide caused by overflowing rivers on the slopes of the volcano Mt. Nyiragongo near Goma destroys hundreds of homes and leaves at least 54 people dead or missing. May 20, Andhra Pradesh, India. Cyclone Laila makes landfall, causing great damage and the deaths of at least 23 people; in addition, 55 or more fishermen are reported missing. May 23, Poland. The Vistula River bursts its banks as flooding from days of heavy rains spreads northward; 15 people lose their lives in the floods. May 29, Central America. Tropical Storm Agatha roars through El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, leaving at least 205 people, nearly 200 of them in Guatemala, dead and opening a sinkhole 30 m (100 ft) in diameter and 60 m (200 ft) deep in Guatemala City. June 11, Arkansas. Flash flooding on the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers sweeps through campgrounds in the Ouachita National Forest; 20 campers perish.

Disasters

June 15, Bangladesh. Heavy rainfall causes landslides in the area around Cox’s Bazar, which destroy dozens of houses and an army camp and leave at least 58 people dead. June 15, Southeastern France. Flash flooding said to be the worst since 1827 takes place above the French Riviera in unusually heavy rain; the town of Draguignan is particularly hard hit, and at least 25 people perish. June 16, Indonesia. A magnitude-7.0 earthquake under the ocean floor of the northern coast of the province of Papua is followed by several strong aftershocks; at least 17 people are killed. June 20, Ghana. Flash flooding in the area around Accra leaves at least 23 people dead. June 20, Northeastern Brazil. Several days of heavy rain cause rivers to overflow their banks and trigger flooding that washes away whole villages in Alagoas and Pernambuco states; at least 41 people succumb, and there are hundreds reported missing. June 21, Myanmar (Burma). Officials report that flooding and landslides in the northwestern part of the country from rains that began on June 13 and continued for more than a week have swept away homes, schools, and bridges and left at least 63 people dead. June 21, Southern and central China. Authorities say that monsoon rains have inundated the previously droughtstricken area, sweeping away homes, drowning crops, and leaving at least 175 people dead. June 28, Southern and central China. As monsoon rains continue to fall, a landslide covers Dazhai village in Guizhou province, burying at least 100 people; the death toll from flooding, excluding this event, is said to have reached at least 235. June 30, Northeastern Romania. An official reports that at least 22 people have lost their lives in floods during the past week; heavy rains continue in the area. June–July, Ghana. At least 40 people perish in floods that also leave more than 25,000 people homeless. July 9, Northeastern Mexico. It is reported that the remnants of Hurricane Alex have caused flooding of the Rio Grande that has brought destruction and left at least 30 people dead. July 12, China. Chinese news media report that heavy rains have triggered landslides in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces that left at least 17 people dead and an additional 44 missing. July 13, Philippines. Typhoon Conson strikes the island of Luzon, flooding

parts of Manila and leaving at least 26 people dead and another 38 people, most of them fishermen, missing. July 16, Northwestern Yemen and southwestern Saudi Arabia. It is reported that heavy rains that led to flash floods and landslides have resulted in at least 23 deaths in Yemen and one in Saudi Arabia. July 16, China. The Ministry of Civil Affairs reports that at least 146 people have died owing to relentless rains and the resultant floods and landslides since the beginning of July. July 20, Bolivia and Paraguay. It is reported that at least 18 people have succumbed as a result of unusually cold weather in Bolivia; also, authorities in Paraguay say that at least 10 people and some 1,000 cattle have perished because of cold. July 22, China. The state news agency reports that flooding along the Yangtze River and other waterways since July 1 has left at least 273 people dead and an additional 218 people missing. July 23, Peru. The government declares a state of emergency in districts more than 3,000 m (9,900 ft) above sea level and three regions in the jungle; all have suffered exceptionally cold temperatures that have contributed to the deaths of some 400 people. July 27, Sichuan province, China. A landslide caused by relentless heavy rain leaves 21 people missing. July 30, Central Russia. It is reported that forest fires that have broken out as a result of a heat wave and a drought said to be the most severe in a century have destroyed hundreds of homes and left at least 23 people dead; by August 6 the death toll has risen to 52. July 31, Pakistan. Officials say that at least 800 people have lost their lives in the ongoing flooding disaster triggered by record rainfall in the northwestern part of the country. July 31, Afghanistan. Officials report that flooding in the northeastern part of the country has left at least 64 people dead and hundreds homeless, though NATO-led Afghan forces have flown rescue missions to the area that have saved more than 2,000 people from the floods. Late July, Cameroon. Storms leave some 5,000 people homeless and at least 15 people dead. August 5, Northwestern Pakistan. The UN estimates that at least 1,600 people have lost their lives in catastrophic flooding. August 6, Indian-administered Kashmir. A flash flood and mud slide deci-

mate the tourist city of Leh and the surrounding area; at least 165 people are killed, with another 500 missing. August 7, Central Europe. Heavy rains cause flash flooding that results in at least 15 deaths: 3 in Poland, 3 in Germany, 5 in the Czech Republic, and 4 in Lithuania. August 8, Gansu province, China. The Bailong River, blocked by debris from mud slides that also devastate Zhoukou county, escapes its banks and floods several villages; at least 1,254 people die in the disaster; with hundreds more reported missing. August 9, Sierra Leone. A mud slide caused by heavy rain sweeps away houses on a hillside in Freetown, leaving at least 16 people dead. August 16, China. Flooding and landslides in the city of Longnan in Gansu province leave at least 36 people dead and 23 missing; two days earlier mud slides in Wenchuan county in Sichuan province killed at least 15 people, with 38 others reported missing. August 18, Yunnan province, China. A landslide leaves dozens missing and presumed dead. August 18, Uttarakhand state, India. A school building in Bageshwar district is demolished by a landslide; at least 18 students and 2 teachers are thought to have perished. September 2, North Korea. North Korea’s state news agency reports that the country suffered flooding as a result of Typhoon Kompasu; later reports say that scores of people lost their lives. September 4, Guatemala. Landslides leave at least 36 people dead, including 12 people on a bus that is buried in mud. One mud slide inundates a group of volunteers who are attempting to dig out another bus that was buried; most of them are believed to have died. September 6, Pakistan. The leader of the National Disaster Management Authority says that the death toll from flooding that began in July has risen to 1,752. Mid-September, Yemen. Flooding resulting from heavy rainfall causes the deaths of some 56 people in the province of Hodeidah. September 20, Uttarakhand state, India. It is reported that three days of incessant rain have led to flooding and landslides that have left at least 41 people dead. September 23, Uttar Pradesh state, India. Officials declare that heavy rain has left much of the state under water, swept away thousands of houses, and resulted in at least 17 deaths. 59

Disasters

September 29, Chiapas state, Mex. Authorities report that 16 people died in a landslide in Amatán. September 30, Mexico. Rain causes a hillside to collapse in Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, crushing two people to death; this raises the death toll from landslides in southern Mexico for the week to 23. Early October, Benin. At least 60 people die in flooding resulting from weeks of high rainfall. October 11, West Papua province, Indon. It is reported that at least 145 people have died in flash flooding in the mountains. October 16, Southwestern Russia. Heavy rains in a mountainous area cause at least 13 deaths; 9 people are reported missing. October 18–19, Philippines. Typhoon Megi causes serious damage to the east coast of the island of Luzon and kills at least 28 people; some 200,000 are left homeless. October 22, Central Vietnam. It is reported that flooding in Ha Tinh province has left at least 74 people dead. October 23, Thailand. It is reported that the death toll from flooding that began on October 10 has reached 32; half a million households have lost homes and farmland to the floods. October 25, Indonesia. A magnitude7.7 earthquake off South Pagai in the Mentawai Islands triggers a tsunami that destroys several villages and brings about the deaths of more than 500 people. October 30, Caribbean. Hurricane Tomas swipes Saint Lucia, where at least 14 people perish, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; most of the crops in both countries are destroyed. November 2, Western Myanmar (Burma). The UN declares that a cyclone in October left at least 45 people dead and some 81,000 homeless. November 4, Indonesia. Eruptions from Mt. Merapi intensify; a series of explosions that began on October 26 have killed at least 56 people so far. By early December the death toll is said to have reached 353. November 4, Costa Rica. After two days of heavy rainfall, a hillside in San Antonio de Escazú gives way, burying several homes and killing at least 23 people. November 18, Colombia. Government officials say that weeks of heavy rain in the area of Bogotá have left at least 136 people dead, and hundreds of thousands have been made homeless.

December 1, Venezuela. It is reported that at least 25 people have died as a result of flooding and landslides in the past few weeks; some 30,000 people have been displaced. December 3, Europe. Deaths reported in the unusually severe winter weather include at least 30 people in Poland, 4 in the Czech Republic, 3 in Germany, and 2 in northern England. December 5, Colombia. A mud slide buries some 30 houses in Bello; at least 82 people are killed. December 16, Colombia. Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos says that flooding has left more than 1 million ha (2.5 million ac) of farmland under water; some 300 people have lost their lives in floods and landslides in the past few weeks. Railroad February 15, Halle, Belg. Two passenger trains crash into each other headon, apparently because of a signal failure; at least 18 people are killed. May 23, Guangxi autonomous region, China. A passenger train en route from Shanghai to Guilin runs into debris from landslides and derails; at least 19 passengers are killed. June 21, Republic of the Congo. A train departing Pointe-Noire en route to Brazzaville goes off the tracks and falls into a ravine; at least 60 of the passengers perish. July 19, West Bengal state, India. As the Vananchal Express train is about to

pull out of the station in Sainthia, the speeding Uttarbanga Express train plows into it; at least 63 people are killed. September 20, Madhya Pradesh state, India. A freight train plows into a passenger train that is stopped at a station, pushing three of the passenger train’s cars on top of each other; at least 23 of those on board perish. October 2, Indonesia. A train traveling from Jakarta crashes into a train stopped at a station in Petarukan, knocking several cars from the tracks and killing at least 36 passengers. Traffic January 12, Papua New Guinea. At least 40 people die violently when two passenger buses collide head-on near the village of Ragiampum on the Highlands Highway. February 8, Uttar Pradesh state, India. In the town of Sitapur, a tractor that is pulling a trolley with some 70 passengers overturns on the road; at least 23 people are killed. February 13, Nigeria. An electrical cable falls on a bus during a storm; at least 20 people, not all of them passengers on the bus, are electrocuted. February 16, Uttar Pradesh state, India. A bus carrying guests from a wedding party goes off the road and plunges into a river in Jalaun district; at least 22 of the passengers expire. February 22, Peru. Two passenger buses traveling on the Pan-American

In July a crowd gathers around a crash site in Sainthia, West Bengal state, India, where a speeding passenger train smashed into another train already in the station, killing more than 60 people.

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Disasters Emergency Situations Ministry/AP

A yellow bus demolished by a train blocks the track near Marhanets, Ukr., on October 12. The collision, in which at least 43 bus passengers died, occurred when the driver ignored warning signals and attempted to cross the tracks ahead of the oncoming train. Highway collide haed-on; at least 38 passengers perish. March 14, Rajasthan, India. A passenger bus hits a vehicle that is parked on a bridge and goes over the rail into a dry riverbed some 21 m (70 ft) below; at least 26 people are killed. March 26, Kentucky. On Interstate 65 near Munfordville, a truck crosses the median and crashes head-on with a van carrying a party of Mennonites on their way to a wedding; 10 people in the van, most of them members of one family, and the truck driver perish. May 5, Western Cape province, S.Af. The driver of a passenger bus heading toward Cape Town loses control of his vehicle, which goes through a barrier and overturns, causing the deaths of at least 24 of those on board. May 23, Liaoning province, China. On an expressway in Fuxin, a collision between a passenger bus and a truck leaves 32 people, all but 3 from the bus, dead. June 21, Khyber Pakhtunwa, Pak. A minibus on the Indus highway that is speeding while traveling from Islamabad to Bannu collides head-on with a truck; 17 of those on the minibus die. June 26, Bihar state, India. A bus hits a truck head-on; at least 23 passengers are killed, and another 25 are injured. July 18, Sichuan province, China. A bus goes off the side of a cliff and falls into the flooding Dadu River; 26 passengers perish. August 11, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A truck laden with

cargo, on top of which passengers ride, falls into Lake Tanganyika; at least 58 people lose their lives. September 16, Near Alrader, Sudan. A bus attempting to pass a truck hits a minibus head-on, and the minibus bursts into flames; at least 37 people perish. October 12, Central Ukraine. The operator of a passenger bus drives into the path of an oncoming train in spite of warning lights; at least 43 of the people riding on the bus are killed in the ensuing collision. October 23, Taiwan. Searchers find the wreckage of a tour bus that went over a cliff when traveling as Typhoon Megi struck the island country two days earlier, causing rock slides on the highway; some 20 tourists from China’s Guangdong province died in the accident. November 16, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The driver of a truck with a load of passengers is killed by Rwandan Hutu rebels, and the truck falls into a ravine; at least 23 passengers die. December 2, Israel. After the outbreak near Haifa of a forest fire that quickly consumes some 324 ha (800 ac), a bus carrying prison guard trainees sent to evacuate a prison bursts into flames; at least 38 trainees are immolated. December 25, Uttar Pradesh state, India. Outside Budaun a passenger bus and a vehicle carrying mourners from a funeral crash into each other; 36 people, including the bus driver, are killed.

Miscellaneous February 19, Meknès, Mor. At least 41 worshippers perish when the minaret of the 400-year-old Lalla Khenata Mosque collapses during Friday prayer. February 25, Timbuktu, Mali. As crowds try to reach the Djingareyber Mosque to celebrate a festival, they find access blocked by road construction; a stampede results in which 26 people are crushed to death. March 4, Mangarh, India. As some 10,000 people attend a religious ceremony at a popular ashram at which money and goods are to be distributed, the gate leading to the temple collapses, setting off a stampede in which at least 63 people, nearly all of them women and children, perish. April 23, Uganda. A health official declares that over the past three weeks in Kabale district some 80 people have succumbed after drinking a homemade banana gin known as waragi that contained methanol. June 2, Dhaka, Bangladesh. A fourstory building, constructed on top of a former canal and reportedly having a fifth floor added, collapses; 25 people are crushed to death. June 4, Zamfara state, Nigeria. Authorities report that attempts by poor villagers to leach gold from rock deposits have since the beginning of the year resulted in the deaths from lead poisoning of more than 160 people, most of them children. July 24, Duisburg, Ger. Overcrowding in the tunnel entrance to the old freight railway station where the techno music festival the Love Parade is being held leads the crowd to panic; 21 concertgoers are killed in the crush. July 25, Nairobi. Police report that at least 17 people have died and several others have been made blind as a result of drinking a home-distilled moonshine called changaa that is suspected of containing methanol. October 27, Northern Afghanistan. At a wedding celebration in a mud brick house, the roof collapses, and at least 65 people, mostly women and children, are crushed to death. November 15, New Delhi. In a poor neighbourhood near the Yamuna River, a five-story apartment building collapses to the ground, killing at least 66 people; shoddy construction is blamed. November 22, Phnom Penh, Camb. At a water festival a panic on a bridge leading to an island, possibly triggered by the swaying of the bridge, causes the deaths of at least 378 people, most of whom suffocate. 61

People of 2010

Dancers perform in Johannesburg on June 11 in the opening ceremony that kicked off the monthlong association football (soccer) FIFA World Cup finals. Martin Meissner/AP

Nobel Prizes Nobels were awarded to 11 men in 2010; recipients included a Chinese HUMAN RIGHTS activist who was serving a prison sentence for SUBVERSION, an acclaimed Peruvian author for his TRENCHANT IMAGES of individual resistance and defeat, three economists for their theories on LABOUR-MARKET analysis, scientists for isolating GRAPHENE and making new molecules with PALLADIUM, and a biomedical researcher for his work on IN VITRO FERTILIZATION.

PRIZE FOR PEACE

T

he Chinese teacher, writer, and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for 2010. Liu was the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize. In making the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee cited Liu’s “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” The committee expressed its belief that there was “a close connection between human rights and peace” and, in a rebuke to China, said that the country’s “new [economic] status must entail increased responsibility.” When the announcement was made in October, the recipient was in prison, serving an 11-year sentence pronounced in 2009 for “inciting subversion of state power.” This sentence resulted from his role in the writing and promotion of Charter 08, a human rights manifesto that was issued in December 2008 on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the committee noted, “Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China.” Two previous Nobel laureates had been imprisoned at the time they were awarded the Prize for Peace: the German peace advocate Carl von Ossietzky in 1935 and the Burmese political activist Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991. Liu was born on Dec. 28, 1955, in Changchun, Jilin province. As a youth he was sent with his family to the countryside to learn farming. Liu received a B.A. degree (1982) in literature from Jilin University and an M.A. degree (1984)

and a Ph.D. (1987) from Beijing Normal University. He began teaching at Beijing Normal University in 1984, and during 1988–89 he held visiting appointments in Europe and the U.S. When student protests broke out in Beijing in 1989, Liu returned to China from Columbia University, New York City, and participated in a three-day hunger strike. After the Tiananmen Square incident, in which government troops enforced a crackdown on protesters, Liu negotiated an agreement that allowed the remaining protesters to withdraw and thereby prevented further violence. For his role in the protest, he was arrested and detained for several months; he was also forbidden to teach again in Chinese universities, and his writings were banned. Liu Xiaobo

PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded in 2010 to Americans Peter A. Diamond and Dale T. Mortensen and Cyprus-born Christopher A. Pissarides, who together developed a theory of search markets such as those in which employers seek to fill vacancies and job seekers search for employment. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the economists developed a Kyodo/AP

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Thus, despite Liu’s relative moderation, there began two decades of surveillance by the government and official curtailment of his activities. Liu was detained on two later occasions before he received the 11-year sentence that made him a cause célèbre among human rights activists around the world. As rumours began to circulate that Liu Xiaobo was the front-runner for the Prize for Peace, the Chinese government warned the Nobel Committee and the Norwegian government that it would be dangerous to honour him. When Liu was announced as the recipient, China denounced the committee’s action, calling it a “desecration” of the prize and claiming that Liu was a “criminal.” The government instituted a blackout of Western media, although the news reached individual Chinese citizens and spread quickly through less-formal channels. It was reported that his jailers informed Liu of the prize and that his wife, Liu Xia, was allowed to visit him, though she was believed to have been placed under house arrest. A number of Western leaders, including the 2009 laureate, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, praised the committee’s decision, and once again there were calls for Liu’s release. Although Liu’s role as an activist came to overshadow his work as a writer and thinker, he published widely. Among his best-known books was his first, Criticism of the Choice: Dialogues with Li Zehou (1988), a critique of the ideas of a contemporary Confucian thinker. Liu also published literary criticism in periodicals, as well as poetry. Most of his writings after the 1980s were published abroad, but copies found their way to China. Honours include the Fondation de France Prize (2004), given by Reporters Without Borders to promote press freedom. (ROBERT RAUCH)

Nobel Prizes Ruth Fremson—The New York Times/Redux

theoretical framework known as the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model, which became widely used in labour-market analysis. The model describes the search activity of the unemployed, the methods by which firms recruit and formulate wages, and the effects of economic policies and regulation, such as levels of unemployment benefits and rules on hiring and firing, on labour markets. While their research analyzing the process of buying and selling could be applied to many other markets, including housing, their theory had a particular relevance in identifying and explaining the coexistence of high unemployment rates with many job vacancies, an apparent incongruity that could not be explained by earlier models. Diamond’s analysis of the frictions in markets—that is, external factors that prevent buyers or searchers from finding a suitable match—challenged the classical market view in which buyers and sellers are well informed and find each other simultaneously, without costs, ensuring that supply and demand are in balance. In a groundbreaking article in 1971, he demonstrated that when buyers sought the best possible price and sellers set their price after having taken into account the costs associated with the buyer’s search, the resulting price would be the same as that set by a monopolist in a corresponding market. His finding that the only equilibrium price was the monopoly became known as the Diamond paradox. Findings from Mortensen’s work on the search and matching theory of frictional unemployment led him to study labour turnover, research and development, and personal relationships. Among other findings, he determined that rigidities in the labour market, such as the level and length of unemployment benefits, can cause unemployment because of the length of time spent by the searcher seeking the best job with the highest pay. Conversely, Diamond demonstrated that the use of unemployment insurance gave job seekers more time for a more selective search that could facilitate a better match. Building on the DMP model, Pissarides pioneered a coherent theoretical analysis of the dynamics of unemployment, job vacancies, and real wages, and he helped to develop the concept of matching functions. He found that the more intensely job seekers looked for employment, the more jobs companies would offer because of the ease with which they could fill those positions.

Peter Arthur Diamond was born on April 29, 1940, in New York City and was educated at Yale University (B.A., 1960) and MIT (Ph.D., 1963). He joined (1963) the University of California, Berkeley, as an associate professor before returning to MIT, where he served as an associate professor (1966–70), professor (1970–88), John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor (1989–91), Paul A. Samuelson Professor (1992–97), and Institute Professor (from 1997). He also acted as research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1991 and held several other academic and editorial positions. Diamond was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Economics (1994), the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize (2005), and the Robert M. Ball Award (2008). Dale Thomas Mortensen was born on Feb. 2, 1939, in Enterprise, Ore., and attended Willamette University, Salem, Ore. (B.A., 1961), and Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh (Ph.D., 1967). In 1965 he joined the economics faculty at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., where in 1980 he became professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management. He also served as director of mathematical methods in Northwestern’s social sciences program (1982–84, 1992–2000) and was the Neils Bohr Visiting Professor of Economics (2006–10) at Århus (Den.) University. Mortensen was awarded the IZA Labor Economics Prize in 2005, jointly with Pissarides, and the Society of Labor Economists’ Jacob Mincer Award in 2007. Christopher Antoniou Pissarides was born on Feb. 20, 1948, in Nicosia, Cyprus, and was educated in England at the University of Essex (B.A., 1970; M.A., 1971) and the London School of Economics (LSE; Ph.D., 1973). After a brief period working as a researcher at the Central Bank of Cyprus, he returned to the U.K. to teach economics at the University of Southampton (1974–76) and then from 1976 at the LSE, where in 1986 he was made Norman Sosnow Professor of Economics. In addition to sharing the 2005 IZA Labor Economics Prize with Mortensen, Pissarides earned election to the British Academy in 2002. (JANET H. CLARK)

PRIZE FOR LITERATURE The 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, cited by the Swedish Academy “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant im-

Mario Vargas Llosa ages of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” Vargas Llosa belonged to the so-called boom generation of writers who emerged in the 1960s and focused international attention on modern Latin American literature. First and foremost a storyteller, he was a prolific and accomplished novelist, short-story writer, dramatist, journalist, and essayist. One of the preeminent writers of the Spanish-speaking world, he was the first Peruvian to be named a Nobel laureate in literature and the first Latin American writer to win the prize since Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and Mexican Octavio Paz, in 1982 and 1990, respectively. Vargas Llosa was born on March 28, 1936, in Arequipa, Peru. His parents separated at about the time of his birth; as a result, he spent part of his childhood with his mother in his maternal grandfather’s household in Cochabamba, Bol., and then in Piura, Peru. After his parents reconciled, the reunited family moved to Lima. At age 14 Vargas Llosa was sent by his father to the Leoncio Prado Military School, a traumatic and often painful experience that informed his debut novel, La ciudad y los perros (1963; The Time of the Hero, 1966), about coming of age. He completed his undergraduate education in Lima at the Main National University of San Marcos and continued his studies abroad at the Complutense University of Madrid. His first collection of short stories, Los jefes (1959; The Cubs and Other Stories, 1979), was published first in Spain and was awarded the Leopoldo Alas literary prize. Determined to pursue a career as a writer, Vargas Llosa left Madrid for 65

Nobel Prizes Tannen Maury—EPA/Landov

Paris, where he joined a community of Latin American writers that included Argentine Julio Cortázar, Chilean Jorge Edwards, Swiss-born Cuban Alejo Carpentier, and Mexican Carlos Fuentes. Published in 1966, his novel La casa verde (The Green House, 1968) received critical praise for its striking inventiveness—notably, its complex narrative of five independent stories that introduced what would become familiar themes in his body of work: the abuse of authority, disillusionment, the preponderance of violence and brutality, and the anguish of human suffering. He further enhanced his reputation with the publication of Conversación en la catedral (1969; Conversation in the Cathedral, 1975), a political exposé of contemporary Peruvian society; La tía Julia y el escribidor (1977; Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, 1982), a semiautobiographical novel of improbable romance; the epic historical novel La guerra del fin del mundo (1981; The War of the End of the World, 1984); and Historia de Mayta (1984; The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, 1986), a disjointed portrait of a failed revolutionary that explores the boundaries between fact and fiction. Later works include El hablador (1987; The Storyteller, 1989), a novel that underscores the plight of the marginalized indigenous populations of Peru; the erotically charged Elogio de la madrastra (1988; In Praise of the Stepmother, 1990); and the highly acclaimed La fiesta del chivo (2000; The Feast of the Goat, 2001), a searing condemnation of dictatorship. His major works of nonfiction include critical studies of García Márquez, Gustave Flaubert, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and Victor Hugo; El pez en el agua (1993; A Fish in the Water, 1994), a memoir written after his unsuccessful bid for the presidency of Peru in 1990; and the eloquent Cartas a un joven novelista (1997; Letters to a Young Novelist, 2002), a meditation on the craft of writing. Early in his career, Vargas Llosa posited literature as “a form of permanent insurrection.” Its mission, he proclaimed, was “to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant state of dissatisfaction with themselves.” As a writer, he merged literature and social commitment, and his youthful idealism defined his later literary persona. The product of a vibrant and impassioned cultural inheritance, he found it impossible for himself—or any Latin American writer—to avoid the subject of politics: “Literature is an expression of life, and you cannot eradicate politics from life.” (STEVEN R. SERAFIN)

PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY The Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 2010 went to three organic chemists, Richard F. Heck of the University of Delaware, Ei-ichi Negishi of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, for finding and developing an ingenious way to link carbon atoms. The key to their discovery is the capability of palladium atoms, a relatively unreactive metal in bulk form, to join carbon atoms together. The process that brought them the award is known as palladium-catalyzed cross coupling. A palladium atom is attached to one of the two carbon atoms that one wants to bind together. With the host atom holding its palladium atom, the two carbons find each other and join, leaving the palladium atom behind. Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki each found different but related ways— which now bear their names—to accomplish the process. In the Heck reaction the carbon to be attached carries no activating atom or group. The Negishi reaction uses a zinc atom “tag” to transfer a carbon atom to the palladium atom. The Suzuki reaction uses boron, usually attached to a ring of eight carbons. This class of catalyzed reactions has become one of the most important ways to synthesize natural products and molecules with complex structures and is widely used in nanotechnology and medicine. Richard F. Heck was born on Aug. 15, 1931, in Springfield, Mass. He received a doctoral degree (1954) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1957 he joined the American chemical

company Hercules Powder in Wilmington, Del. In 1968 Heck reported that palladium could catalyze formation of new carbon-carbon bonds, but at that time the starting materials, organic compounds of mercury, lead, or tin, were toxic, were difficult to prepare, and required problematic conditions for carrying out the reactions. Three years later three Japanese chemists—Tsutomu Mizoroki, Kunio Mori, and Atsumu Ozaki—carried out palladium-catalyzed attachment of benzenelike compounds containing iodine atoms (aryl iodides) to ethylene-like molecules under somewhat more practical but still difficult conditions. In 1972 Heck and J.P. Nolley published the paper that truly triggered the breakthrough, building on the work of Mizoroki and his colleagues,

Richard F. Heck

Akira Suzuki

Bullit Marquez/AP

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Ei-ichi Negishi

The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP

Nobel Prizes Jon Super/AP

opening the possibilities to carry out a wide range of specific carbon-carbon couplings under relatively mild conditions. Their approach provided a very efficient way to bind benzenelike molecules, so-called aromatics, to molecules with a double carbon-carbon bond, compounds known as alkenes, and in 1975 to molecules with a triple carboncarbon bond, such as acetylene. Ei-ichi Negishi was born on July 14, 1935, in Xinjing, Manchukuo (now Changchun, China). He received a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. Negishi and co-workers in 1977 showed how a catalytic process similar to that of Heck enabled coupling of two different alkenes. Negishi’s version of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling made possible the synthesis of discodermolide, a substance that protects a Caribbean marine sponge from its predators but may have great potential as a treatment for cancer. Only an efficient synthesis using the Negishi reaction can produce enough discodermolide to provide real treatment. Akira Suzuki was born on Sept. 12, 1930, in Mukawa-cho, Japan. He earned a Ph.D. from Hokkaido University in 1959. The Suzuki reaction links carbons of alkanes, molecules that have only single bonds. In the Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki reactions, the palladium atom slips between the hosting carbon and an iodine or bromine atom; at this stage this carbon is ready to react. The other carbon may just be one of two held by a double bond, or it may be activated by something special attached to it. The special advantage of the Suzuki reaction is the stability of its starting materials; they can be prepared and stored indefinitely, in contrast to the starting materials for the Heck and Negishi reactions, which must be prepared specifically for each reaction. Furthermore, boron is less toxic than the zinc tag of the Negishi reaction and thus is safer for large-scale operations. Consequently, the Suzuki reaction is usually the choice for industrial processes. (R. STEPHEN BERRY)

PRIZE FOR PHYSICS The 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to two physicists from the University of Manchester, Eng., for the production of a new form of carbon— graphene, a sheet one atom thick with properties that could revolutionize many areas of electronics. Andre Konstantinovich Geim was born in October 1958 in Sochi, Russia,

Andre Geim (left) and Konstantin Novoselov U.S.S.R. In 1982 he received a firstclass M.Sc. degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and in 1987 he obtained a Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Solid State Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences. He conducted research as a scientist at the Institute of Microelectronics Technology and High Purity Materials, Chernogolovka, and from 1990 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Universities of Nottingham, Bath, and Copenhagen before becoming an associate professor at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. In 2001 he was appointed Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester. Among other awards, he received the Mott Medal and Prize from the U.K. Institute of Physics in 2007 and the John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2010. He also was named a Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Research Professor. Geim was a Dutch citizen. Konstantin Sergeyevich Novoselov was born on Aug. 23, 1974, in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, U.S.S.R. He received a diploma from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and began his Ph.D. studies at Radboud University Nijmegen before moving to the University of Manchester in 2001 with Geim, who was his doctoral adviser. In 2008 Novoselov was awarded the Europhysics Prize jointly with Geim. He held both Russian and British citizenship. The properties of a “two-dimensional” sheet of carbon one atom thick had been studied theoretically for some years, but its practical realization was thought to be impossible. In 2004 Geim and Novoselov produced the first frag-

ments of this material, known as graphene. At a time when cutting-edge physics usually required complex apparatuses costing millions of dollars, their technology was amazingly primitive. They peeled off a flake of graphene from a graphite block by using adhesive tape, which in principle is no different from what happens when an ordinary pencil draws a line on paper. Of course, investigation of the flake’s properties required more sophisticated equipment. Geim and Novoselov connected electrodes to the flake and examined it with an atomic force microscope. The properties of the two-dimensional graphene structure were fascinating to physicists, with their analogies to processes in particle physics, but graphene’s greatest importance was its possible use in a huge range of applications. Graphene is a one-atom-thick hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms, spaced every 0.142 nanometre, with remarkable mechanical and electrical properties. It is much stronger than an equivalent steel sheet, impermeable to gases and liquids, and flexible. Graphene is a better conductor than pure copper for both electricity and heat, and it is almost completely transparent for all optical wavelengths. Such properties gave graphene the potential to produce revolutionary developments in many fields, particularly electronics, promising transistors twice as fast as current silicon-based devices. Geim and Novoselov’s research produced only small flakes of graphene, but a number of laboratories worldwide had been working to overcome this problem. In 2010 a group from IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center produced a 67

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graphene-based field effect transistor and a highly sensitive photodetector. Graphene also had the potential to produce nanometre-scale electronic devices by using standard semiconductor processing techniques, and a number of laboratories were working to develop such devices. At the other end of the size scale, researchers from Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, produced uniform graphene films tens of centimetres wide that were large enough to be used in touch screens, light panels, and solar cells. Finally, the development of graphene inspired the production of two-dimensional lattices in other materials such as bismuth telluride. The research for which this prize was awarded had been published only six years earlier, and Novoselov became the youngest physics Nobelist since Brian Josephson in 1973. The speed with which the new discovery was taken up around the world was a measure of its potential importance, not only in ultrahigh-speed electronic devices but also in everyday applications. (DAVID G.C. JONES)

in other mammals was applicable to humans. Much of Edwards’s early research focused on basic gaps in scientists’ understanding of mammalian fertilization and human reproduction. Many of his initial investigations centred on mouse embryos. For example, he determined ovulation time for mouse eggs and studied the fertilization of mouse eggs outside the body and the possibility of implanting fertilized eggs in the mouse uterus to produce viable offspring. In his studies of human eggs, Edwards investigated egg life cycle and identified molecules that control this cycle and the conditions that are conducive to egg fertilization by sperm. One of his first major breakthroughs concerned the timing of oocyte maturation (an oocyte is an immature egg), which he found to be much longer in humans than scientists had estimated on the basis of studies of oocyte maturation in rabbits. In the late 1960s Edwards carried out the first successful fertilization of a human egg in vitro. The significance of this breakthrough was dampened by the fact that the fertilized egg underwent only a single round of cell division, which rendered it nonviable for implantation. In 1968, however, at the University of Cambridge, Edwards partnered with British gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who had developed a laparoscopic technique for removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries.

When Edwards used the eggs extracted by Steptoe’s approach, he found that after fertilization they could survive several rounds of division in vitro. Some of the first attempts to implant the eggs and produce pregnancies in infertile women failed, however, and Edwards soon realized that treating the mother with hormones, such as progesterone, and with medications, such as clomiphene, could improve the mother’s ability to sustain a pregnancy. In the early 1970s Edwards and Steptoe encountered intense ethical opposition to IVF. In 1971, for example, the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom, which had funded the research, terminated its support. Edwards came to rely on private funding, which enabled him to continue the work that culminated in the birth on July 25, 1978, of the first “test-tube baby,” Louise Brown. In 1980 Edwards and Steptoe established the Bourn Hall Clinic, the first centre to offer IVF to infertile couples. In the decades following the initial success of IVF, modifications of the procedure gave rise to new assisted reproduction technologies, including gamete PRIZE FOR PHYSIOLOGY intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and zyOR MEDICINE gote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT). AdThe 2010 Nobel Prize for Physiology or vances in cryopreservation allowed couMedicine was awarded to British medples to freeze embryos for implantation ical researcher Robert Edwards “for the years later. Ethical, religious, and social development of human in vitro fertilissues associated with IVF remained, ization (IVF).” The achievement marked however. For example, the destruction a milestone in the history of the of unused embryos, the freezing Nobel because it was the first Robert Edwards (left) and Louise Brown, the first of embryos, the high rate of mulaward to be bestowed in the area “test-tube baby” tiple births, and the potential for of human reproduction. The IVF fertilization by sperm from a process developed by Edwards, man who was not the husband in which an egg is removed from continued to generate religious a woman’s body, is fertilized in and moral opposition to IVF. vitro (outside the body), and is Edwards was born on Sept. then introduced into the 27, 1925, in Leeds, Eng. He woman’s uterus, had become a earned a B.S. degree in zoology routine procedure in many (1951) from the University of countries and thus far had been Wales and a Ph.D. in physiology used to produce some four mil(1955) from the University of lion babies. Edinburgh. Following brief In the 1950s, when Edwards stints at the National Institute began to investigate infertility for Medical Research, London, and encountered the notion of and the University of Glasgow fertilization outside the human in the early and mid-1960s, he body, there were no technolotook a faculty position at the gies available to help infertile University of Cambridge, where couples. In fact, at the time, far he was later made professor more was known about reproemeritus. Edwards and Steptoe duction in animals, such as rabco-wrote A Matter of Life: The bits and guinea pigs. Studies of Story of a Medical Breakthrough human reproduction frustrated (1980). Edwards also received biologists, particularly because the Albert Lasker Clinical Medvery little of what was known ical Research Award (2001). from research on fertilization (KARA ROGERS) Chris Radburn—Press Association/AP

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Biographies The SUBJECTS of these biographies are the people who in the editors’ opinions captured the IMAGINATION of the world in 2010—the most INTERESTING and/or IMPORTANT PERSONALITIES of the year.

Abdul Rauf, Feisal (b. Oct. 23, 1948, Kuwait) In 2010 Feisal Abdul Rauf, a New York City imam and interfaith leader, found himself at the centre of a national debate over religious tolerance because of his organization’s plans to build an Islamic community centre in Manhattan. The decision to construct the centre a few blocks from the World Trade Center site—one of the targets of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Islamist extremists—drew protests from activists and politicians who argued that the location of the project was insensitive. Abdul Rauf, however, emphasized that the 13- to 15-story centre—which would house a Muslim prayer area, athletic facilities, a day-care centre, and a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks that would serve as a nondenominational space for prayer and meditation—would be open to nonMuslims as well as Muslims and that it would host interfaith programs and events. Abdul Rauf was the son of an Egyptian Islamic scholar who served in a series of posts at universities and Islamic institutions throughout the world. Abdul Rauf’s devout upbringing, extensive travels, and early exposure to theological debate did much to shape his later views on Islam and religious pluralism. He was educated in the U.K., Egypt, and Malaysia and then moved (1965) with his family to New York City, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics (1969) at Columbia University and a master’s degree in plasma physics (1972) from the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J. In 1983 he became the imam of Masjid al-Farah, a progressive Sufi mosque in Manhattan, and in 1997 he founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement in an effort to promote interfaith dialogue about Islam in the U.S. Following the September 11 attacks, Abdul Rauf wrote a book on the relationship be-

tween Islam and the West, provided cultural training to the FBI, and traveled to Muslim countries on outreach tours funded by the U.S. State Department during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In July 2009 a group of Muslim investors purchased a vacant building two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center and began to develop plans for an Islamic community centre to be headed by Abdul Rauf. Plans for the community centre were praised as a symbol of religious tolerance by some, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but they also met with significant opposition. At the proposed site, demonstrations for and against the Islamic community centre peaked in the summer of 2010, drawing heavy national media coverage to the controversy. Abdul Rauf defended the community centre, saying that if the project Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

was moved to a different location, it would strengthen Islamist extremist groups by seeming to confirm their claims that Muslims were subject to discrimination in the U.S. (EB ED.) Abramovic, Marina (b. Nov. 30, 1946, Belgrade, Yugos. [now in Serbia]) In 2010 Marina Abramovic secured her status as one of the leading figures in performance art when a retrospective of her work opened in March at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. For the exhibition, which closed May 31, she enlisted a company of performers to reenact several of her most significant performance pieces. She also debuted a new piece, The Artist Is Present, which, like much of her previous work, dramatically tested the endurance and limitations of her own body and mind. Abramovic enrolled (1965) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade to study painting but later became interested in the possibilities of performance art—specifically, the ability to use her body as a site of artistic and spiritual exploration. After completing postgraduate studies in 1972 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (now in Croatia), Abramovic conceived a series of visceral performance pieces that engaged her body as both subject and medium. In Rhythm 10 (1973), for instance, she methodically stabbed the spaces between her fingers with a knife, at times drawing blood. In Rhythm 0 (1974) she stood impassively in a room for six hours along with 72 objects; members of the audience were invited to interact with her by using these items, ranging from a rose to a bullet and a gun. These performance pieces provoked controversy not only for their perilousness but also for Abramovic’s occasional nudity, which became a regular element of her work. In 1975 Abramovic moved to Amsterdam, and a year later she began col-

Fadi Al-Assaad—Reuters/Landov

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Biographies

laborating with German artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen (byname Ulay). Much of their work together was concerned with gender identity, most notoriously Imponderabilia (1977), in which they stood naked while facing each other in a museum’s narrow entrance, forcing visitors to squeeze between them and, in so doing, to choose which of the two to face. Their Nightsea Crossing (1981–87), a prolonged act of mutual meditation and concentration, was performed in more than a dozen locations worldwide. They ended their relationship in 1988. In 1997 Abramovic won the Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale. Her exhibit, the brooding Balkan Baroque, used both video and live performance to investigate her cultural and familial identity. She also captured public attention for The House with the Ocean View (2002), a gallery installation in which she lived ascetically for 12 days. By 2005 she had begun to ruminate on the legacy of performance art, a genre in which individual works usually had no life beyond their original staging, apart from their occasional preservation on film. That year, in an attempt to counteract that tradition, Performance artist Marina Abramovic

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Abramovic presented Seven Easy Pieces, a series of “reperformances” of seminal works—two of her own and five by other performance artists, including Bruce Nauman and Joseph Beuys—at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. She sought to continue her efforts to preserve performance art by establishing the Marina Abramovic Institute West, which opened in San Francisco in 2009. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Adrià, Ferran (b. May 14, 1962, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain) In early 2010 Catalan chef Ferran Adrià made waves when he announced that his famed restaurant, El Bulli, would close the following year and reopen in 2014 as a nonprofit foundation for culinary research. He also signed on to coteach a course on the science of cooking at Harvard University. These developments prompted much reflection on Adrià’s legacy as a pioneer in what had come to be commonly known as “molecular cooking”— the use of precise scientific techniques to create inventive and evocative highend cuisine. After dropping out of school in Barcelona at age 18, Adrià took a job as a dishwasher at a hotel restaurant, where he learned about classic gastronomic techniques. His training led to kitchen jobs at other restaurants in the area. He joined the navy in 1982 to fulfill his compulsory military service, and he eventually became chef to an admiral stationed at the naval base in Cartagena. At the end of his service, Adrià accepted a one-month internship at El Bulli, then a respected French restaurant in Roses, on the Costa Brava. In early 1984 he was hired there as a line cook, and eight months later, after the head chef departed, he and another cook were put in joint charge of the kitchen. By 1987 Adrià had become the restaurant’s sole chef de cuisine. In the mid-1980s El Bulli’s menu featured a combination of traditional French recipes and nouvelle cuisine, but Adrià, inspired by the notion that “creativity is not copying,” sought to explore other culinary avenues, including those introduced in the late 1980s under the name “molecular gastronomy.” By 1994, four years after becoming coowner of the restaurant, he had moved away from classical cookery altogether. In its place was what he called “technique-concept cuisine,” in which he subjected potential ingredients to rigorous experimentation and scientific analysis as a means of creating novel

dishes that produced unexpected sensations. One of the concoctions to emerge from Adrià’s kitchen was culinary foam, which ultimately involved spraying out of a nitrous-oxide canister the mixture of a main ingredient (such as raspberries or mushrooms) and a natural gelling agent. Such whimsical creations were emblematic of Adrià’s deconstructivist philosophy, by which he aimed to preserve the essence or flavour of a familiar dish even as its form or texture was radically altered. By the late 1990s El Bulli had earned a top three-star rating from the vaunted Guide Michelin, and Adrià’s innovations became widely imitated. In 2002 the British magazine Restaurant named El Bulli the best restaurant in the world, a distinction it also held in 2006–09. Though all this publicity created enormous demand, Adrià’s cuisine was so ambitious and exacting that he served only a limited number of diners during a six-month period each year (he closed the restaurant for the other six months while he conducted research and developed recipes), and El Bulli consistently operated at a loss. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Alexie, Sherman (b. Oct. 7, 1966, Wellpinit, Wash.) In 2010 Native American poet and novelist Sherman Alexie joined the ranks of prominent authors when he was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his book War Dances (2009). Critics praised the work for its innovative composition of short stories interwoven with poetry, to which Alexie added his characteristic mix of humour and anger on such hot-button issues as racial conflict, divorce, sex, parenting, terrorism, alcohol and drug abuse, consumerism, and religion. Alexie also earned the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr., who was a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, had a difficult childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He was diagnosed with hydrocephalus at birth and underwent brain surgery at the age of six months. Although doctors did not expect him to survive and predicted that, at best, he would have severe developmental disabilities, Alexie made a miraculous recovery. He suffered from seizures, however, and his condition prevented him from participating in many physical activities with the other boys his age. He spent a great deal of time indoors reading and excelled in

Biographies Seth Wenig/AP

(1995) and the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for his young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). (BARBARA A. SCHREIBER)

Prize-winning author Sherman Alexie school, but he was often ridiculed and harassed by his classmates. He transferred (1981) to a high school off the reservation, and though he was the only Native American student there, Alexie gained the respect of his peers and became an honour student, talented basketball player, and class president. He earned (1985) a scholarship to Gonzaga University, Spokane, Wash., with hopes of entering law or medical school. Disappointed when his plans fell through, Alexie struggled with alcoholism. He found consolation in poetry and enrolled at Washington State University (B.A., 1991), where he discovered that he had a talent for writing verse. In his works Alexie often dealt with his own painful experiences and feelings of being an outcast and touched on such issues as the realities of Native Americans and their frequent struggles with alcoholism and unemployment. His first volumes of verse, I Would Steal Horses and The Business of Fancydancing were published in 1992. They were followed by First Indian on the Moon (1993), Water Flowing Home (1996), The Man Who Loves Salmon (1998), and Face (2009). Alexie also penned numerous novels and collections of short stories, including Indian Killer (1996), The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), Ten Little Indians (2003), and Flight (2007). Additionally, he co-wrote and produced movies, notably Smoke Signals (1998), which was based on a story from his collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) and won two awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Alexie’s other honours include the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award for Reservation Blues

Ambani, Mukesh (b. April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) In March 2010 Yemeni-born Indian business mogul Mukesh Ambani— chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the foremost company of the Indian energy and materials conglomerate Reliance Group—was identified by Forbes magazine as the fourth richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $29 billion. Ambani’s international prominence was further shown in August, when he was elected to serve as a member of the foundation board of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an international organization comprising some of the world’s most prominent business executives, politicians, and other nongovernmental leaders that convenes annually to discuss global commerce, economic development, political concerns, and important social issues. Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was the elder son of Dhirubhai Ambani, an Indian-born immigrant to Yemen who initially worked as a gas-station attendant. Owing to the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighbourhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). In the same year, Ambani’s father and a cousin founded—with a stake of only 15,000 rupees (about $325)—the Reliance Commercial Corp., which grew from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a oneroom rental space into RIL. Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. He left that program in 1981, however, to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibres, and gas and oil production. In 2004 he was named one of the world’s most respected business leaders by the professional-services company PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Following Dhirubhai’s death in 2002, Ambani and his brother, Anil, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. Feuds between the brothers over control prompted their mother to divide Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemical units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Ambani was credited with creating the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. In 2006 he was chosen to cochair the India Economic Summit of the WEF. In 2007 Ambani became India’s first rupee trillionaire. The same year, the Economic Times newspaper and the news agency Press Trust of India simultaneously named him the world’s richest man (based on the skyrocketing value of RIL stock), though Forbes ranked him only 14th at that time. When the Indian Premier League for Twenty20 cricket was founded in 2008, Ambani’s RIL bought the franchise for the Mumbai Indians. (JEANNETTE NOLEN) Ammann, Simon (b. June 25, 1981, Grabs, Switz.) At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Swiss ski jumper Simon Ammann swept his sport’s individual Olympic events for the second time in his career, making him the first ski jumper in history to achieve the feat. After having won the gold medal in both the individual normal-hill and individual large-hill events at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, he dominated the competition in Vancouver and easily took both golds again. This achievement not only gave Ammann the record Olympic “doubledouble” but also made him the only ski jumper in history to win four career individual Olympic gold medals. Ammann began ski jumping at age 11, learning the sport at a 30-m (100ft.) hill near his family’s farm in Unterwasser, Switz. He first participated in the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup ski jumping competition during the 1997–98 season, and he was a member of the Swiss ski jumping team at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, where he finished in 35th and 39th place, respectively, in the individual normal-hill and individual large-hill events. His nondescript Olympic debut did little to pre71

Biographies Bullit Marquez/AP

pare observers for what he accomplished at the Salt Lake City Olympics. There Ammann—despite having never previously won a single event on the World Cup or FIS world championship level—became just the second ski jumper (after Finland’s Matti Nykänen in 1988) to win both the individual normal-hill and individual large-hill Olympic gold medals. His phenomenal success made him an overnight star in his native Switzerland, and the young sensation then embarked on an international tour of the television talk-show circuit. Ammann did not manage to sustain his momentum into the following skiing seasons, however. Between the close of the 2002 Games and the opening of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, he won just a single World Cup event. Ammann’s post-Salt Lake City disappointments continued to mount in Turin, where his best individual finish was 15th place in the large-hill event (he was 38th in the normal hill). Consequently, he focused on refining his jumping technique, which eventually helped him capture the individual large-hill gold and normal-hill silver at the 2007 FIS world championships. He won five World Cup events during the 2008–09 skiing season to establish himself as one of the favourites heading into the 2010 Winter Olympics. Ammann capped off his remarkable 2009–10 season by winning his firstever World Cup overall title in March 2010 after having notched nine event victories over the course of the season. (ADAM AUGUSTYN) Aquino, Benigno, III (b. Feb. 8, 1960, Manila, Phil.) On June 30, 2010, Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (popularly called “Noynoy”), the scion of a famed Filipino political family, took office as president of the Philippines. Aquino—the son of former president (1986–92) Corazon Aquino and political leader Benigno Simeon Aquino, Jr., whose assassination in 1983 galvanized popular opposition to the government of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos—was seen as the front-runner from the day he entered the race for president in September 2009. Eight months later, on May 10, 2010, he won the election by a wide margin. When Aquino was a child, his father, an opposition figure to President Marcos, was imprisoned and in 1977 was sentenced to death, but he was released in 1980 and was allowed to go to the U.S. for medical treatment. The follow72

2006 Aquino served as vice-chairman of the Liberal Party, and in 2007, at the end of his final term in the House of Representatives, he made a successful bid for a Senate seat. In August 2009, shortly before Aquino announced his candidacy for president, his mother died. To many she was a symbol of democratic rule in the Philippines, and her death heightened her son’s profile and served as a catalyst for his seeking higher office. Though his opponents included such seasoned politicians as former president Joseph Estrada, Aquino built his campaign on promises to eradicate corruption and fight poverty, as well as on his illustrious family’s repute, to win election to the presidency. (MELISSA ALBERT)

Philippine Pres. Benigno (“Noynoy”) Aquino III ing year the younger Aquino, after graduating from Ateneo de Manila University with a bachelor’s degree in economics, followed his family to Boston. His father returned to the Philippines in August 1983 intending to challenge Marcos for the presidency but was assassinated immediately upon arrival. The remainder of the family nevertheless returned soon afterward to the Philippines, where the young Aquino worked for such companies as the Philippine Business for Social Progress and Nike Philippines. He became vice president of his family’s Best Security Agency Corp. in 1986, the same year that his mother was named president of the Philippines after her opposition party successfully charged the incumbent Marcos with voting fraud. Aquino left the company in 1993 to work for another familyowned business, a sugar refinery. Finally, in 1998 he made the move to politics as a member of the Liberal Party, serving the constitutional maximum of three consecutive terms as a representative from Tarlac province in northcentral Luzon. During that time he also served as deputy speaker (2004–06) of the House of Representatives, but he resigned from that post in advance of joining other Liberal Party leaders in making a call for the resignation of then president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was accused of corrupt dealings, including the rigging of the presidential election held in 2004. From

Assange, Julian (b. July 3, 1971, Townsville, Queens., Australia) Australian computer programmer Julian Assange, the founder and public face of media organization WikiLeaks, made world headlines in 2010. On November 28 WikiLeaks published on the Internet a small sample of an estimated 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables. Those classified documents dated mostly from 2007–10, but they included some from as far back as 1966. Among the wide-ranging topics covered were behind-the-scenes U.S. efforts to politically and economically isolate Iran, primarily in response to fears of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Earlier in the year WikiLeaks had posted almost half a million documents—mainly relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much of the information was already in the public domain, Pres. Barack Obama’s administration criticized the leaks as a threat to U.S. national security. Reaction from other world governments also was swift, and many condemned the publication. Assange became the target of much of this ire, and some American politicians called for him to be pursued as a terrorist. Assange also faced prosecution in Sweden, where he was wanted in connection with sexual assault charges. (It was the second arrest warrant issued for Assange for those alleged crimes, the first having been dismissed in August owing to lack of evidence.) At year’s end he was in the U.K. awaiting possible extradition to Sweden. Branded both a hero and a villain for his views on what he called “scientific journalism,” Assange was runner-up in Time magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year honours.

Biographies

Assange’s family moved frequently when he was a child, and he was educated with a combination of homeschooling and correspondence courses. As a teenager he demonstrated an uncanny aptitude with computers, and using the hacking nickname “Mendax,” he infiltrated a number of secure systems, including those at NASA and the Pentagon. In 1991 Australian authorities charged him with 31 counts of cybercrime; he pleaded guilty to most of them. At sentencing, however, he received only a small fine as punishment, and the judge ruled that his actions were the result of youthful inquisitiveness. Over the next decade, Assange traveled, studied physics at the University of Melbourne (he withdrew before earning a degree), and worked as a “white hat” hacker, consulting on computer security issues. Assange created WikiLeaks in 2006. Its first publication, posted to the Web site in December 2006, was a message from a Somali rebel leader encouraging the use of hired gunmen to assassinate government officials. The document’s authenticity was never verified, but the story of WikiLeaks and questions regarding the ethics of its methods soon overshadowed it. WikiLeaks published a number of other scoops, including details about the U.S. military’s detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a secret membership roster of the British National Party, internal documents from the Scientology movement, and private e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Assange promised that more documents would be forthcoming, including some related to American banks. (MICHAEL RAY)

Audiard was the son of noted screenwriter Michel Audiard, who was best known for his scripts for crime films, particularly director Henri Verneuil’s Mélodie en sous-sol (1963; Any Number Can Win) and Claude Miller’s Garde à vue (1981). The younger Audiard studied literature at the Sorbonne but left without a degree. He entered the film industry in the late 1970s as an assistant editor on several movies, including Roman Polanski’s Le Locataire (1976; The Tenant). Audiard turned to screenwriting with the spy thriller Le Professionel (1981; The Professional). Audiard’s first film as a director was Regard les hommes tomber (1994; See How They Fall), which wove together two separate story lines—one about a man (played by Jean Yanne) searching for the killer of his friend and the other concerning the actions of the murderers (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Mathieu Kassovitz) prior to the crime. Audiard won the César for best first film, the first of many Césars to come his way. His next movie, Un Héros très discret (1996; A Self-Made Hero), won for Audiard the award for best screenplay at the Cannes film festival; it starred Kassovitz as a salesman who, after the end of World War II, concocts a new identity as a hero in the French Resistance. Sur mes lèvres (2001; Read My Lips) centres on the relationship between a deaf lip-reading secretary (Emanuelle Devos) and an ex-convict (Vincent Cassel), who rely on each other’s abilities. Audiard won the César for best screenplay. French filmmaker Jacques Audiard

Audiard, Jacques (b. April 30, 1952, Paris, France) French filmmaker Jacques Audiard in 2010 won three César awards (the French equivalent of the Academy Awards)—for best director, original screenplay, and film—for Un Prophète (2009; A Prophet), a gangster drama about a young French Arab convict (Tahar Rahim) who falls in with the leader (Niels Arestrup) of a Corsican prison gang. Like Audiard’s previous crime films, Un Prophète was acclaimed for its script and strong performances. It was also compared favourably with classics of the genre, notably Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). Un Prophète also won the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes film festival and received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film in 2010.

In 2005 Audiard remade American director James Toback’s film Fingers (1978) as De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped). For this movie, which features Romain Duris as a young man torn between either following his father (Arestrup) into the shady fringes of the real-estate business or following his dead mother into a career as a concert pianist, Audiard won three additional Césars—for best director, screenplay adaptation, and film. (ERIK GREGERSEN) Axelrod, David (b. Feb. 22, 1955, New York, N.Y.) In 2010 David Axelrod—the principal architect of Barack Obama’s successful campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2008 and, since 2009, one of President Obama’s senior White House advisers— focused on encouraging Obama to continue to do what he thought was right despite public approval ratings that by September 2010 had plummeted to 45% from 68% at his inauguration. In 2008 the astute Axelrod, mindful of the tough economic problems facing the country, had cautioned Obama to “enjoy these great poll numbers you have, because two years from now, they are not going to look anything like this.” In late 2010 Axelrod indicated that he would leave the White House in 2011 and return to Chicago to begin Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Axelrod grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he was politically active as a teenager, selling campaign buttons for Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential bid. He left New York to attend the University of Chicago, where he earned (1977) a bachelor’s degree in political science. Having written for community newspapers in Lower Manhattan and Chicago’s Hyde Park neighbourhood, Axelrod launched a career as a journalist upon his graduation. He covered politics for the Chicago Tribune, and by age 27 he had become the youngest person ever to serve as that newspaper’s chief political writer. In 1984 Axelrod left the Tribune to work on the U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Democratic politician Paul Simon. Although Simon was clearly an underdog, he defeated three-term Republican incumbent Charles Percy, and Axelrod’s reputation as a campaign adviser soared. He founded Axelrod and Associates (later AKPD Message and Media) in 1985, and two years later he served as media strategist for the reelection campaign of Chicago’s Mayor Harold Washington. In 1989 Axelrod

Rick Wilking—Reuters/Landov

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U.S. White House senior adviser David Axelrod worked on the successful mayoral election bid of Richard M. Daley (who had followed in the footsteps of his father, the late mayor Richard J. Daley). Over the following years, Axelrod amassed a clientele that included Democratic politicians Carol Moseley Braun, Tom Vilsack, Christopher Dodd, Rahm Emanuel, and Hillary Clinton. In 2004 he worked on the presidential campaign of John Edwards, but a U.S. Senate race in Illinois that year would bear the richest fruit for Axelrod. He guided the campaign of a charismatic but relatively obscure state senator named Barack Obama through a crowded Democratic primary field and ultimately to victory against Republican nominee Alan Keyes. Obama had catapulted to national prominence after delivering a stirring keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, and many Democrats were quietly urging him to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Some of Axelrod’s most noteworthy victories had involved helping African American candidates appeal to white voters, and lessons learned in the 1987 Washington mayoral campaign would prove invaluable in 2008. By promoting a message of hope and change, Obama emerged victorious over presumed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, and Axelrod maintained the optimistic tone leading up to the general election. After Obama’s victory in November, Axelrod was named head of the presidentelect’s transition team, and he joined the White House staff. (MICHAEL RAY) 74

Ayala, Francisco José (b. March 12, 1934, Madrid, Spain) On March 25, 2010, it was announced that Francisco J. Ayala had been awarded the Templeton Prize, an honour given to those who have made extraordinary contributions in support of life’s spiritual dimension. Ayala, a Spanish-born American evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist, was best known for expounding the philosophical perspective that Darwinism and religious faith are compatible. Ayala earned a degree in physics (B.S., 1955) from the University of Madrid before studying theology at the Pontifical Faculty of San Esteban in Salamanca, Spain. He was ordained a priest in the Dominican order in 1960, but he left the priesthood the same year. He received a Ph.D. (1964) in genetics from Columbia University, New York City, having carried out his doctoral work under the guidance of geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky. Ayala’s thesis examined the genetic fitness of fruit flies (Drosophila) and revealed that the pace of evolution was dependent on the amount of genetic variation in a population. After early appointments at Rockefeller University, New York City, and Providence (R.I.) College, Ayala became a professor of genetics in 1971 at the University of California, Davis. He then moved to the University of California, Irvine, as a professor of biological sciences (from 1987), philosophy (from 1989), logic and philosophy of science (from 2000), and from 2003 as University Professor, the only faculty member at Irvine to hold that title. In the 1970s Ayala investigated the process of genetic variation and natural selection at the molecular level. Later, he made significant contributions to public health through his research into the population structure, mode of reproduction, and evolution of parasitic protozoans. Throughout his career Ayala defended the teaching of evolution in public schools in the United States, and his efforts served to strengthen evolutionary theory. He served as an expert witness in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (1981), which overturned a state law that required the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in science classes. In 1984 and again in 1999, he was the principal author of Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences. In Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (2007), Ayala argued that creationist beliefs run counter to theological concepts. For ex-

ample, orthodox Christian beliefs posit the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent Creator despite the fact that the world is filled with predators, diseases, and other so-called evils. Ayala noted that attributing these defects to an “intelligent designer” called into question the Creator’s omnipotence and benevolence. By attributing these defects to the trial-and-error process of natural selection, however, the Creator is absolved of the responsibility for evil in the world. Ayala was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serving (1993–96) as chair of its board of directors. He was also an adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. (JOHN P. RAFFERTY) Baan, Iwan (b. Feb. 8, 1975, Alkmaar, Neth.) Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan’s international profile continued to rise in 2010 as he captured striking images of structures, including Italy’s MAXXI Museum, which opened in May, and the pavilions at Shanghai Expo 2010. Baan used unexpected perspectives and the presence of people and movement to revive the traditionally static art of building photography. Baan received his first camera at the age of 12, and he went on to study photography at The Hague’s Royal Academy of Art. Though he was attracted to digital photography, he was initially uninterested in architecture as a subject, owing to the typically sedate style of such shots. By the late 1990s Baan, having left the Academy of Art without graduating, was living in New York City and providing the images for art books and children’s books. In 2004 Baan contacted Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas with an offer to help turn an exhibition of images produced by Koolhaas’s studio into an interactive Web site. Koolhaas was known for taking design inspiration from the cultural life of the cities where his buildings were constructed, and the influence of this ideology became apparent in Baan’s photography. Baan worked for the architect in such cities as Beijing, and his experience there played a key role in the development of his humanfocused aesthetic. Beijing’s booming construction industry allowed Baan to document not only the city’s rising and changing structures but also the liveliness of its construction sites, which were occupied constantly by hundreds or even thousands of workers.

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As Baan gained recognition for his ability to portray buildings in compelling and unusual ways, his client list expanded to include other architects as well as magazines and newspapers. He traveled around the world to work on commissions while keeping a base in Amsterdam, where he maintained a studio in which to develop his photographic techniques. Among the structures that he photographed was the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, U.A.E. Baan’s reputation as an artist in his own right was given a boost in late 2008 when a London architectural school hosted his first solo exhibition. It focused heavily on his Beijing images and offered a showcase for a 3-D technique he had developed for photographing both finished buildings and scale models; his images of these models were often effective in helping architects secure approval to build their designs. Baan’s stature was such that his photographs could enrich the reputations of the architects whose work he documented. In 2009 his images appeared in the books The SANAA Studios, which showcased the Japanese architectural firm founded by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (q.v.), and Porsche Museum, which featured the newly built German museum. (MELISSA ALBERT) Batista, Eike (b. Nov. 3, 1956, Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Braz.) In March 2010 Brazilian business magnate Eike Batista appeared at number 8 on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires with an estimated wealth of some $27 billion, a huge gain of $19.5 billion over his net worth in 2009, when he stood at number 61. Batista, who made his fortune in mining and oil and natural gas exploration, had entered the Forbes list in 2008 at number 142 (net worth $6.6 billion), and just two years later he was one of the 10 wealthiest people in the world. Batista’s father, Eliezer Batista da Silva, was a prominent Brazilian businessman who served as the country’s minister of mines and energy in the 1960s. After spending his early childhood in Brazil, Batista gained his secondary education in Europe with the encouragement of his German-born mother. In the 1970s he studied metallurgy at the Rhenish-Westphalian Technical University in Aachen, Ger., before returning to Brazil. There, at the age of 23, he launched a company that mined and traded gold.

After making millions of dollars in mining ventures during the 1980s, Batista expanded his business over the following two decades. He invested in a number of industries, including energy generation, petroleum and natural gas exploration, logistics, shipbuilding, and real estate. By 2010 he had established a collection of corporations that operated under the rubric of EBX Group. Like EBX, each of those corporations had an X in its name, which for Batista symbolized the multiplication of wealth. He founded OGX, an oil and gas company, in 2007 and spent about $1 billion on licenses to explore a number of potentially oil-rich areas off the Brazilian coast. Sergio Moraes—Reuters/Landov

Brazilian business tycoon Eike Batista

Batista’s rapid rise to billionaire status attracted much attention from the media, which dubbed him “King Midas.” His elopement with model Luma de Oliveira in 1991 (and the couple’s expensive 2004 divorce) made headlines, as did his penchant for pricey speedboat racing and his unabashed vow to become the world’s richest man. Batista’s extravagance and boastfulness inevitably drew criticism, and some Brazilians questioned his integrity. His mining company, MMX, was fined several times for failing to follow environmental regulations, and in 2008 a group of Tupí-Guaraní Indians accused his logistics company, LLX, of using bribery and coercion to force the group off its land. In July 2008 police raided

Batista’s offices and home as part of an investigation into allegations of fraud, tax evasion, and gold smuggling; he later was cleared of wrongdoing. Many Brazilians, however, applauded Batista’s goal of making his country one of the world’s top economic powers. In 2009 his financial support helped Rio de Janeiro win its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, and in August 2010 Batista’s oil and gas company OGX reported the discovery of natural gas reserves that, if exploited, could provide more than one-quarter of Brazil’s requirements. (HEATHER CAMPBELL) Bertone, Tarcisio Cardinal (b. Dec. 2, 1934, Romano Canavese, Italy) In April 2010 Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, Vatican secretary of state and an outspoken defender of Roman Catholic doctrine and tradition, issued a public statement in which he responded to criticism of the church hierarchy’s handling of an ongoing sexual abuse scandal. Recent revelations of decades of sexual abuse of parishioners, particularly of children, by priests in Ireland, Austria, and Germany had spurred some critics to call for an end to the long tradition of celibacy among priests. In his statement Bertone further stoked the controversy not only by defending celibacy among priests but also by generally linking pedophilia to male homosexuality. Bertone was ordained a priest in the Salesian order in 1960. He was professor of moral theology and canon law at Pontifical Salesian University in Rome from 1967 to 1991. Meanwhile, he contributed to the 1983 revision of the Code of Canon Law and served as consultant to several church bodies, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for preserving Catholic doctrine and evaluating according to canon law the warrant for disciplinary action against clergy. In 1995 Bertone was appointed secretary of the Congregation, a position in which he worked closely with the body’s prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. He also served as archbishop of Vercelli (1991–95) and of Genoa (2002–06). In 2003 he was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, and in June 2006 Ratzinger (who had been elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005) appointed him secretary of state, the second highest position in the church hierarchy. In 2007 Bertone was also appointed camerlengo of the holy Roman church, a position that placed 75

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him in charge of church finances and property, and the following year he was named cardinal-bishop of Frascati. Even prior to becoming Vatican secretary, Bertone had repudiated what he perceived as outside attacks against the church, especially by the secular media and in popular culture. For example, in 2005 he denounced as “lies” Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003), which had popularized a theory that Jesus Christ had survived crucifixion and had had a child with Mary Magdalen but that the Vatican had covered up the story. After he assumed the office of Vatican secretary in September 2006, Bertone continued to challenge secular critiques of Catholic tradition and church administration. His first task was to defuse rapidly mounting tension and prevent a backlash over comments Benedict had recently made in Germany that had been interpreted as being insensitive toward Islam. Later that year Aleksey II, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, charged that Roman Catholics had been proselytizing its members in Russia and Ukraine. Bertone rebutted Aleksey’s claims and affirmed that the churches had a “good relationship.” In 2007 he turned his focus to media coverage of the church sexual abuse scandal and denounced the reporting as being disproportionately negative and biased. (MATT STEFON) Bigelow, Kathryn Ann (b. Nov. 27, 1951, San Carlos, Calif.) In March 2010 Kathryn Bigelow, an American film director and screenwriter who was noted for thoughtful, intense action films that often featured protagonists struggling with inner conflict, became the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for her 2008 Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, a low-budget movie that follows an elite squad of bomb detonators working in Iraq. The film, in which she explored the dangers of armed conflict and the attraction it holds for some soldiers, earned five other Academy Awards, including best picture. The awards presentation featured an unusual competition for the Oscar for best director: Bigelow’s chief rival was her former husband, James Cameron, a well-known director of big-budget blockbusters. Bigelow studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, and in the early 1970s she moved to New York City to participate in the Whitney Museum’s independent study program. She soon 76

thoughts and memories from one person to another. After the psychological thriller The Weight of Water (2000), Bigelow helmed K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). Based on a true event, it focuses on a Soviet nuclear submarine that suffers a radiation leak. The action film, though generally wellreviewed, failed to find an audience. The meticulously crafted The Hurt Locker began winning awards in 2009. It won six awards, including best film and best director, at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards presentation in 2010, prior to its Academy Awards triumph. (AMY TIKKANEN)

Award-winning film director Kathryn Bigelow became interested in filmmaking and eventually earned a scholarship to the graduate film school at Columbia University, New York City. There she made the short film The Set-Up (1978). After graduating from Columbia in 1979, Bigelow worked on her first featurelength movie, The Loveless, which she co-wrote and co-directed (with Monty Montgomery). The 1982 drama focused on a visit by a group of bikers to a small Southern town and the ensuing violence. Bigelow was subsequently sent a number of scripts, most of which were high-school comedies. Uninterested in the offers, she instead began teaching in 1983 at the California Institute of the Arts. In 1987 Bigelow returned to the big screen with Near Dark, a vampire flick that became a cult classic. She began her two-year marriage to Cameron in 1989, the same year she directed and co-wrote Blue Steel, which she described as a “woman’s action film.” The crime drama features a policewoman who is stalked by a serial killer. Bigelow’s next movie, Point Break (1991), centres on an FBI agent whose loyalty is tested when he infiltrates a charismatic gang of bank-robbing surfers. In addition to being a box-office success, the film solidified Bigelow’s place in the traditionally male-dominated world of action films. With the science-fiction movie Strange Days (1995), she created a stylish drama involving futuristic technology that enables the transmission of

Blankfein, Lloyd (b. Sept. 20, 1954, Bronx, N.Y.) On April 27, 2010, Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of the investment banking and securities company Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., testified regarding the company’s business practices before the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission—a group that Congress had appointed to assess the causes of the global financial crisis. Earlier that month the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Goldman Sachs for securities fraud for having allegedly misled investors when it marketed a subprime-mortgage-backed investment product known as Abacus. By July the firm had settled with the SEC by agreeing to pay a record $550 million in penalties and to reform its business practices. Lloyd Craig Blankfein was raised in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His father was employed as a U.S. Postal Service clerk, and his mother worked as a receptionist. In 1971 he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School as the valedictorian of his class, and he subsequently attended Harvard College on an academic scholarship, earning an A.B. in 1975; he earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1978. Blankfein was later employed as a corporate tax attorney for the law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine before joining J. Aron & Co., a commodities-trading firm, as a preciousmetals trader in 1981. In the same year, the company was purchased by Goldman Sachs, and it thereafter operated as a subsidiary. Blankfein became a partner of Goldman Sachs in 1988, and in 1994 he was named cohead of the J. Aron subsidiary; by 2002 he was head of all sales and trading. In 2004 Blankfein was named president and chief operating

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officer of Goldman Sachs, and two years later he succeeded Henry Paulson as chairman and CEO after Paulson was nominated to serve as the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury under Pres. George W. Bush. Blankfein quickly became one of the highest-earning chief executives on Wall Street, and in 2008—owing to a decrease in market liquidity resulting from the global economic crisis—he transformed Goldman Sachs from an investment bank into a bank holding company, thereby putting it under the respected regulatory oversight of the Federal Reserve and giving it access to Fed credit. Blankfein was named 2009 Person of the Year by the British business newspaper Financial Times, but owing to his controversial comments— such as that as a banker he was “doing God’s work”—and to his high compensation amid the economic downturn, he was also named Most Outrageous CEO of 2009 by the American business magazine Forbes. (JEANNETTE NOLEN) Brazile, Trevor (b. Nov. 16, 1976, Amarillo, Texas) In 2010 American rodeo cowboy Trevor Brazile once again led the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) world standings by a healthy margin, and despite taking a month off because of an elbow injury, he secured a record eighth world all-around title (including five straight), surpassing the record of seven titles set by Ty Murray in 1998. Brazile had earned more than $200,000 in each of a record 10 consecutive seasons and finished 2010 with nearly $508,000, more than $300,000 ahead of second-place cowboy Curtis Cassidy. Brazile also ended atop the standings in team roping (with partner-heeler Patrick Smith) and tie-down roping, giving him his second Triple Crown in four years. Brazile’s father, Jimmy Brazile, was a professional rodeo cowboy who finished in the top 20 in steer roping three times (1979, 1980, 1982); his mother, Glenda, also competed in rodeos. Under their tutelage Brazile began riding and roping at an early age. He earned an associate’s degree in arts and sciences from Vernon (Texas) Regional Junior College, which he attended on a rodeo scholarship. He then attended West Texas A&M University in Canyon, but he left before graduation to join the PRCA in 1996. He first qualified for the National Finals Rodeo (NFR)—the rodeo season’s final event, in which only the best cowboys compete—in

1998, finishing in second place in steer roping and third behind Murray in the all-around standings. Brazile earned his first all-around title in 2002. For the next several years, he dominated rodeo through his strength in steer roping, team roping (as both header and heeler), and tiedown roping, in which a calf is roped. Such breadth allowed him to surpass other cowboys who tended to be more specialized. He won six more allaround titles (2003–04 and 2006–09) as well as titles in steer roping (2006 and 2007) and tie-down roping (2007 and 2009). In 2003 Brazile became the first man to qualify for the Wrangler NFR in four events: tie-down roping, steer roping, and team roping as header and as heeler. Three years later he set the single-season earnings record with more than $329,000 and became the youngest cowboy to win more than $2 million in his career. By winning the all-around, steer-roping, and tie-down roping titles in 2007, he became the first cowboy to capture the rodeo Triple Crown since 1983, when it was won by his father-in-law, Roy Cooper. By 2010 Brazile was the highest-earning cowboy in the sport, with the first $500,000 season and more than $3 million in lifetime winnings. (ERIK GREGERSEN) Brees, Drew (b. Jan. 15, 1979, Austin, Texas) On Feb. 7, 2010, American football quarterback Drew Brees led the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL) to the team’s first Super Bowl championship, in which the Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31–17. Brees completed 32 passes (which tied Tom Brady’s Super Bowl record set in 2004) for 288 yd and two touchdowns, and he was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Drew Christopher Brees grew up in Austin, where he was a standout highschool athlete in baseball and basketball as well as football. As a senior he led the football team to a state title and took Texas 5A (the division that features the state’s largest high schools) Offensive Player of the Year honours. Considered too short (standing 1.83 m [6 ft] tall) and too weak-armed by the major college programs in his home state, he attended Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., earning a bachelor’s degree (2001) in industrial management. Brees was a three-year starting quarterback at Purdue, where he set school and Big Ten Conference records for almost every major career

passing statistic, including passing yards and touchdowns. In his senior season he led the Purdue Boilermakers to their first Rose Bowl berth in 34 years and finished third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy. Brees was selected by the San Diego Chargers with the first pick of the second round of the 2001 NFL draft. He became the team’s starting quarterback in his second season, but he failed to turn around the then-woeful Chargers quickly, and in his third year he lost playing time to 41-year-old Doug Flutie. When the Chargers acquired rookie quarterback Philip Rivers in 2004, it was assumed that Brees’s days in San Diego were numbered. Brees, however, remained the Chargers’ starting quarterback during the 2004 season and led the team to a surprising 12–4 record en route to earning the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award and Pro Bowl honours. He followed these achievements with a solid if unspectacular season in 2005, but a shoulder injury that he suffered in the season finale made the Chargers wary of signing him to a long-term contract, so Brees instead signed a free-agent deal with the Saints. In his first year in New Orleans, Brees reversed the fortunes of a team that had gone 3–13 the previous season, leading the Saints to a 10–6 record in 2006 and a berth in the National Football Conference championship game. He led the league in passing yards that year and was named first-team All-Pro for his efforts. In 2008 Brees threw for New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees

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5,069 yd—only 15 fewer than Dan Marino’s single-season record—and was once again voted to the Pro Bowl. In 2009 Brees had another Pro Bowl season and set an NFL record by completing 70.6% of his passes. More significant, he led the Saints to a franchise-best 13–0 start and the franchise’s first Super Bowl berth. (ADAM AUGUSTYN) Bridges, Jeff (b. Dec. 4, 1949, Los Angeles, Calif.) Versatile actor Jeff Bridges—who received numerous Academy Award nominations for his performances as a conflicted high schooler (The Last Picture Show, 1971), an intinerant thief (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, 1974), a warmhearted alien (Starman, 1984), and a U.S. president (The Contender, 2000)— laid claim to a 2010 Oscar for his role as a bedraggled country musician in Crazy Heart (2009). The handsome and likable Bridges also captured the Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor. Jeffrey Leon Bridges, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges, made his acting debut at age eight in Sea Hunt (1958–61), a television series in which his father starred and his older brother, Beau, also appeared. After graduating from University High School in Los Angeles, Bridges served in the Coast Guard reserves and later moved to New York City to study acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Following his breakout role in The Last Picture Show, Bridges played a paleontologist in King Kong (1976); a wealthy real-estate agent in Stay Hungry (1976), and a man obsessed with discovering his brother’s assassin in Winter Kills (1979). The 1980s and ’90s held a steady stream of film roles for Bridges. He starred as a hacker–arcade owner in the science-fiction classic TRON (1982), as a former athlete searching for a female fugitive in Against All Odds (1984), and as a suspect in the murder of his wife in the thriller Jagged Edge (1985). He also costarred with his brother in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), about a pair of piano-playing brothers who expand their failing lounge act to include a sexy female singer (played by Michelle Pfeiffer). The 1990s brought roles in Texasville (1990), a sequel to The Last Picture Show; The Fisher King (1991), about a despondent radio show host who embarks on a mystical journey to help a homeless man (played by Robin Williams); American Heart (1992), the touching story of an ex-con dad trying 78

to relate to his son; the thriller The Vanishing (1993); and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), a romantic comedy. Perhaps his best-known film from the 1990s, however, was the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998). As the Dude, Bridges portrayed a lazy pot-smoking unemployed loafer who gets drawn into a crime ring in a case of mistaken identity. The film became a cult classic, and Bridges earned rave reviews for his convincing performance. His later films include Seabiscuit (2003) and Iron Man (2008), in which he played the hero’s nemesis. In 2009 Bridges starred with George Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats, a comedy that centres on a secret U.S. Army unit trained to use psychic powers. In 2010 he appeared in two films, starring as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. (“Rooster”) Cogburn in the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit and reviving his TRON character in the sequel TRON: Legacy. (KAREN SPARKS) Burns, Ursula M. (b. Sept. 20, 1958, New York, N.Y.) In March 2010 Ursula M. Burns, the American CEO of the international document-management and businessservices company Xerox Corp., was appointed by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama to serve as vice-chair of the President’s Export Council (PEC), a group of labour, business, and government leaders who advise the president on methods to promote the growth of American exports. Two months later Burns added the title of Xerox chairman to her already impressive résumé. Burns was raised in a low-incomehousing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her single mother operated a home day-care centre and took ironing and cleaning jobs to pay for Burns to attend Cathedral High School, a Roman Catholic preparatory school. Excelling at math, Burns later earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (1980) from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Brooklyn. In the same year, she began pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University, New York City, and joined Xerox as a summer mechanical-engineering intern through the company’s graduate engineering program for minorities, which in turn paid a portion of her educational expenses. After completing her master’s degree in 1981, Burns joined Xerox as a fulltime employee and quickly began working in product development. From 1992 she progressed through various roles in

Xerox Corp. CEO Ursula Burns management and engineering, and in 2000 she became senior vice president of corporate strategic services, a position in which she oversaw production operations. The appointment eventually afforded Burns the opportunity to broaden her leadership in the areas of global research, product development, marketing, and delivery, and in 2007 she was named president of Xerox. Two years later she succeeded Anne Mulcahy as CEO, making Burns not only the first African American woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company but also the first woman to accede to the position of CEO of such a major public company from another female executive. Burns was widely credited with increasing the company’s development, production, and sales of colourcapable devices. In November 2009 Obama selected Burns to help lead the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition, a national alliance of more than 1,000 technological organizations endeavouring to improve student participation and performance in the aforementioned subject areas through legislative advocacy. Earlier that year Burns was named to Ebony magazine’s Power 150 List and was number 14 on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s 100 Most Powerful Women. (JEANNETTE NOLEN) Cable, Vince (b. May 9, 1943, York, Eng.) On May 12, 2010, Vince Cable, one of Britain’s most respected politicians, was appointed secretary of state for business, innovations and skills in the

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U.K.’s new Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government. At the age of 67, Cable was a Liberal Democrat who had won praise for his leadership in his party and for his accurate warnings ahead of the 2008–09 banking crisis and recession. As business secretary he demanded, among other directives, that British banks curb their bonus payments to their highest-paid employees and that they revive lending to small businesses. He sparked criticism, however, when he broke his election campaign promises not to allow any increase in university tuition fees. He barely held on to his job in December after he “declared war” on media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a proposed takeover of British Sky Broadcasting by Murdoch’s News Corp. and then hinted that he might resign and bring down the government. John Vincent Cable studied economics at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (B.A., 1966), and the University of Glasgow (Ph.D., 1973). He served for two years as treasury finance officer in Kenya before returning to the U.K. in 1968 as an economics lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He served as an economist with the British government in the 1970s and with the Commonwealth Secretariat in the 1980s. From 1990 to 1997 he worked for Shell Oil Co., ending his career there as its chief economist. His political career was ignited in the 1970s in Glasgow, where he joined the Labour Party, served as a city councillor (1971–74), and became a close friend of and, briefly, adviser to John Smith, the future leader of the Labour Party. In 1982, appalled by the leftward lurch of the Labour Party, Cable joined the newly formed Social Democratic Party. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party in 1988, he became a Liberal Democrat. In 1997 he was elected MP for Twickenham in West London, capturing the seat from the Conservatives. Cable’s long experience as an economist in both the private and public sectors made him a natural choice as a Liberal Democrat spokesman on finance. He used his position to secure a major switch in party policy, away from higher taxes and higher public spending. In 2006 his fellow MPs elected him deputy leader. (When Sir Menzies Campbell suddenly resigned in October 2007, Cable spent two months as acting party leader.) Cable’s wit, combined with his authoritative warnings that levels of personal debt were too high and that the banking systems of the

U.K. and the U.S. were heading for trouble, prompted many in his party to encourage him to run for leader, but he declined to stand and remained deputy leader under Nick Clegg. When the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition was formed after the May 2010 general election, Cable joined the cabinet and soon after resigned from his post as deputy leader. (PETER KELLNER) Cameron, David (b. Oct. 9, 1966, London, Eng.) On May 11, 2010, Conservative Party leader David Cameron was asked to form a government as the U.K.’s new prime minister. In the general election on May 6, voters gave his party its biggest seat gain since 1931, but the total fell short of an outright majority. After negotiations for a “Lib-Lab” coalition failed, Labour leader Gordon Brown resigned as prime minister and was replaced by Cameron at the head of a Conservative–Liberal Democratic Party coalition—Britain’s first coalition government since World War II. One of the cornerstones of the power-sharing agreement was a pledge to formulate a budget-reduction plan in short order. In October Cameron’s government announced a five-year austerity plan that included the country’s most extensive spending cuts in decades, notably reductions to welfare entitlements and layoffs of up to 500,000 public-sector employees. David William Donald Cameron, a descendant of King William IV, was born into a family with both wealth and an aristocratic pedigree. He attended Eton College and Brasenose College, Oxford, from which he graduated (1988) with a first-class degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. After Oxford he joined the Conservative Party Research Department. He became a special adviser to Norman Lamont, then chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1992, and the following year he undertook the same role for Michael Howard, then home secretary. In 1994 Cameron became director of corporate affairs at the media company Carlton Communications, where he remained until entering Parliament in 2001 as MP for Witney, northwest of London. Cameron quickly attracted attention as the leading member of a new generation of Conservatives: young, moderate, and charismatic, and in 2003 he was made a leading Conservative spokesman in the House of Commons. In 2004 Howard (then party leader) appointed Cameron to the post of head of policy

coordination, which put Cameron in charge of preparing the Conservatives’ manifesto for the 2005 general election. Although the Conservatives lost the election, Cameron’s self-assured speech at the party’s annual conference in October 2005 transformed his reputation, and he was subsequently elected to succeed Howard as Conservative leader. Under Cameron’s leadership the party shed its right-wing image and placed first in the 2006 local elections, its best showing at the polls in some 15 years. At the party conference in October 2007, Cameron made another impressive speech. He lambasted Brown, who had succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister in June, for ruling out a referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty and criticized Labour’s performance on crime and with regard to the National Health Service. Most daringly, despite trailing in the polls, he goaded the new prime minister to call an election. By December of that year, the Conservatives were ahead of Labour by as much as 13% in the opinion polls—their biggest lead since 1989. The global economic crisis that began in 2008 helped Cameron solidify the Conservatives’ advantage, as did an internal revolt by Labour ministers. This and Labour’s poor showing in the 2009 European Parliament elections put Cameron and the party that he led well positioned for the election that Brown was compelled by law to call in early 2010. (PETER KELLNER) Carell, Steve (b. Aug. 16, 1962, Concord, Mass.) In 2010 American actor Steve Carell had moviegoers laughing with the release of three film comedies. He starred opposite Tina Fey in Date Night, a romantic comedy about mistaken identity; provided the voice of Gru, a supervillain who plots to steal the Moon, in the animated Despicable Me; and played a cheerfully oblivious misfit in Dinner for Schmucks. Television viewers, however, found little humour in Carell’s announcement that after the 2010–11 season he was leaving the popular TV situation comedy The Office, in which he starred as the clueless boss Michael Scott. Steven John Carell graduated (1984) from Denison University, Granville, Ohio, and moved to Chicago, where in 1989 he joined the improvisational troupe Second City. Two years later he made his motion picture debut in Curley Sue. Other film and television work followed, including various roles on the 79

Biographies

sitcom The Dana Carvey Show (1996), for which he also wrote. Carell’s big break came in 1999 when he began appearing on The Daily Show, a satiric news program hosted by Jon Stewart. Cast as a befuddled correspondent, he became popular for such segments as Even Stephven, in which he debated castmate Stephen Colbert. In 2005 Carell left The Daily Show to star in an American version of the British sitcom The Office, cocreated by British actor Ricky Gervais. Filmed as a mock documentary, the American series centred on the employees at a Scranton, Pa., branch of the fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin. For his portrayal of a delusional and socially challenged office manager, Carell received numerous Emmy Award nominations, and in 2006 he won a Golden Globe. In addition to his television work, Carell garnered attention for his film roles. He appeared in the box-office hits Bruce Almighty (2003), a comedy starring Jim Carrey, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), in which he portrayed Brick Tamland, a weatherman with an IQ of 48. Carell’s major film breakthrough came with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), which he co-wrote and starred in as the title character. The comedy, directed by Judd Apatow, combined crude humour with touching moments and became a critical and commercial hit. Carell’s success continued with the dark comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006), in which he portrayed a suicidal Marcel Proust scholar. After providing the voice of a squirrel in the animated Over the Hedge (2006), Carell appeared in such films as Evan Almighty (2007), a sequel to Bruce Almighty; Dan in Real Life (2007), a dramedy about a single father who unexpectedly falls in love; and Get Smart (2008), as the bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in a film adaptation of the 1960s TV series. (AMY TIKKANEN) Carlos, Roberto (b. April 19, 1941, Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Espírito Santo state, Braz.) Enduring Brazilian singer-songwriter and pop icon Roberto Carlos enjoyed an especially fruitful year in 2010. In March an exhibition opened in São Paulo that looked back on his storied life and career; it encompassed his role at the forefront of the 1960s rock-and-roll movement in Brazil as well as his later popularity as a performer of romantic ballads and boleros. A month later Carlos set off on a 22-date tour of North and 80

South America commemorating his 50 years in the music industry. Roberto Carlos Braga was born into a lower-middle-class family and displayed an early affinity for music, making his vocal debut on a local radio station at age nine. As a teenager he moved to the Rio de Janeiro area and formed a band inspired by the music of such American rock-and-roll progenitors as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. The band, originally called the Snacks and later the Sputniks, performed on television and at various local celebrations. In 1959 Carlos embarked on a solo career as a bossa nova musician in the vein of the widely popular Brazilian singer João Gilberto. Carlos failed to attain similar commercial success, however, and after releasing his first fulllength album, Louco por você (1961), he returned to rock music. Andres Cristaldo—EPA/Landov

Brazilian singer Roberto Carlos Collaborating with his former bandmate Erasmo Carlos, Roberto recorded covers of American pop hits such as Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” as well as original songs co-written with Erasmo. By 1964, when he released the album É proibido fumar, he had become recognized throughout Brazil as the leading exponent of a new musical style known as iê-iê-iê (“yeah-yeah-yeah”), which drew from the stylishly primitive upbeat sound of the Anglo-American rock of that era. Carlos was also, by correlation, the public face of the broader youthoriented cultural movement known as Jovem Guarda (“Young Guard”), and in 1965 he began cohosting a musical variety TV program by that name. Carlos’s

irrepressible popularity—bolstered by a top-selling album, Roberto Carlos canta para a juventude (1965), and a string of hit songs that tapped into the rebellious zeitgeist—swiftly earned him the nickname “the King.” Carlos frequently recorded Spanishlanguage versions of his songs, which became successful in neighbouring Argentina, and beginning in the late 1960s he sought to further expand his audience by adopting a more mature musical style. Still working with Erasmo Carlos, he co-wrote and recorded a number of sentimental ballads—including the softly romantic “Detalhes” (1971) and the lush “Proposta” (1973)—that made him an international celebrity. By the late 1970s Carlos had become the best-selling Brazilian musician in history. Often praised for his sensual baritone voice, he won a Grammy Award in 1988 for best Latin pop performance, as well as Latin Grammys in 2005 and 2006. By that time he had also sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Chinchilla Miranda, Laura (b. March 28, 1959, Desamparados, Costa Rica) Just over 60 years after Costa Rican women gained the right to vote, Laura Chinchilla Miranda became on Feb. 7, 2010, the first woman to be elected the country’s president. The protégée of outgoing president Óscar Arias Sánchez, Chinchilla won the election with 46.8% of the vote—more than 20 percentage points ahead of the runner-up, Ottón Solís Fallas, who had been Arias’s main challenger in 2006. Chinchilla took office in May. Chinchilla, the eldest of four children, was born in a suburb of the capital, San José. Her middle-class Roman Catholic family had a legacy of involvement in national politics: her father, Rafael Ángel Chinchilla, served as the country’s comptroller general in the 1970s and again in the ’80s. Chinchilla earned a bachelor’s degree in political science (1981) from the University of Costa Rica and a master’s degree in public policy (1989) from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Back in Costa Rica, Chinchilla launched a career as an international consultant, specializing in the areas of judicial reform and public security, for such organizations as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme. She also became affiliated

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ing for law enforcement and education, to combat illicit drug trafficking, and to create jobs, notably in environmentally friendly and technological enterprises. Her social conservatism, particularly her positions against abortion and same-sex marriage, also reassured many voters in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. (HEATHER CAMPBELL)

Costa Rican Pres. Laura Chinchilla Monica Quesada/AP

with a number of international committees and foundations that promoted public safety and human rights, and she lectured and wrote widely on those topics. Chinchilla gained her first public office in 1994, when she became viceminister of public security under Pres. José María Figueres Olsen of the National Liberation Party (PLN). She was promoted in 1996 to minister of public security, a post she held for two years. In 2002, as a member of the social-democratic PLN, Chinchilla won a four-year term in Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly, where she represented the province of San José. Building on her established commitment to public security and justice, she focused her legislative efforts on combating organized crime, public corruption, domestic violence, and crimes affecting children. She also called for free-trade agreements with various global trading partners and the liberalization of state-controlled components of Costa Rica’s economy. At the end of her term in the Legislative Assembly, in 2006, Chinchilla became vice president and minister of justice under President Arias, also of the PLN. Ineligible to run for a consecutive term in 2010, Arias endorsed Chinchilla as his successor, and she resigned in 2008 to concentrate on her presidential campaign. Although some opponents likened Chinchilla to a mere puppet of the outgoing president, she wooed many voters with her pledges to increase spend-

Collette, Toni (b. Nov. 1, 1972, Sydney, Australia) Australian actress Toni Collette continued in 2010 to mine the fraught territory of mental illness for laughs in the second season of the darkly comic series United States of Tara on the Showtime cable television network. Her role as the central character, a Midwestern mother suffering from dissociative identity disorder, demanded that Collette evoke an ever-shifting array of personalities. Though the antics of her character’s “alters” often resulted in amusing situations, Collette managed to consistently reveal the pathos beneath the slapstick. For her portrayal she received an Emmy Award (2009) and a Golden Globe (2010) for best actress in a comedy series. Antonia Collette was raised in the Sydney suburb of Blacktown. At age 16 she was awarded (1989) a scholarship from the Australian Theatre for Young People, and she later briefly attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She dropped out to accept her first film role, in Spotswood (1992), opposite AnAustralian actress Toni Collette

thony Hopkins and Russell Crowe. She made her first significant foray into theatre as Sonya in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1992). Her rollicking turn as the overweight, unhappy title character in Muriel’s Wedding (1994) brought Collette to international attention, and a spate of supporting roles in films, including Emma (1996), Clockwatchers (1997), and Velvet Goldmine (1998), followed. Her performance in The Sixth Sense (1999)—in which she evinced the distress of a mother whose troubled son can see ghosts—brought her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She received a Tony Award nomination for The Wild Party (2000), her Broadway debut. Though occasionally relegated to one-dimensional roles in thrillers such as Shaft (2000) and Changing Lanes (2002), Collette won accolades for the gravitas she brought to ancillary characters in About a Boy (2002) and The Hours (2002). Her musical talents were brought to the fore in Connie and Carla (2004), a comedy in which she played a woman hiding from the mob by impersonating a male drag performer. Though that film was panned, Collette eked positive notices for the ostensibly slight In Her Shoes (2005), in which she was featured as the dowdy sister to Cameron Diaz’s promiscuous wastrel. Her role in the ensemble comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006), in which she played the matriarch of a dysfunctional clan attempting to shepherd its youngest member to a children’s beauty pageant, earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress. She earned another Golden Globe nomination and an Emmy nomination for best supporting actress in a miniseries or television movie for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006). Collette then joined the supporting cast of the dramas Towelhead (2007) and The Black Balloon (2008). (RICHARD PALLARDY) Defar, Meseret (b. Nov. 19, 1983, Addis Ababa, Eth.) In 2010 Ethiopian distance runner Meseret Defar continued her string of victories—both indoor and outdoor. At the IAAF world indoor championships in Doha, Qatar, in March, she won the 3,000 m, her signature event. Although her time was well short of the indoor world record (8 min 23.72 sec) that she had held since 2007, it was Defar’s record fourth consecutive 3,000-m title in the biennial competition. Then in early

Hubert Boesl—dpa/Landov

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September, at the quadrennial World Cup/Continental Cup in Split, Croatia, she easily won at the same distance. Two weeks later in Philadelphia, Defar clocked a winning time of 1 hr 7 min 44 sec in her first-ever half-marathon race. As a girl, Defar won several primaryand secondary-school track events in Ethiopia. At the 1999 world youth championships in Poland—her first international competition—she took second place in the 3,000 m. The following year she won two silver medals, both in the 5,000 m, at the African championships in Algiers and the world junior championships in Santiago. During the 2002 season she secured gold medals in the 3,000- and 5,000-m races at the world junior championships, making her the first woman to win the 3,000 m–5,000 m double. Defar began competing at the senior level in 2003, but she fell ill prior to the world championships in Paris that August and failed to qualify for the 5,000m final. Although she executed a strong indoor season in 2004—in March she won the first of her four 3,000-m world indoor championship titles—she struggled to gain a position on the Ethiopian team for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. She was finally confirmed as a member of the team in mid-August and went on to capture the gold medal in the 5,000 m. In 2006 Defar took another 3,000-m gold at the world indoor championships, placed first in the World Cup 5,000 m, and set her first world record, in a 5,000-m race (14 min 24.53 sec) in June. In 2007 Defar seemed practically unstoppable. She finally conquered the 3,000-m indoor world record that had hitherto eluded her, set a world record in the outdoor 2 mi, and broke her own 2006 world record in the 5,000 m by almost eight seconds. In September she took first place in the 5,000 m at the world championships in Osaka, and shortly thereafter she set a new outdoor 2-mi record. These accomplishments earned her the honour of being named 2007 Female Athlete of the Year by both the IAAF and Track & Field News magazine. In January 2008 Defar added a world record in the indoor 2 mi to her outdoor 2-mi record. She ran a disappointing third in the 5,000 m at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and again at the 2009 world championships in Berlin, but over the 2009 season she scored two more world records: in the indoor 5,000 m and the indoor 2 mi. (EB ED.) 82

Demand, Thomas (b. 1964, Munich, W.Ger.) In May 2010 German photographer Thomas Demand took 25 images from his traveling exhibition “Nationalgalerie” to the Boymans–van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Neth., to commemorate 70 years since the bombing of that city and 65 years since the end of World War II. Created in collaboration with the London architectural firm Caruso St. John, the exhibition called to mind major events in postwar German history, using Demand’s signature medium: to-scale photographs of paperand-cardboard fabrications of scenes from the real world. Through such displays of calculated illusion, Demand continued his quest to topple the notion of photography as an unquestionable vehicle of objectivity, or “truth.” Thomas Cyrill Demand attended the Academy of Fine Arts (1987–90) in Munich and the Düsseldorf Art Academy (1990–92) before receiving a master’s degree in fine arts from Goldsmiths College (1994), London. Though he initially focused on sculpture, using photography to document his paper-and-cardboard reconstructions, in 1993 photography and sculpture traded places in his artistic process. The photograph became the “end product,” with the sculpture providing a means to that end. Demand’s subsequent sculptures were created specifically to be photographed. Working in front of a camera, he built three-dimensional indoor scenes from coloured paper and cardboard, using as models images drawn from personal memories and, more often, photographs found in the mass media. Humans are absent from Demand’s photographs, but evidence of human activity abounds in them. Staircase (1995) represents the artist’s memory of the stairwell in his childhood school. Barn (1997), one of a number of works evoking artists’ workshops, was inspired by an image of the studio of American painter Jackson Pollock. The most prominent of Demand’s works were those based on media photographs representing politically charged or otherwise sensational events. Corridor (1995) depicts the hallway leading to the apartment of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Poll (2001) makes reference to the disputed ballot count in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Kitchen (2004) reconstructs that room in the hideout of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein prior to his 2003 capture. Demand’s provocative artworks, with their suggestion of human presence

and their realistic artificiality, aim not only to draw viewers into the illusion but also to underscore the role that photography plays in cultivating illusion. To reinforce the status of the photographic image as illusion, Demand destroys his paper-and-cardboard models after they have been photographed. After 1992, when he had his first solo exhibition at the Tanit Gallery in Munich, Demand showed his work in major museums and galleries worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (2003–04); the Museum of Modern Art, New York City (2005); the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (2006); and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2007). In September 2009 “Nationalgalerie” was unveiled at Berlin’s New National Gallery, marking the anniversaries of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949) and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall (1989). (VIRGINIA GORLINSKI) Dyson, Sir James (b. May 2, 1947, Cromer, Norfolk, Eng.) British inventor Sir James Dyson’s unique product design and commercial success lent authority to his quest to revive the spirit of invention in Britain. In March 2010, in response to an invitation by the Conservative Party to propose policies to encourage innovation, he issued Ingenious Britain: Making the UK the Leading High Tech Exporter in Europe. Dyson’s report suggested, among other ideas, that universities be given the freedom to design unconventional engineering curricula and that they increase collaborative efforts with technology companies. As a boy, Dyson attended the prestigious Gresham’s schools in rural Holt, North Norfolk. After graduation he moved to London, where he attended (1965–66) the Byam Shaw School of Art before studying (1966–70) furniture and interior design at the Royal College of Art. At the latter institution he was introduced to the creative possibilities of uniting engineering with design. In 1970 he joined Rotork Controls Ltd., in Bath, where he and the company’s unconventional chairman, Jeremy Fry, designed and produced the Sea Truck, a small, fast, and versatile flat-bottomed fibreglass landing craft outfitted for use by military or civilian customers. In 1974 Dyson founded his own company to produce the Ballbarrow, a plastic wheelbarrow-like bin that rolled on a load-spreading ball instead of a narrow wheel.

Biographies Axel Heimken—APN/AP

uninterrupted stream. His products won many design awards and were exhibited in art and design museums worldwide. In 1997 he published Against the Odds (co-written with Giles Coren), an autobiographical account of his persistence in the face of discouragement. The following year he was made CBE, and in 2006 he was awarded a knighthood. The James Dyson Foundation was established in 2002 with the aim of encouraging young people to enter engineering through the awarding of prizes and grants. (ROBERT CURLEY)

British inventor Sir James Dyson with his bladeless fan Having grown impatient with clogged air filters in his Ballbarrow factory, in 1978 Dyson built a cyclone particle collector similar to devices used in larger industrial plants, such as sawmills. Adapting this solution to the construction of home vacuum cleaners, he worked for the next five years, testing more than 5,000 prototypes, before he produced a satisfactory model that swirled incoming dirty air around a cylindrical container, where the dust was separated by centrifugal force and settled by gravity while the purified air escaped out the top. Makers of traditional bag-type vacuum cleaners showed no interest in Dyson’s bagless device, arousing in him a lasting antipathy toward conventional businesses. He sold the cleaner, known as the GForce, to a company in Japan, where it became a commercial success and won a design prize in 1991. In 1993 Dyson opened a plant in North Wiltshire, and within two years his Dual Cyclone model became the top-selling vacuum cleaner in Britain, despite a retail price that was considerably higher than that of competing brands. Dyson’s other elegant and practical inventions include the Airblade (2006; a distinctive-looking high-speed energy-efficient hand dryer for public restrooms) and the Air Multiplier bladeless fan, introduced in 2009, in which air drawn through the base unit is blown over the inner surface of an ethereal airfoil-shaped ring, inducing air surrounding the ring to flow in an

Eroglu, Dervis (b. 1938, Famagusta, Cyprus [now Gazi Magusa, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus]) On April 23, 2010, Dervis Eroglu, a physician and 34-year veteran of Turkish Cyprus politics, was sworn in for a five-year term as the new president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Eroglu’s election was seen by both Greek and Turkish Cypriots as pivotal in terms of the future of the island. He campaigned on a nationalist platform that stressed sovereignty for the two states in Cyprus, rather than the coalition that his predecessor, Pres. Mehmet Ali Talat, had sought. The new president also criticized the slow pace of the bilateral talks between the two Cyprus presidents over the previous 18 months. Despite his reputation as a hard-liner, Eroglu stated in his campaign and reiterated in his acceptance speech that he favoured continuing the talks, with the goal of a solution before the end of the year. The bilateral discussions resumed after a pause due to the elections and change of government in the TRNC and another pause at year’s end when Eroglu had coronary bypass surgery. After completing his secondary education in Cyprus, Eroglu matriculated in Turkey. He went to the Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine, graduating in 1963, and then trained as a urologist at Ankara General Hospital. He returned home from Turkey in 1972 and practiced medicine until 1976. Eroglu entered politics after the creation in 1975 of the self-proclaimed Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (renamed the TRNC in 1983), and in 1976 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly as a candidate for the National Unity Party (UBP). He later served on the Constituent Assembly. Also in 1976 he was appointed minister of education, culture, youth, and sport of Turkish Cyprus, a post he held for two years. Eroglu became head of the UBP

for Gazi Magusa in 1977, and in 1983 he was elected chairman of the party. He remained as leader of the UBP until 2005, when he stood down to allow for younger men to take over, but he resumed party leadership in 2008. Eroglu first assumed the office of TRNC prime minister in July 1985 under Pres. Rauf Denktas and held that position until the end of 1993, when the UBP lost its legislative majority and he reverted to opposition party leader. He resumed the premiership in August 1996 and continued in office with different coalition governments until early 2004. He became prime minister again in May 2009. In the presidential election held on April 18, 2010, he challenged the pro-reunification Talat, who had been president since 2005. Running in a field of seven candidates, Eroglu won a slim (50.38%) majority, but it was enough to avoid a secondround election runoff against Talat (42.85%). (GEORGE H. KELLING) Falco, Edie (b. July 5, 1963, Brooklyn, N.Y.) On Aug. 29, 2010, American actress Edie Falco became the first performer to have won an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actress in both the drama and comedy categories when she received the award for her starring role in the comedy series Nurse Jackie. Falco played a hospital nurse who balances her medical responsibilities with an array of personal problems, including prescription-drug addiction. She previously received three Emmys (and three additional nominations) for her performance as Carmela Soprano in the HBO cable drama The Sopranos (1999–2007). Edith Falco was the daughter of a jazz drummer and an actress, and she grew up in the blue-collar Long Island suburbs. She studied acting at the State University of New York at Purchase. After graduating in 1986, Falco moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. Director and fellow SUNY Purchase graduate Hal Hartley gave her two of her first professional roles, in his films The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990). Falco landed parts in such movies as the independent film Laws of Gravity (1992) and Woody Allen’s Bullets over Broadway (1994). Falco found greater success on television, guest starring on such programs as Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order. In 1997 she won a recurring role on the acclaimed HBO prison drama Oz, on which she played a sin83

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Emmy Award-winning actress Edie Falco gle mother and correctional officer for three seasons. Among those impressed by Falco’s performance was the writerproducer David Chase, who in 1998 cast her in a lead role on a pilot he was creating for HBO, The Sopranos. The Sopranos was an immediate phenomenon, its influence extending into pop culture at large. The show centred on a New Jersey crime family helmed by Mafia boss Tony Soprano (played by James Gandolfini). Falco’s turn as Soprano’s long-suffering wife was praised for its complexity, and she received three Emmys (1999, 2001, and 2003) and two Golden Globe Awards (2000 and 2003). Two years after The Sopranos ended its run, Falco was back on the small screen with Nurse Jackie. Falco continued to perform in films, including Sunshine State (2002) and Freedomland (2006), and onstage, appearing on Broadway in Side Man (1998–99) and in revivals of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2002–03) and ’night Mother (2004–05). In June 2010, just weeks before her success at the Emmys, Falco drew critical acclaim for her portrayal of an ex-convict in the two-character offBroadway drama This Wide Night. (MELISSA ALBERT) Falls, Robert (b. March 2, 1954, Springfield, Ill.) Taking a radical turn in 2010, veteran director Robert Falls of Chicago’s

renowned Goodman Theatre stripped to the bare minimum his production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Bereft of props, scenery, and the usual trappings of dramatic performance, it was, as Falls himself proclaimed, “purely about the actors and the text.” The actors performed their scenes on a wooden pier and then retired to seats at the rear of the stage in full view of the audience. It was a bold and risky experiment for the seasoned Falls. Robert Arthur Falls grew up in rural Illinois. Drawn to drama even as a boy, he began to school himself by putting on puppet shows and directing his friends in performances. When his father’s career took the family to Urbana, Ill., Falls, then in middle school, enriched his imagination with an orgy of moviegoing. He won his first stage role when he was a sophomore in high school. As a student, Falls fed his blossoming interest by making trips to Chicago to watch professional theatre. He began to write and direct plays in addition to acting, and in 1976 he graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a B.F.A. in playwriting and directing. Falls studied briefly with an acting coach in New York City, but he returned to the Midwest to become part of the burgeoning little theatre scene then springing up in Chicago. It was a heady time for regional theatre, and Falls eagerly embraced the dynamic climate, accepting a variety of acting and directing jobs. He worked initially with playwright David Mamet at the St. Nicholas Theatre. After staging an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men in 1977 at Wisdom Bridge Theatre (founded 1974), Falls was asked to become the ensemble’s artistic director, a position he held until 1985. Under Falls’s leadership, Wisdom Bridge became known for its innovative interpretations and made a significant contribution to “off-Loop” theatre. Among the plays Falls directed while at Wisdom Bridge were Arthur Kopit’s Wings (1979), Tom Stoppard’s Travesties (1980), Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children (1981), Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1982), an adaptation of Jack Abbott’s letters, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison (1983), and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1985). In 1986 Falls became artistic director of the Goodman Theatre. There he extended a reputation he had gained for shocking the audience with what some considered to be gratuitous violence,

nudity, and couplings. Nevertheless, during his tenure the Goodman won the Tony for outstanding regional theatre (1992). He directed a number of highly successful productions, notably all 10 of August Wilson’s plays, and transferred many to Broadway, including Horton Foote’s The Young Man from Atlanta (1997) and Wilson’s King Hedley II (2001). Falls collaborated with actor Brian Dennehy on several plays, notably Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh (1990), which they remounted in 1992 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1999); and O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (2002). The latter two each won the Tony for best revival after moving to Broadway, with Falls also taking the best director Tony for Salesman. (KATHLEEN KUIPER) Ford, David (b. Feb. 24, 1951, Orpington, Kent, Eng.) On April 12, 2010, Northern Irish politician and Alliance Party leader David Ford was appointed justice minister for Northern Ireland as local justice and policing powers were returned to Northern Ireland after almost four decades under British control. Ford, who had been supported by both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party as a compromise candidate, oversaw the devolved powers, and in October he introduced a comprehensive justice bill to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford

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Ford grew up in southeastern England and first dabbled in politics when he was just 11, passing out literature for the Liberal Party prior to a 1962 by-election. Although English by birth, Ford had extensive family ties to Northern Ireland, and he moved there permanently in 1969. He attended Queen’s University, Belfast, earning a degree in economics, and joined the fledgling Alliance Party while still a student. He became a social worker in 1973, and he remained active in the Alliance Party over the next two decades. Ford campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat on the Antrim borough council in 1989, and the following year he left his job to enter politics full-time as the Alliance Party’s general secretary. In 1993 he won the seat on the Antrim borough council that had eluded him four years earlier. In the 1997 general election, he unsuccessfully contested the South Antrim seat in the Brit- Uruguayan association football sensation Diego ish House of Commons. Ford’s Forlán stature within the Alliance Party continued to rise, however, and he represented the party at the multi- association football (soccer) career party talks that led to the signing of the when he was awarded the Golden Ball Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agree- for the FIFA World Cup finals in South ment) in 1998. That accord led to the Africa as the tournament’s standout creation of a devolved government in player. Almost single-handedly he had Northern Ireland, and Ford was elected guided Uruguay to the semifinal round. to represent the constituency of South His ability and application, added to an Antrim in the newly created legislature. exemplary discipline, shone throughA poor showing for the Alliance Party out, and his all-around maturity was in the 2001 general election triggered never better displayed. (He was Man of the resignation of party leader Sean the Match three times.) Although Neeson, and Ford handily won the sub- Uruguay lost its semifinal, his volley against Germany in the third-place sequent leadership contest. As leader of the party, Ford embodied match—his 29th goal in 69 internaits pragmatic, centrist principles. He tional matches since 2002—was voted championed the devolved government, the tournament’s finest goal. Though going so far as to briefly designate him- primarily a striker, Forlán foraged in a self a unionist to prevent the collapse deeper, organizing role in midfield, of then first minister David Trimble’s took all the corner kicks, and showed government in November 2001. Ford unerring accuracy from other dead-ball also presided over a period of improv- situations. He was also the joint top ing electoral fortunes for the Alliance scorer of the tournament, with five Party as it preserved its six legislative goals. Two months earlier Forlán had seats in 2003 and picked up a seventh scored the winning goal in the Europa seat in 2007. In addition, in the U.K. League final for Club Atlético de general election of 2010, the Alliance Madrid against England’s Fulham FootParty won its first seat in the British ball Club. In late July he was honoured Parliament. (MICHAEL RAY) with the Golden Charrúa as Uruguay’s Sportsman of the Year. Forlán, Diego Diego Martín Forlán Corazo pos(b. May 19, 1979, Montevideo, sessed the perfect pedigree: his father, Uruguay) In July 2010 Diego Forlán Pablo Forlán, had played for Uruguay reached the pinnacle of his professional in the 1966 and 1974 World Cups, and

his maternal grandfather, Juan Carlos Corazo, had been a player with Club Atlético Independiente in Argentina. The latter became young Forlán’s first senior team after he played at home as a youth for Club Atlético Peñarol and Danubio Fútbol Club. He was also a skilled tennis player before he focused on football. Forlán’s progress with Independiente was such that England’s Manchester United paid the equivalent of £7.5 million (about $9.8 million) for him in early 2002, but in two seasons at Old Trafford he seldom scored and earned the nickname “Diego Forlorn.” Though Forlán was a popular figure, Manchester United traded him in 2004 to Spain’s Club Villarreal de Fútbol for >3.6 million (about $4.3 million). Suddenly he found the net, and he won the Pichichi Trophy as the leading marksman in Spain’s La Liga with 25 goals. He added 13 goals in 2005–06 and 19 in 2006–07. Villarreal traded Forlán to Atlético Madrid for >21 million (about $28 million) in 2007, and he won the Pichichi again in 2008–09, with 32 goals. In both 2004–05 and 2008–09, he added the Golden Shoe as Europe’s top scorer. By mid-2010 he had made 467 League and Cup appearances and had scored 204 goals. Standing 1.81 m (5 ft 11 in) tall and weighing 75 kg (165 lb), Forlán was known for his distinctive long blond hair, which was secured with a headband. Off the field he was a devoted activist for the Fundacion Alejandra Forlán, which was established to warn of the perils of dangerous driving after his sister Alejandra was paralyzed in a 1991 car crash in which her boyfriend was killed. Forlán was appointed UNICEF ambassador of Uruguay in March 2005. (JACK ROLLIN) Gillard, Julia (b. Sept. 29, 1961, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales) Australian politician Julia Gillard was sworn in on June 24, 2010, as the country’s first female prime minister after having successfully challenged the previous prime minister, Kevin Rudd, for the leadership of the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP). Buoyed by positive poll numbers for both herself and the ALP, Gillard called for a snap election to be held on August 21. The race, however, 85

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was the tightest in decades, and neither the ALP nor its main opposition, the alliance of the Liberal Party and the Nationals, won an outright majority of seats in Parliament. Both the ALP and the Liberal-National bloc hoped to secure enough backing from independent and Green MPs to form a government. Gillard succeeded, which enabled her in early September to form Australia’s first minority government since 1940. After resolving one of the issues that had eroded Rudd’s base of support—a proposed “super tax” on mining company profits—Gillard spent much of her political capital in 2010 championing the National Broadband Network, a program that would provide households and businesses throughout Australia with a high-speed Internet connection. Julia Eileen Gillard was born in Wales, but in 1966 her family joined the wave of post-World War II emigration from Britain to Australia. She attended the University of Adelaide, where she was an active member of the student government. In 1983 Gillard moved to Melbourne, where she served as president of the Australian Union of Students and continued her studies at the University of Melbourne, earning degrees in law (1987) and arts (1990). She joined a private law practice in 1987 and was made a partner, specializing in industrial law, in 1990. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Gillard steadily advanced through the ranks of the ALP. She served as president of the party’s Carlton branch (1985–89) and was a member (1993–97) of the administrative committee of the ALP in Victoria. In 1996 she was appointed chief of staff for Victorian ALP leader John Brumby. She held that post until 1998, when she was elected to Parliament for Lalor, an industrial district west of Melbourne. After the ALP’s disappointing showing in the 2001 general elections, Gillard was elevated to the front bench and given the shadow portfolio of population and immigration. She crafted the ALP’s policy on refugees and asylum seekers, deftly addressing an issue that had cost the party dearly in the elections. Gillard served a short stint as shadow minister for reconciliation and indigenous affairs in 2003 before assuming the shadow health portfolio later that year. She easily won reelection in 2004, and two years later a party caucus elected her deputy leader under Rudd. After an overwhelming ALP victory in the 2007 federal elections,

Gillard became deputy prime minister. In addition, she received the portfolios of employment and workplace relations, education, and social inclusion. As minister of employment and workplace relations, she was instrumental in rolling back laws that had limited the power of labour unions. (MICHAEL RAY) Gormley, Antony (b. Aug. 30, 1950, London, Eng.) In 2010, visitors to Manhattan’s Flatiron district were confronted by British sculptor and draftsman Antony Gormley’s installation Event Horizon. Consisting of 31 sculptures of Gormley’s naked body, some placed at ground level and others perched on rooftops and ledges near Madison Square Park, the artwork gave many pause. The New York City Police Department considered the figures above street grade so disconcertingly lifelike that it saw fit to assure the public that the sculptures were not people about to jump. Gormley’s exploration of the spatial in his abstract drawings as well as his examination of the human relationship to environment had created a buzz in much of the art world at least since 1994, when he won the Turner Prize for his Field projects. Each of the Field installations was composed of tens of thousands of small staring terra-cotta figures, which were packed into a gallery room facing the entrance at which the gallerygoer stood. Antony Mark David Gormley attended (1968–71) Trinity College, Cambridge, taking a degree in art history, archae-

ology, and anthropology, and thereafter traveled in India and Sri Lanka for three years. Upon his return to London, he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central Saint Martins), Goldsmiths College, and the Slade School of Fine Art. Struck by the manner in which people he had seen on his travels had created a private space in public places by covering themselves with a piece of cloth, he made his first plaster casts involving the human form. Increasingly, in the early 1980s Gormley was drawn to examine questions of humanity in relation to the environment. He made (1981) his first wholebody casts for Three Ways: Mould, Hole and Passage. As he continued, he varied materials and positions (crouching, standing, kneeling, lying down), sometimes distorting the human figure (as by elongating the arms) or replacing human features with other objects (as by putting a cast beam where the head should be). Gormley’s gift for the unsettling took another turn when he moved his lifesize figures outdoors. Natural environments enhanced the fragility of the human form and somehow changed the philosophical questions that Gormley’s works evoked. For Another Place (1997; at Crosby in Merseyside, Eng.), for example, Gormley placed 100 cast-iron figures facing out to sea over a 3.2-km (2-mi) stretch of beach. For 6 Times (2010; in Edinburgh), he placed six figures along the Water of Leith, four of them partly submerged in the water,

British sculptor Antony Gormley flanked by his work

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one partly buried on land, and the sixth standing at the end of an old pier, facing the sea. His Horizon Field (2010; near Vorarlberg, Austria) featured 100 life-size figures dotting the slopes of the Alps. Until his provocative works of the 21st century, Gormley was perhaps best known for the enormous Angel of the North (1998; near Gateshead, Eng.), some 20 m (65 ft) high and having a 54-m (175-ft) span. Gormley was created OBE in 1997 and made a member of the Royal Academy in 2003. (KATHLEEN KUIPER) Gove, Michael (b. Aug. 26, 1967, Edinburgh, Scot.) On becoming the U.K.’s prime minister in May 2010, David Cameron (q.v.) appointed Michael Gove, one of his closest and most energetically reformminded colleagues, to the new cabinet as education secretary. Within weeks of his appointment, Gove had proved himself to be a radical reformer by submitting—and pushing through Parliament—plans for the biggest shake-up of England’s school system in a generation. Michael Andrew Gove’s birth mother was a student who gave him up for adoption, and he was adopted and brought up in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland, where he won a scholarship to a private school, Robert Gordon’s College. He studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and was elected president of the Oxford Union debating society. After graduating in 1988, he applied to work for the Conservative Research Department but was unsuccessful and turned to newspaper journalism. He returned to Aberdeen to work on the daily Press and Journal; as a member of the National Union of Journalists, he took part in a four-month strike when that paper’s management sought to derecognize the union (that is, bypass the union in negotiating pay and conditions). In 1996 Gove joined The Times newspaper in London as a columnist and leader (editorial) writer. This gave him a platform for his right-of-centre, independent-minded views. While generally critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government, he strongly backed Blair’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. In London Gove became close friends with Cameron, who urged him to enter Conservative Party politics. Gove was selected as the Conservative candidate to fight the Surrey Heath constituency south of London and was elected MP in the 2005 general election. Later the same year, when Cameron stood in the

U.K. Education Secretary Michael Gove election for party leader, Gove was one of his most active supporters. After having been voted leader in December 2005, Cameron rewarded Gove, who had served as MP for just seven months, by appointing him shadow housing minister. In July 2007 Cameron promoted Gove to the full shadow cabinet, as shadow education secretary. In his new role Gove set out plans for state schools to apply to be independent “academies,” no longer controlled by local government. He also promoted new groups—which could comprise parents, charities, or private companies—to establish new academies. When the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition was formed after the May 2010 general election, Gove was an automatic choice to become education secretary and put his plans into action. The Academies Act was one of the first of the new government’s bills to reach the statute book, in July. Gove had to postpone many capital projects to improve state schools, however, as part of the government’s wider cuts in public spending, an action that angered many head teachers who believed that they had been given firm assurances by Gove’s department that their projects could go ahead. (PETER KELLNER) Guisewite, Cathy (b. Sept. 5, 1950, Dayton, Ohio) On Oct. 3, 2010, the comics page mainstay Cathy—the brainchild of cartoonist Cathy Guisewite—came to an end

after a 34-year run. For most of that time, Guisewite’s comic strip dealt with the amusing side of issues facing a modern single career woman, such as dating, dieting, shopping for clothes, handling frustrations at work, buying a house, and dealing with doting parents, especially an adoring mother obsessed with her daughter’s ticking “biological clock.” Citing a desire to spend more time with her family and to explore other creative avenues, Guisewite chose to end Cathy in 2010. Cathy Lee Guisewite graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English in 1972. Both of her parents worked in the advertising business, and she initially followed them into that field. She found success as an ad writer, but she explored cartooning as an outlet for the frustration that she felt in her career and her personal life. She sent the simple stick-figure drawings to her parents, and her mother encouraged her to submit them for publication. To her surprise Guisewite was awarded a syndication contract with Universal Press Syndicate in 1976, and Cathy began running as a daily strip in November of that year. For nearly 30 years Cathy detailed the daily life of a single woman whose struggles with her weight, fashion, and romantic relationships were frequently resolved with a cry of “Aack!” and a binge shopping spree. Upon its debut Cathy was one of the few daily strips written by a woman, and it was the first to speak humorously and directly to a female audience. Although female protagonists such as Brenda Starr and Little Orphan Annie had appeared on the comics page for decades, such strips were generally written as soap operas or serial adventures. Cathy’s semiautobiographical content added a feminist voice to the comics world. The strip marked a major turning point in February 2005 when Cathy married her longtime boyfriend, Irving. This gave Guisewite new challenges for her nolonger-single character to face, including dealing with her meddling in-laws and Irving’s obsession with electronic gear. The final panel in 2010 featured the strip’s namesake finally announcing to her delighted parents that she was pregnant. At its height Cathy ran in some 1,400 newspapers worldwide, and the strip was collected in more than 25 books. Cathy merchandise, often depicting the namesake heroine coping with a towering mound of paperwork, struggling to shed a few more pounds, or engag87

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ing in therapeutic shopping, also became a multimillion-dollar business. Guisewite won an Emmy Award for a 1987 animated television adaptation of the strip, and in 1992 she was honoured with the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award as cartoonist of the year. (MICHAEL RAY) Hague, William (b. March 26, 1961, Rotherham, Yorkshire, Eng.) On the evening of May 11, 2010, when the U.K.’s Conservative Party returned to government after having won a narrow victory in the general election, one of its former leaders, William Hague, was immediately appointed foreign secretary. He was still less than 50 years old—yet it had been fully 33 years since he first came to public attention with a combative speech, while still a schoolboy, at his party’s annual conference. William Jefferson Hague attended his local comprehensive school and became interested in politics at age 12. His confident public attack on the then Labour government as a 16-year-old boy with a pronounced northern accent captivated the media and Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher. Hague won a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a first-class degree in politics, philosophy, and economics. After having worked for Shell UK and the management consultants McKinsey and Co., he was selected as the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of Richmond, North Yorkshire, and in 1989 he was elected to Parliament. He rose rapidly through the ministerial ranks of the then Conservative government, becoming secretary of state for Wales in 1995 at age 34. Following his party’s heavy defeat in the 1997 general election, Hague’s fellow Conservative MPs elected him to replace John Major as their new leader; at 36, Hague was the youngest leader of a major U.K. political party in two centuries. He adopted a series of populist policies, notably wanting to reduce immigration sharply and seeking a looser relationship between the U.K. and the rest of the EU. Although his agenda seemed to match the popular mood, the overall effect was to give Hague the image of being a right-wing politician. In the 2001 election, Labour won another landslide victory, and Hague immediately announced his resignation as Conservative leader. Hague remained a backbench politician for the next four years and earned significant sums from directorships, 88

consultancies, and speeches. In December 2005 he returned to front-line politics as shadow foreign secretary and de facto deputy leader of the Conservative Party, standing in when party leader David Cameron (q.v.) was away. Hague’s most controversial act, on Cameron’s instructions, was to withdraw Conservative Members of the European Parliament away from Europe’s main centre-right grouping to form a smaller, more right-wing parliamentary group. When Cameron formed his Conservative-led coalition in 2010, Hague became foreign secretary and also first secretary of state (a title that placed him, in effect, third in the Cabinet hierarchy). Hague quickly demolished hopes, or fears, that he would set British foreign policy in a more ideological and euroskeptic direction. Instead, he largely maintained the pragmatic foreign policies of the previous Labour government. To the surprise of many, Hague quickly became popular with other EU foreign ministers at their monthly meetings, deploying his wit, charm, and collegiate manner to great effect. (PETER KELLNER) Halladay, Roy (b. May 14, 1977, Denver, Colo.) In 2010 Roy Halladay, the hard-throwing ace of Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies’ pitching staff, made history. On May 29 he pitched the 20th perfect game in major league history, beating the Florida Marlins 1–0. Then on October 6, in the opening game of the National League (NL) Division Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Halladay threw a postseason nohitter. defeating the Reds 4–0. It was the first postseason no-hitter since New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen’s famous perfect game in the 1956 World Series and only the second ever. The performance helped Halladay set a further historical milestone; he became only the fifth player in history—and the first since hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan in 1973—to throw two no-hitters in one season. Harry Leroy Halladay III, nicknamed “Doc,” played baseball in high school and was drafted by the American League (AL) Toronto Blue Jays shortly after graduation in 1995. He made his major league debut on Sept. 20, 1998, recording no decision against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now the Tampa Bay Rays). Seven days later, in his second career start, he narrowly missed becoming only the third player to

throw a no-hitter during the final game of the regular season when he gave up a home run with two outs in the ninth inning in a game against the Detroit Tigers. Halladay experienced some problems with pitch control early in his career and returned for short stints with the Blue Jays’ minor league affiliates, but he ultimately gained a reputation for pitching efficiently while issuing few walks. His breakthrough season came in 2002, when he recorded 19 wins and 7 losses and was selected to his first All-Star Game. In 2003 he won the Cy Young Award as the AL’s best pitcher after having posted a record of 22 wins and 7 losses with a 3.25 earned-run average. The following two seasons were shortened by injuries, but Halladay reestablished himself in 2006 as one of the premier pitchers in the major leagues, winning 16 games while losing only 5 and leading the AL in winning percentage (.762). In 2008 he won 20 games, and the following year he finished 17–10 and led the AL in shutouts (4). Shortly before the start of the 2010 season, the Phillies traded for Halladay. He did not disappoint his new team, winning 21 games and losing 10 while again leading the league in shutouts (4). Although the Phillies won the Division Series against the Reds, they lost the NL Championship Series to the San Francisco Giants, who went on to win the World Series. Halladay’s stellar debut season with the team, however, earned him unanimous selection as the NL’s Cy Young Award winner. (MATT STEFON) Handler, Chelsea (b. Feb. 25, 1975, Livingston, N.J.) On Sept. 12, 2010, American comic and television talk show host Chelsea Handler served as emcee of MTV’s Video Music Awards ceremony, following in the footsteps of fellow comedians such as Chris Rock, Jack Black, and Dennis Miller. In March the brassy, irreverent Handler released her third memoir, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, which joined her previous two books in the top slots of the best-seller lists. Chelsea Joy Handler grew up in New Jersey, the youngest of six siblings. As a teen she competed in the Miss New Jersey pageant, and at age 19 she headed to Los Angeles in hopes of starting an acting career. Eventually she switched her focus to comedy and began performing stand-up at clubs around the city. This led to a stint on

Biographies Mike Nelson—Xinhua/Landov

Girls Behaving Badly, a hidden-camera show on the Oxygen cable TV network that premiered in 2002. Handler drew fans with her brassy, self-deprecating style and by approaching the topic of sex with an irreverence bordering on crassness. In 2005 she published her first book, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, a series of comedic short essays devoted to her dating life. After making appearances on the E! cable network and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Handler was given her own program on E!, The Chelsea Handler Show. The show, which alternated comedy sketches with segments of Handler’s live stand-up act, ran for 12 episodes between April and September 2006. The following year Chelsea Lately premiered on E!. That show featured Handler’s stand-up as well as a regular roundtable segment with guest appearances by other comedians. The show was unique among late-night programs in that it specifically courted low-grade celebrities as its guests while also attracting A-list names. In 2007 Handler also began appearing on the online comedy series In the Motherhood (2007–08; later adapted into a short-lived TV series with different actresses). She guest starred on numerous TV shows, including The Practice, Reno 911!, and The Bernie Mac Show, and appeared as herself on othComedian and TV star Chelsea Handler

ers, such as The Good Wife. Her second book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea (2008), debuted at the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. In addition to managing her television and writing careers, Handler continued to perform as a stand-up comedian, including a 21-city tour that kicked off in March 2010. (MELISSA ALBERT) Hawass, Zahi (b. May 28, 1947, Al-!Ubaydiyah, Egypt) In April 2010 Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass hosted a two-day conference in Cairo, at which representatives from more than a dozen countries devised strategies for the repatriation of archaeological and historic treasures from foreign museums to their home countries. Egypt’s list of six items included the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum in London, the Dandarah Zodiac in the Louvre in Paris, and the bust of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The return of such relics was an ongoing endeavour for Hawass, whose magnetic personality and forceful advocacy helped raise awareness of the excavation and preservation efforts he oversaw as head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Hawass grew up near Damietta, Egypt, and entered Alexandria University with the intention of becoming a lawyer. He eventually changed his course of study to Greek and Roman archaeology, but it was not until after he had graduated (B.A., 1967) and was working as an inspector for the Department of Antiquities (the forerunner of the SCA) that he developed a passion for the subject. Following a one-year postgraduate course in Egyptology at Cairo University, Hawass won a Fulbright fellowship and enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1987. He then returned to Egypt, where he was named general director of antiquities for the Giza pyramids complex as well as for the historical sites at Saqqarah and Al-Bahriyyah (Bahariya) Oasis. At Giza in 1990, Hawass discovered a necropolis that housed the tombs of the pyramid builders, which proved, contrary to then-popular fringe theories, that the pyramids had indeed been erected by Egyptians. Hawass’s frequent outspoken denunciations of the alternative theorists, whom he termed “pyramidiots,” established his international reputation. His profile was fur-

Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass ther raised in the late 1990s when he began the excavation of an extensive collection of tombs at Al-Bahriyyah Oasis. The site became known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies after the tombs’ well-preserved denizens, the most that had ever been found at a single site. By the time he was appointed general secretary of the SCA in 2002, Hawass had appeared on numerous American television programs promoting Egypt’s archaeological heritage. His ubiquitous media presence made him one of the most recognizable figures in Egypt but also one of the most divisive. Critics remarked on his tendency toward glib self-aggrandizement and charged that he too often privileged public relations over science. (Few of his scientific findings were published in peer-reviewed journals.) At the same time, Hawass was lauded for reclaiming Egyptology—for decades the province of Western scholars—for Egyptians. As head of the SCA, Hawass directed several other excavation projects that led to significant findings, including the discovery in 2008 of an Old Kingdom pyramid at Saqqarah that was determined to belong to a queen of Teti. He also initiated the Egyptian

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Mummy Project, which used modern forensic techniques such as computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans to study both royal and nonroyal mummies. As a result of that project, in 2007 the remains of Hatshepsut were identified, and in 2010 it was determined that Tutankhamen was the son of Akhenaton and probably died of complications from malaria and bone disease. In 2009, facing mandatory retirement, Hawass was appointed Egypt’s vice-minister of culture, with responsibility for the SCA. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Herrera, Carmen (b. May 31, 1915, Havana, Cuba) At age 95, Cuban-born American painter Carmen Herrera found herself, remarkably, among the most buzzedabout artists in 2010. A career retrospective of her rigorously composed and often radiantly coloured abstract works—which had been shown in Birmingham, Eng., in 2009—received high praise upon opening in Kaiserslautern, Ger., in January. Another exhibition, “Carmen Herrera: Recent Works,” went on display in New York City in April to similar acclaim. Herrera was raised by intellectual parents in Havana. She took art lessons when she was young, and as a teenager she was sent to Paris to further her studies. Upon her return to Cuba, she made sculptures of wood and later began studying for an architecture degree at the University of Havana, though the tumultuous political situation in the country following Fulgencio Batista’s seizure of power prevented her from finishing. She relocated in 1939 to New York City, where she pursued mostly figurative painting at the Art Students League and struck up friendships with other artists, including painter Barnett Newman. Only after returning to Paris in 1948, however, did Herrera fully develop her artistic identity, finding inspiration from the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (“Salon of New Realities”), a group of artists who mounted an annual exhibition featuring abstract, mostly nonrepresentational work. Reducing her formal vocabulary to its most essential elements, Herrera started creating paintings in which boldly coloured, sharply defined geometric shapes predominated, and she exhibited this new work through the salon in 1949–52. In 1954 Herrera settled permanently in New York City. Though she continued to produce strong work throughout

Cuban-born American abstract painter Carmen Herrera the 1950s, the prejudices that some gallery owners held against women and Latin American artists put her at a disadvantage, as did the fact that her paintings—some of which prefigured the later trends of Op art and hardedged minimalism—were out of step with the period’s fashion for Abstract Expressionism. Herrera continued her precise chromatic explorations in the 1960s and ’70s in works such as Blanco y verde (1966), a triangular sliver of green against an austere white field, and Saturday (1978), a jet-black canvas interrupted by a thick gold zigzag. Since her days in Paris, she had experimented with nonrectangular canvases, and she played with dimensionality in works such as Amarillo (1971), painted on 10cm (4-in)-thick plywood. In 1984 Herrera received her first retrospective, at the Alternative Museum in New York City, but she did not sell a single painting until two decades later when, at age 88, she was included in a show of women geometric painters at New York City’s latincollector gallery (now Frederico Sève Gallery/latincollector). From then on, her art-world stock skyrocketed. Her works were acquired for the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Modern in London. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM)

Hüfner, Tatjana (b. April 30, 1983, Neuruppin, E.Ger.) German luger Tatjana Hüfner’s spate of victories during the 2009–10 luge season culminated in the gold medal in the women’s singles competition at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Though trailing Austrian Nina Reithmayer and German teammate Natalie Geisenberger after the first run, Hüfner rallied with her second slide and coasted through the remaining two runs to take the gold. It was the crowning glory of a season in which just a month earlier Hüfner had earned her third consecutive International Luge Federation (FIL) World Cup overall title. Hüfner spent her early childhood in Fehrbellin, E.Ger., and in 1988 her family moved to Blankenburg, where they remained after German reunification in 1990. She joined a local tobogganing club in 1992 and began lugeing after her younger brother took up the pastime. Hüfner was soon drawn to the competitive aspect of the sport. She participated in junior luge competitions and won the Saxony-Anhalt regional championship four years in a row (1994–97). In 1997 she enrolled at the Eliteschule des Wintersports (Elite School of Winter Sports) in Oberwiesenthal, an educational institution for athletes partially sponsored by the German luger Tatjana Hüfner

Todd Korol—Reuters/Landov

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Biographies Martin Schutt—dpa/Landov

German Olympic Sports Association. During this time Hüfner continued to participate in numerous luge competitions, each year placing high in the overall Junior World Cup rankings: sixth in 1999–2000, third in 2000–01, second in 2001–02, and third in 2002–03. After graduating from the Eliteschule in 2002, she enlisted at the Sportschule der Bundeswehr (a school for athletes run by the German armed forces), where she attained the rank of master sergeant. In 2002 Hüfner competed in her first German national championship, finishing eighth. In 2004 she placed second in the European championship in Oberhof, Ger., and eighth at the FIL world championships in Nagano, Japan. She steadily accrued further noteworthy performances in 2005, including a fourth-place finish in the World Cup event in Oberhof and a victory in the World Cup race in Altenberg, Ger. In 2006 she qualified to compete in that year’s Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She and teammates Sylke Otto and Silke Kraushaar-Pielach swept the women’s singles podium, with Hüfner taking the bronze. Hüfner racked up a series of significant wins over the following seasons, including the world championships in 2007 and 2008; in the latter year she was also part of Germany’s gold-medalwinning relay team and earned her first World Cup title. Though she edged out her competitors during most of the 2008–09 season to capture her second overall World Cup, she dropped to sixth place at the 2009 world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y., before making a spectacular recovery on the world stage in 2010. (RICHARD PALLARDY) Janka, Carlo (b. Oct. 15, 1986, Obersaxen, Switz.) Swiss Alpine skier Carlo Janka, whose clean, efficient style and poised determination had resulted in a string of dominating victories on the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup circuit, entered the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver as a strong favourite. Though doubts mounted following his first three races, in which he failed to finish higher than fourth, Janka finally met expectations by winning the Olympic gold in the giant slalom. Some two weeks later he confirmed his talent and his versatility by securing the overall title in the 2009–10 Alpine World Cup season, becoming the first Swiss overall champion since Paul Accola in 1992.

win races in three different disciplines on consecutive days since legendary French skier Jean-Claude Killy did so in 1967. Many observers attributed Janka’s success on the slopes to his streamlined style, which eschewed flashy moves in favour of precisely controlled motion and balance. He was also admired for his cool demeanour, a quality that led his Swiss teammates to accord him the nickname “the Iceman.” (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM)

Olympic giant slalom champion Carlo Janka of Switzerland Janka was born in a mountain village in southeastern Switzerland and began skiing at age two. As a teenager he also excelled at association football (soccer), but Austrian skier Hermann Maier’s multiple-medal-winning performance at the 1998 Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan, inspired him to focus exclusively on skiing. In December 2005, four years after his first FIS race, Janka competed in his first World Cup event, and several months later he won a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the FIS junior world championships. Though Janka registered two top-10 finishes in World Cup events in early 2008, his real breakthrough came in November of that year, when he placed second in the downhill race at Lake Louise, Alta., despite having been one of the last skiers on the course. The following month he won his first World Cup race with a victory in the giant slalom at Val-d’Isère, France. At the FIS Alpine world championships in Val-d’Isère in February 2009, Janka took home two medals—a gold in the giant slalom and a bronze in the downhill—and later that month he clinched the World Cup title in the super combined. Despite having suffered from a virus in the summer that severely limited his off-season training, Janka returned to World Cup competition in late 2009 at the peak of his skills. In December, at Beaver Creek, Colo., he scored victories in the super combined, downhill, and giant slalom, becoming the first man to

Jonathan, Goodluck (b. Nov. 20, 1957, Otuoke, Nigeria) The year 2010 was an eventful one for Goodluck Jonathan, who had served as vice president of Nigeria since May 2007. In response to the extended absence of Pres. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, Jonathan was elevated by members of Nigeria’s National Assembly to serve as acting president in February 2010. Yar’Adua died on May 5, and Jonathan was sworn in as president the following day. In September Jonathan announced his intent to stand in the country’s 2011 presidential election, a decision that drew criticism from some quarters because it breached the unofficial policy of rotating the presidency between candidates from the predominantly Christian south and the predominantly Muslim north. Jonathan was born into the Ijo (Ijaw) ethnic group and was raised a Christian in the region of the Niger delta that later became Nigeria’s Bayelsa state. He went to Christian primary and secondary schools in the area and later attended the University of Port Harcourt, earning a B.S. in zoology (1981), an M.S. in hydrobiology and fisheries biology (1985), and a Ph.D. in zoology (1995). He taught at Rivers State College of Education (1983–93) and then served as an assistant director (1993– 98) at the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission. Jonathan’s political career began when he became involved with the nascent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the late 1990s. He was elected deputy governor of Bayelsa state in 1999 under the party’s banner. He was elevated to the governorship in 2005 after the incumbent was charged with corruption and impeached. Two years later Jonathan was selected to be the vice presidential running mate of Yar’Adua, a Muslim who was the PDP’s presidential candidate. They were elected by a landslide in April 2007. 91

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Nigerian Pres. Goodluck Jonathan As vice president, Jonathan engaged in efforts to negotiate with militants in the Niger delta, who were fighting against petroleum companies operating in the delta region, but otherwise he largely remained in the political background. His profile rose considerably after Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment in November 2009. The president’s absence made many Nigerians anxious and generated calls for Yar’Adua to formally transfer power to Jonathan. Despite a ruling by a Nigerian court on January 29 that Yar’Adua was not obligated to hand over power, the National Assembly voted to grant Jonathan power as acting president. After succeeding to the full presidency, Jonathan quickly replaced Yar’Adua’s cabinet. He also vowed to continue his involvement in the Niger delta peace negotiations and declared his intention to reform the country’s oft-criticized electoral process as well as tackle corruption and deal with the country’s energy problems. (AMY MCKENNA)

anthem of Coca-Cola’s 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign. The song’s success was yet another capstone for a musician whose bright melodies and clever, socially conscious lyrics had made him an ambassador for the plight of his homeland. Keinan Abdi Warsame grew up in Mogadishu in an artistic family—his grandfather was a celebrated poet and his aunt a popular singer—and as a child he too displayed a gift for reciting verse. He became drawn to American hip-hop after his father, who was living in New York City, sent him records, and he later taught himself English in part by phonetically imitating the rap songs he admired. When civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, he fled with his mother and two siblings, settling first in New York City, where he reconnected with his father, and then in a community of Somali immigrants in Toronto. As a teenager Warsame began to write songs to help him process the turmoil he experienced in Mogadishu. After dropping out of school in 10th grade, he honed his performance skills at open-mike nights in Toronto, rapping under the name K’Naan, and he conSomali-born musician K’Naan

Kagan, Elena (b. April 28, 1960, New York, N.Y.) On May 10, 2010, Elena Kagan was nominated by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. Because of Kagan’s reputation for reaching out to conservatives—she had recruited several conservative professors at Harvard Law School (where she was dean), hosted a dinner honouring conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, and received a standing ovation from the conservative Federalist Society—some liberals feared that she might not be a reliable vote for the court’s liberal minority, though she was a passionate advocate of civil rights, including gay rights. Although her lack of judicial experience provoked some criticism, Kagan was confirmed (63–37) by the Sen-

K’Naan (b. May 30, 1978, Mogadishu, Som.) In 2010 the determinedly optimistic song “Wavin’ Flag,” by Somali-born Canadian hip-hop artist K’Naan, became a worldwide sensation. Already a hit in Canada, it was remade in February as a celebrity-studded charity single to benefit victims of the January earthquake in Haiti. Another version, a remix by K’Naan, became the official Direct Current Media

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tributed poems to Somali Web sites. Eventually, he attracted a manager, who secured him an opportunity to participate in an event in Geneva in 2000 marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. His impassioned spoken-word performance, which openly criticized the UN’s involvement in the Somali civil war, received a standing ovation. It also captured the attention of Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, who invited K’Naan to appear on the album Building Bridges (2001), a compilation of songs by musicians living in exile. In 2005 K’Naan released The Dusty Foot Philosopher, a rap album that fused traditional African instrumentation to the familiar structures of American hip-hop. Among its standout tracks, “Soobax” (Somali: “Come Out”) was a direct challenge to the warlords of his native land, rapped and sung in a mix of English and Somali, and “What’s Hardcore?” was a withering commentary on the macho pretenses of some gangsta rappers. Critics lauded K’Naan’s lyrical playfulness and political engagement, and the album won a Juno Award in Canada for best rap recording. After putting out the live recording The Dusty Foot on the Road in 2007, K’Naan expanded his audience with Troubadour (2009). The album, recorded in Jamaica, was another globally inspired concoction, featuring elements of reggae and Ethiopian jazz beneath his ebullient rhymes. In April 2010 he won two more Juno Awards, for artist of the year and songwriter of the year. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM)

Biographies

ate on August 5. Two days later she was sworn in as the 112th person and the fourth woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Kagan, the daughter of a lawyer and an elementary-school teacher, was raised in New York City. She received an A.B. in history (1981) from Princeton University and then studied on a scholarship at Worcester College, Oxford (M.Phil., 1983). She subsequently attended Harvard Law School. After having received her law degree in 1986, Kagan spent several years clerking, first for Judge Abner Mikva, who was then serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Thurgood Marshall, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She spent a few years in private practice in Washington, D.C., before becoming a law professor at the University of Chicago (where Obama also taught). Plucked out of academia by Pres. Bill Clinton, Kagan served as associate White House counsel (1995–96) and then as deputy assistant (1997–99) to Clinton on his Domestic Policy Council. In 1999 Clinton appointed Kagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled no hearings on her nomination. (John G. Roberts, later Supreme Court chief justice, was subsequently nominated to the post after George W. Bush became president.) Thereafter Kagan returned to academia at Harvard Law School, where she taught administrative law, constitutional law, and civil procedure; in 2003 she was appointed dean by Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, who went on to serve in the Obama administration. In her new post Kagan was charged with overseeing fund-raising and improving student life, and she developed a reputation as a pragmatist able to reduce tension among Harvard’s notoriously fractious law faculty. In 2009 Obama appointed her to serve as the U.S. solicitor general; she was confirmed (61–31) by the U.S. Senate on March 19, the first woman to occupy the post. (MICHAEL LEVY) Kan, Naoto (b. Oct. 10, 1946, Ube, Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan) On Jan. 7, 2010, Naoto Kan, of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), was appointed to the post of Japanese finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. The previous September the

party, led by Hatoyama, had soundly defeated the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) in general elections to the Diet (parliament). When Kan took over as finance minister, however, no one realized that he would soon be replacing his boss. As Hatoyama’s administration failed at the beginning of June, Kan emerged as the front-runner for party leadership, and on June 4 he secured that and the prime minister’s office. He survived a challenge to his party leadership in mid-September. Kan was raised in southwestern Honshu, and he received a bachelor’s degree in physics (1970) from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During his student days he became involved in community activism and in the mid-1970s decided to run for political office. He failed three times to win a seat in the Diet before succeeding in 1980 as a member of the tiny Social Democratic Federation. While serving (January–November 1996) as minister of health and welfare in an LDP-led coalition government, Kan rose to national prominence when he publicly acknowledged and exposed the government’s complicity in a scandal that involved an attempt by pharmaceutical companies to cover up their distribution of HIV-tainted blood products to hemophiliacs. Kan cofounded (1996) the DPJ and served as the party’s first president (1998–99) when it was emerging as the main opposition to the dominant LDP. He was replaced (1999) as president by Hatoyama but held the post of party secretary-general (2000–02) before regaining the presidency in 2002. Kan helped guide the DPJ to success in lower-house elections in 2003, when the party significantly increased its number of seats and firmly established its role as the opposition. Despite Kan’s reputation as a reformer, most notably for his willingness to circumvent the government bureaucracy when he deemed it necessary, he was tied to two scandals that damaged his reputation and popularity. He was accused in 1998 of having had an extramarital affair with a campaign aide, and in 2004, after having admitted that he had not paid into the national pension program while serving in the government in 1996, he was forced to resign from the DPJ presidency. Kan stayed largely in the background for the next several years. He regained some of his lost public favour by performing a traditional pilgrimage of Buddhist temples located on the island

of Shikoku. His political fortunes again rose when Hatoyama designated him deputy prime minister in September 2009 before naming him finance minister in January 2010. (KENNETH PLETCHER) Kauffmann, Sylvie (b. Oct. 30, 1955, Marseille, France) In 2010 French journalist Sylvie Kauffmann became the first woman to serve as the executive editor of France’s leading daily newspaper, Le Monde. Kauffmann indicated her desire to bring a new direction and vision not only to the print newspaper but also to the related Web site. Through a more dynamic synergy between print and the Web, she hoped to reach a wide audience and transform Le Monde into “the paper that never sleeps.” Kauffmann earned degrees from the Training Centre for Journalists in Paris and the Institute for Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence, as well as the faculty of law at the University of Provence Aix-Marseille. She also received a degree in Spanish from the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. In 1979 Kauffmann began working at Agence France-Presse, the largest news agency in France, as a foreign correspondent stationed in various locations, including London, Warsaw, and Moscow. Eight years later she joined Le Monde as the paper’s Moscow correspondent. The following year she became the correspondent for eastern and central Europe, a position that enabled her to be among the first to report on the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1993 Kauffmann was transferred to the United States, where she served as Washington correspondent and then New York bureau chief (1996–2001). She was widely noted for her objective reporting on American affairs, and in 2002 she wrote a prizewinning series of articles about life in the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After serving as deputy executive editor (2004–06), Kauffmann was a senior correspondent covering Southeast Asia. In the early 21st century, Le Monde suffered a series of woes, including a drop in sales, internal struggles, and the threat of recapitalization, which ultimately ended journalists’ long-standing majority ownership (2010). In 2009, in the pursuit of a greater focus on international relations, Kauffmann’s predecessor as executive editor, Alain Frachon, was named the paper’s international editorial director. Éric Fottorino, chief executive of Groupe Le 93

Biographies Karlheinz Schindler—dpa/Landov

Monde, subsequently offered Frachon’s former position to Kauffmann, who immediately accepted. Kauffmann, who had spent nearly two decades abroad, avoided the internal political debates that had preceded prior appointments to the top editorial position, and she returned to France to work alongside Frachon before formally succeeding him in the post in early 2010. (JEANNETTE NOLEN; HEATHER CAMPBELL) Kaufmann, Jonas (b. July 10, 1969, Munich, W.Ger.) German tenor Jonas Kaufmann kept New York City’s Metropolitan Opera (Met) goers busy in 2010 with virtually back-to-back bookings as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in April and Don José in Bizet’s Carmen in May. Renowned for his extraordinary technique, his versatility as a performer of German, French, and Italian repertoire, and his charismatic projection of a range of emotions, Kaufmann drew—as expected—thunderous ovations from his audiences. In July he made his muchanticipated debut at the Bayreuth (Ger.) Festival starring in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. Kaufmann developed an affinity for classical music largely through listening to his father’s records and attending performances for children at the Bavarian State Opera. When he was about eight years old, he started taking piano lessons. He was not enamoured with the instrument, but he became captivated whenever his grandfather took a seat at the piano to play from opera scores by Wagner while singing the vocal parts. It was these performances that ultimately kindled Kaufmann’s desire to become an opera singer. Throughout primary and secondary school, Kaufmann performed in school choirs. He did not initially pursue music at the university level but followed the advice of his parents and enrolled in a program in mathematics. After just two semesters, he auditioned for and was admitted to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, where he received his first formal training as a concert and opera singer. While still a student, he took small roles in local opera productions, but after graduating in 1994 he performed in operas throughout Germany. In 1997 Kaufmann received his first international engagement, in Milan, in a production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Kaufmann subsequently returned to Germany to partner with pianist Hel94

German tenor Jonas Kaufmann mut Deutsch to perform a broad spectrum of German art songs, or lieder. The duo toured internationally and later recorded a number of albums together. In 2000 Kaufmann accepted a permanent position with the Zürich Opera. The following year he performed for the first time in the U.S., singing Cassio in the Chicago Lyric Opera’s production of Verdi’s Otello. In 2003 he played the role of Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio), mounted at Austria’s annual Salzburg Festival. The turning point in Kaufmann’s career came with his 2006 debut at the Met, where he sang Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata. The overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to his performance triggered a spate of international offers that propelled him into the centre of the operatic mainstream. After his breakthrough, Kaufmann performed leading roles at the world’s major opera houses. He also released several recordings of favourites from the operatic repertoire, including Romantic Arias (2007) and Sehnsucht (2009; “Longing”). Aside from his operatic engagements, he maintained an active solo-concert schedule, with German art songs, as heard on his recordings Strauss Lieder (2006) and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin (2009), remaining among his specialties. (VIRGINIA GORLINSKI) Komorowski, Bronislaw (b. June 4, 1952, Oborniki Slaskie, Pol.) In April 2010 Polish politician Bronislaw Komorowski was named acting

president of Poland after the death of Pres. Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash while en route to a memorial service to commemorate the Katyn Massacre. Constitutionally obliged to call an election within two weeks of Kaczynski’s death, Komorowski announced that a first round of polling would occur on June 20 and that he would seek to run as the candidate for the centre-right Civic Platform (PO). Komorowski, who had already won the PO’s first-ever primary election (in March), finished first in the June poll with 41.5%—ahead of his most prominent opponent in the race, Kaczynski’s twin brother, former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who represented the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. However, because no candidate tallied at least 50% of the vote, a runoff election was held in July. In that contest Komorowski prevailed 53–47%. The new president sought to bring a new direction to Poland’s foreign affairs, especially after the media organization WikiLeaks released confidential U.S. diplomatic cables in November that appeared to show U.S. officials emphasizing relations with Russia over those with Poland. After meeting with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama in December, Komorowski stated, “I simply believe that very much has gone the wrong way in Polish-American relations.” Komorowski was born to an aristocratic family, but the communist regime in post-World War II Poland created a challenging environment for members of the hereditary landowning class. His family moved frequently before settling in Warsaw when Komorowski was a teenager. He became active in the anticommunist movement while he was still a high school student, and his dissident activities led to his first arrest in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history (1977) from the University of Warsaw, and throughout the 1980s he taught at the Niepokalanow seminary near Warsaw. Komorowski also remained a committed dissident during this period, working as the editor of an underground publication. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, Komorowski launched his political career, initially serving on the Council of Ministers before his election to the Sejm (parliament) in 1991. Over the following decade, he held a number of ministerial posts, including defense minister (2000–01) in the government of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. Komorowski joined the PO in 2001, and five years

Biographies

later he was named party vice-chairman. He continued his rise in the Sejm, and in November 2007 he was elected speaker of that body. As speaker, Komorowski sponsored a number of proEuropean Union and economic-reform initiatives that often brought him into conflict with the more euroskeptic President Kaczynski. President Komorowski’s pro-EU views, however, were considered likely to provide him with an opportunity to pursue a greater role for Poland within the EU. (MICHAEL RAY) Kramer, Sven (b. April 23, 1986, Heerenveen, Neth.) Expectations were high for Dutch speed skater Sven Kramer at the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where he was predicted to excel, notably in the 5,000- and 10,000-m races, both distances in which he had held the world record since 2007. Although he won a gold medal in the 5,000 m, as well as a bronze in team pursuit, it was his misfortune in the 10,000-m final that made the most headlines. Despite crossing the finish line with a winning (and Olympic record) time of 12 min 54.50 sec, Kramer was disqualified because he had followed his coach’s mistaken lanechange instruction with eight laps to go. Although the seemingly invincible skater was devastated at the unexpected turn of events, he recovered his Dutch speed-skating world champion Sven Kramer

aplomb and a month later won both the 5,000- and 10,000-m races at the International Skating Union world championships back home in Heerenveen, thus securing his fourth consecutive all-around speed-skating title. Kramer, the son of former Olympic speed skater Yep Kramer, grew up in Heerenveen, an important training centre for the Netherlands’s powerhouse speed skaters; his younger sister, Brecht Kramer, also competed in the sport. He received his first major recognition in 2004, when he won the Dutch allaround title. In 2005 he placed third at the world all-around speed-skating championships in Moscow and set his first world record, a blistering 6 min 8.78 sec in the 5,000 m, later in the year. That year he also was named the world all-around champion in the junior division. Kramer received a second bronze in the world all-around competition in 2006. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, he competed in four events, capturing a silver medal in the 5,000 m and a bronze in the team pursuit. Following the Turin Games, Kramer established himself as one of the premier long-distance speed skaters. In 2007 he won the first of four consecutive overall titles at both the world and European all-around championships; later that year he was named Dutch Sportsman of the Year. Along the way, he set several world records in the 10,000 m, including a time of 12 min 41.69 sec at the 2007 world single-distance championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. He also set a world record of 6 min 3.32 sec in the 5,000 m at a 2007 World Cup event, in Calgary, Alta. Both records stood at year-end 2010, but a leg injury kept Kramer, still only age 24, out of the 2010–11 skating season. (MELISSA ALBERT) Lady Gaga (b. March 28, 1986, New York, N.Y.) On Jan. 31, 2010, Lady Gaga opened the Grammy Awards telecast with an explosive production of her hit single “Poker Face” followed by a more subdued two-piano duet with Sir Elton John of a fusion of her “Speechless” and his “Your Song.” From her two Grammy wins (for best electronic/dance album and best dance recording [for “Poker Face”]) to her three Brit Awards in February, her eight wins at the Video Music Awards in September, her triumph as favourite female artist at the American Music Awards in November, and her six Grammy nominations in De-

cember, 2010 was in many ways the year of Gaga. It was almost inevitable that the flashy singer-songwriter would be named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for the year, one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes magazine, and Billboard magazine’s Artist of the Year. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta learned music at an early age and was performing onstage in New York City clubs by the time she was a teenager. She studied for two years at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University before dropping out to manage her own career. She began transforming herself into Lady Gaga—a name derived from Queen’s song “Radio Ga Ga”—with a style that combined glam rock and over-the-top fashion design. In 2007 she and performance artist Lady Starlight formed a revue called the Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow. That year Lady Gaga, who also wrote songs for other pop artists such as Fergie, the Pussycat Dolls, and Britney Spears, was signed by the rapper Akon and Interscope Records and began preparing her debut album, The Fame. Although Lady Gaga modeled herself on such theatrical performers as David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust period, the New York Dolls, and Freddie Mercury of the band Queen, she created a character that came to occupy a unique space in the music world. Her extravagant costumes and eye-catching wigs—many of them created by her own Haus of Gaga—combined with her up-tempo synthetic dance music and edgy performance style to create stunning sounds and onstage visuals. Lady Gaga’s 2008 single “Just Dance” (off The Fame) earned a Grammy nomination in 2009, which made her ineligible for a nomination in 2010 as best new artist. (This perceived injustice prompted the Recording Academy to revise that rule later in 2010.) Three other singles from The Fame—“Poker Face,” “LoveGame,” and “Paparazzi”— also reached number one. In early 2009 Lady Gaga performed on the Fame Ball Tour. The following November she embarked on the Monster Ball Tour to coincide with the release of her second album, The Fame Monster. Although the album contained only eight songs, three of them (“Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” and “Alejandro”) became hits and were ubiquitous on popular radio stations in 2010. From her headline performance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza music festival and her appearance in front of 20,000

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people for NBC’s Today show to her sold-out tour, Lady Gaga proved one of the most commercially successful artists of the year. (MICHAEL LEVY) Li Yuchun (b. March 10, 1984, Chengdu, Sichuan province, China) Chinese pop singing sensation Li Yuchun enjoyed a memorable night on April 18, 2010, when she attended the Hong Kong Film Awards as a double nominee. Her first foray as an actress, playing a young kung fu expert in the 2009 picture Bodyguards and Assassins, had netted her nominations for best supporting actress and best new artist. In addition, the theme song for the movie, “Fenmo” (“Dust”), for which she was the vocalist, was among the nominees for best original song. Imaginechina/AP

Chinese pop singer Li Yuchun Though she did not garner either award that night, the nominations burnished Li’s legend after her phenomenal rise to the top of the Chinese pop-music world over the previous five years. Li Yuchun (who called herself Chris Lee or Chris Li in English) was born and raised in Chengdu in southern China. She aspired to a career as a singer but while growing up received no formal musical training. She successfully sought admission to the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, however, and she studied there in 2002–06. 96

In 2005, while Li was still a student, she entered the Super Girl contest, a nationwide televised talent competition restricted to women and girls. She was one of some 150,000 aspirants originally. Although she did not have the best voice or dancing skills among the top contestants, Li captivated and won over audiences with her unorthodox androgynous looks and passionate delivery. By the final night of the competition, an estimated 400 million viewers were tuned in to the show as Li beat out her closest opponent by more than a quarter of a million votes. Li’s life thereafter was a whirlwind of performances and public appearances. She recorded and released her first studio album, Huanghou yu mengxiang (“The Queen and the Dreams”), in September 2006, and more discs followed, including her self-titled Li Yuchun (or Chris Lee) in 2009. Her concerts were wildly popular and included several annual shows titled “Why Me,” which were staged to thank her fans—mostly teenage girls—many of whom referred to themselves as “yumis,” or “corns,” a play on the Chinese characters for the term yu mi, which can be interpreted as meaning either “Yu’s fans” or “corn” (i.e., maize). Li’s popularity spread beyond China, as indicated by the distinction she achieved at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards ceremony in Malaysia, where she was named favourite artist from China, and by the enthusiastic reception she received while performing at the 2009 Asia Song Festival in Seoul. (KENNETH PLETCHER) LuPone, Patti, (b. April 21, 1949, Northport, Long Island, N.Y.) In November 2010 actresssinger Patti LuPone took to the stage of New York City’s Belasco Theater in the Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a musical adaptation of the Pedro Almodóvar film of the same name. Though the show was unevenly reviewed, LuPone drew raves as the recently released mental patient Lucía. In September she granted fans a first-person look at her varied career with the publication of Patti LuPone: A Memoir, a volume rife with accounts of offstage theatrics and showbiz wheeling and dealing. Patti Ann LuPone attended the drama division of the Juilliard School, New York City, which had just been formed by American producer John Houseman and the French director Michel SaintDenis. In 1971 she made her stage de-

Stage and singing star Patti LuPone but in the rock musical Iphigenia at the Young Vic Theatre in London. Despite a fractious relationship with Houseman, she joined his traveling repertory troupe, the Acting Company, when she graduated from Juilliard in 1972. LuPone made her Broadway debut in 1973 as Irina in Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Her work in the fairy tale The Robber Bridegroom (Oct. 7–18, 1975) at the Harkness Theatre earned her a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical. After having parted with the Acting Company in 1976, LuPone joined a touring production of Stephen Schwartz’s musical The Baker’s Wife (1976) and acted in a series of David Mamet plays. LuPone’s breakthrough came in 1979 when she debuted as Eva Perón in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita. The production, initially staged in Los Angeles, traveled to Broadway, where LuPone’s dynamic embodiment of the Argentine icon won her the Tony Award for best actress in a musical. She continued to work steadily in New York and elsewhere. In 1985 her performances as both Fantine in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of the musical Les Misérables and Moll in a London revival of the Depression-era musical The Cradle Will Rock won her the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a musical. Mixed reviews for her performance in the London production of Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard (1992) led him to replace her with Glenn Close on Broadway, but LuPone remained a regular figure on the New York stage. She earned another Tony nomination

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for her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (2005) and dazzled audiences as the obsessive Momma Rose in a revival of Gypsy (2007), for which she won her second Tony for best actress in a musical. In 2007 she branched out in the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. LuPone also appeared in films such as Witness (1985), Summer of Sam (1999), and State and Main (2000) and on television, notably as the mother of a boy with Down syndrome on Life Goes On (1989–93). (RICHARD PALLARDY) Lynch, Jane (b. July 14, 1960, Dolton, Ill.) On Aug. 29, 2010, Jane Lynch received a supporting actress Emmy Award for her performance in the TV comedy series Glee. The American actress and comedian, who specialized in playing off-kilter characters with strong (sometimes tyrannical) personalities, won the award for her portrayal of Sue Sylvester, a wildly aggressive, acerbictongued cheerleading coach and archenemy to a high-school glee club. Lynch grew up in small-town Illinois, where she performed with her highschool choir. She received a bachelor’s degree in theatre (1982) from Illinois State University and a master’s degree in acting (1984) from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Lynch then moved to Chicago, where over the next decade she performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the Chicago Shake-

Versatile American actress Jane Lynch

speare Theater, and other stage companies around the city. She also toured with the Second City comedy troupe and, in the early 1990s, with Annoyance Theatre’s cult hit The Real Live Brady Bunch, a stage show that featured reenactments of old episodes of the TV sitcom The Brady Bunch. One of Lynch’s first film roles was in the action drama The Fugitive (1993), parts of which were filmed in Chicago. That experience was the catalyst for her move to Los Angeles, where she found steady work in commercials and on television shows, including Married . . . with Children, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Frasier. Lynch was age 39 and still a little-known name when she met director Christopher Guest on the set of a TV cereal commercial. That meeting led to Guest’s casting her as a highly competitive dog trainer in Best in Show (2000), an improvisation-based mockumentary that lampooned the eccentric world of dog shows. Guest was known for working with the same actors from film to film, and he cast Lynch in his next two movies, as a porn-star-turned-folk-singer in A Mighty Wind (2003) and as an entertainment TV host in For Your Consideration (2006). Her performances in Guest’s films led to roles in other movies, notably Judd Apatow’s blockbuster comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Julie & Julia (2009), in which she played the sister of Meryl Streep’s Julia Child. Lynch continued working in television, honing her reputation as a versatile character actress on such programs as The King of Queens, Arrested Development, Criminal Minds, and The L Word. She also had a recurring voice role on the animated TV series Family Guy. Lynch had worked with TV writer Ryan Murphy on an episode of his program Popular, and in 2008 he cast her in the pilot for Glee. The show premiered in 2009 and was an immediate hit, not least because of Lynch’s hilarious turn as the sarcastic coach of the “Cheerios.” Lynch, who was openly lesbian, was active in the gay rights movement. In 2008 she appeared in a short film lampooning Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that barred same-sex marriage in California. (MELISSA ALBERT) Lysacek, Evan (b. June 4, 1985, Chicago, Ill.) At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Evan Lysacek, the 2009 International Skating Union (ISU) men’s

Olympic champion ice skater Evan Lysacek world figure skating champion, upset Russian defending gold medalist Yevgeny Plushchenko to become the first American man to win Olympic figure skating gold since Brian Boitano in 1988. Lysacek’s technical elements (footwork, spins, and jumps) were judged superior to those of Plushchenko, who, unlike Lysacek, had included in his program a quadruple jump, which he believed would secure his victory. Lysacek started skating at age eight after his grandmother purchased a pair of hockey skates for him. Though he initially showed no natural ability on the ice, he soon improved after learning the basics in group lessons with his sister’s figure skating classes. After mastering a few tricks, he was encouraged by private coaches to pursue figure skating. In just one year, Lysacek qualified to contest at national competitions, and he captured first place at the juvenile skill level at the 1996 Junior Olympics. He went on to win at the novice (1999) and junior (2000) levels. After graduating from high school, Lysacek moved to California, where he trained under famed coach Frank Carroll. At the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, Lysacek was in 10th place

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at the end of the short program and sick with the stomach flu. He gained national attention by fighting through his illness during the free skate and ultimately placing fourth overall in the men’s skating event. In 2007 he captured the bronze medal at the ISU Grand Prix Final. In the U.S. championships at the senior level, he was twice gold medalist (2007 and 2008), silver medalist (2006 and 2010), and bronze medalist (2005 and 2009). Though injury forced him to withdraw from the world championships in 2008, Lysacek was victorious at that competition in 2009; he was the first American in 13 years (since Todd Eldredge) to become world champion. That year Lysacek also won the Grand Prix Final. Following the 2010 Olympics, Lysacek bypassed the world championships and performed in ice-skating shows and on the popular celebritydriven television program Dancing with the Stars, where he finished in second place. (KAREN SPARKS) Mackey, Lance (b. 1970, Alaska) On March 16, 2010, American musher Lance Mackey crossed the finish line to become the first person to win Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race four years in a row. He finished with a race time of 8 days 23 hr 59 min 9 sec (falling short of Martin Buser’s 2002 record of 8 days 22 hr 46 min 2 sec by just over an hour), which made him only the second musher to complete the Iditarod in less than 9 days. Although other drivers had won the race four or more times in a career, before Mackey only two other mushers, Susan Butcher (1986–88) and Doug Swingley (1999– 2001), had won three straight. Prior to his first Iditarod win, in 2007, Mackey had never placed higher than seventh in the event. Mackey’s dogsled experience began, as he put it, “at birth.” The son of champion musher Dick Mackey, he grew up in Alaska, where he and his five siblings raced from an early age. In 1973, when Mackey was a toddler, his father helped found the Iditarod Trail Seppala Memorial Race (later renamed the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race), which stretched about 1,770 km (1,100 mi) between the Alaskan cities of Anchorage and Nome. The event soon became the sport’s foremost competition. Mackey’s father won the Iditarod in 1978, and his eldest brother, Rick, won in 1983, creating a family legacy that the younger Mackey was determined to continue. 98

Mackey competed between 1985 and 1988 in the Jr. Iditarod Sled Dog Race, an event established in 1978 as a training ground for aspiring participants in the Iditarod. His best finish in the youth race was fourth place, in 1988. In 2001 he entered his first Iditarod and placed 36th out of 57 finishers. That same year he was diagnosed with throat cancer. After undergoing successful surgery and radiation treatments, Mackey entered the 2002 Iditarod while still using a feeding tube inserted into his stomach. His compromised health forced him to quit halfway through the race, and he took the following year off to recover. In honour of his medical struggles and eventual return to competition, Mackey named his sled dog business Comeback Kennel, Inc. Mackey returned to the Iditarod in 2004 and finished in 24th place. While continuing to compete in that race, he also began contending in the Yukon Quest, an annual 1,609-km (1,000-mi) dogsled race from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon. He placed first every year from 2005, when he was a race rookie, to 2008, thereby becoming the first four-time winner of that event. He also became the first musher to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year, achieving this in both 2007 and 2008. (MELISSA ALBERT) Maddow, Rachel (b. April 1, 1973, Castro Valley, Calif.) The events of 2010 presented American political commentator and host Rachel Maddow with more than ample material for her cable-television program, The Rachel Maddow Show—a mixture of news, opinion, and entertainment— which debuted on MSNBC on Sept. 8, 2008. Maddow, a relatively rare liberal breakout star among political media figures, was kept busy fielding stories on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the U.S. midterm elections, the debate over rescinding the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals in the U.S. military, and many more. While she did not hold back regarding the liberal opinions she held and advocated on radio and TV, she was known for expressing them with a sense of humour and with a lack of bluster that was unusual in the world of politically oriented programming. Rachel Anne Maddow grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She attended Stanford University, where she earned a B.A. in public policy (1994), and she subsequently worked with the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco and

Political commentator and TV host Rachel Maddow became a prison AIDS advocate. While in college, she decided to come out as a lesbian by posting copies of an open letter to the community throughout her dormitory. In 1995 she attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and she received a doctorate in politics in 2001. Before finishing her degree, Maddow moved back to the United States, settling in western Massachusetts and resuming her AIDS prison advocacy. During that time she answered a local radio station’s open audition call on a morning show in Holyoke, Mass., and won the job. Maddow was the host’s on-air sidekick for about a year before securing her own show at a Northampton station. In 2004, when Maddow was working as a morning disc jockey, a friend gave tapes of her work to a host on the fledgling Air America liberal radio network. Maddow was hired immediately as a news reader and soon became cohost of Unfiltered with Lizz Winstead and Chuck D. After that show’s cancellation in 2005, she was offered her own selftitled weekday show. She quickly built her reputation as an issue-oriented, fair-minded, left-leaning “policy wonk.” While continuing her radio work, in 2005 she began appearing on TV on conservative Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC talk program. After several years of appearances on cable news and discussion shows, as well as a stint as a frequent guest host on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Maddow was given her own show, The Rachel Maddow Show. Her

Biographies

radio program on Air America ended with the demise of that network in January 2010. (LORRAINE MURRAY) Mankell, Henning (b. Feb. 3, 1948, Stockholm, Swed.) In 2010 Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell’s novel Kinesen (2007) was at last published in English translation, as The Man from Beijing. Some Englishlanguage fans were disappointed that the book featured Judge Birgitta Roslin and not the gloomy, dysfunctional police inspector Kurt Wallander, a favourite in nine previous novels and on television. In November, however, Mankell announced that The Troubled Man, a translation of his latest Wallander novel, Den orolige mannen (2009), would reach his eager English-language readers in March 2011. Mankell grew up in Sveg, a small town in the Härjedalen region of central Sweden, where his father served as a judge. (His mother deserted the family when he was a toddler.) At age 16 Mankell joined the merchant marine, and he worked for two years as a stevedore on a freighter. When he returned to Stockholm after an extended stay in Paris, Mankell tried his hand at playwriting before publishing the novel Bergsprängaren (1973; “The Stone Blaster”). He continued to publish fiction, including the juvenile novel Sandmålaren (1974; “The Sand Painter”) and the first Wallander novel, Mördare utan ansikte (1991; Faceless Killers). Thereafter, he wrote one Wallander book a year, beginning with Hundarna i Riga (1992;

Swedish crime author Henning Mankell

The Dogs of Riga) and ending with Pyramiden (1999; The Pyramid), a prequel to the first Wallander book. Mankell then waited a decade to feature Wallander in Den orolige mannen. Mankell’s Wallander novels, set mostly in what he depicts as a particularly bleak region of Sweden, have a strong sense of place. Lean and dark, they reflect on what it means to be Swedish— indeed, what it means to be human— in a brutal and depressing world. Even though he was not especially likable or attractive, Inspector Wallander—with his divorced loner status, his bad eating habits, and his deeply pessimistic outlook—seemed to strike a chord with readers, and Mankell’s crime novels were translated into dozens of languages. Sales were further spurred when many of the books were adapted for TV in both Swedish and English. Mankell’s non-Wallander crime novels feature such characters as police officer Stefan Lindman (Danslärarens återkomst, 2000; The Return of the Dancing Master) and Judge Roslin. He also continued to write other books, including several—such as Eldens hemlighet (1995; Secrets in the Fire)—for a younger audience. Mankell maintained a strong connection with the theatre that began in his youth. His numerous plays include Darwins kapten (Darwin’s Captain) and Mörkertid (Time of Darkness), which had their world premieres on Oct. 29, 2010, in Stockholm and Amersfoort, Neth., respectively. After having worked as director (1984–87) of a theatre in Växjö, Swed., he became the artistic director and contributing playwright of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozam., in 1987. Thereafter he divided his time between his homes in Stockholm and Mozambique. Mankell’s social activism extended to AIDS work in Africa. His nonfiction book Jag dör, men minnet lever (2003; I Die, but My Memory Lives On) is a reflection on his experiences in that regard. (KATHLEEN KUIPER) Mantel, Hilary (b. July 6, 1952, Hadfield, Derbyshire, Eng.) In March 2010 it was announced that English writer Hilary Mantel had won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for her novel Wolf Hall. A voluminous narrative based on the life of Thomas Cromwell, the principal adviser to King Henry VIII of England, the book was lauded for its impressive scope and complex portrayal of its subject. Mantel had also captured the 2009 Man Booker Prize

for the novel. It was also short-listed for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction and won the inaugural Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Though Mantel had long been admired by critics for her bleakly comic, socially probing novels, she now found herself with an international best seller as well. Hilary Mary Mantel was born Hilary Mary Thompson, but she later took her unofficial stepfather’s surname. She attended convent school before embarking on a law degree at the London School of Economics. She finished her studies at the University of Sheffield in 1973 and found work first as a social worker and then as a store assistant. After moving to Botswana with her husband, a geologist, Mantel turned her attention to creating fiction, driven to write by the cultural isolation she experienced as well as by the inactivity imposed on her by a chronic medical condition, later diagnosed as endometriosis. In 1983 she and her husband relocated to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, where she completed her first novel, Every Day Is Mother’s Day (1985), before eventually moving back to England. The book, a dark comedy about a social worker’s involvement with an emotionally unbalanced woman and her autistic daughter, established Mantel’s reputation for vivid characterization and sharp social criticism, and she capitalized on the book’s success a year later with a sequel, Vacant Possession. In 1987 Mantel wrote an essay for the British magazine The Spectator about her experiences in Jiddah, and she subsequently served (1987–91) as a film and book reviewer for the publication. Jiddah also provided the backdrop for the political thriller, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (1988). Mantel followed that book with Fludd (1989), a fanciful religious mystery set in 1950s England. Mantel’s novel A Place of Greater Safety (1992) is a richly detailed chronicle of the French Revolution. She drew on her years in Botswana for the novel A Change of Climate (1994) and on her own straitened adolescence for the clear-eyed coming-of-age novel An Experiment in Love (1995). Three years later she returned to historical fiction with The Giant, O’Brien, which imaginatively explores and contrasts the lives of two real 18th-century figures—a freakishly tall sideshow performer steeped in the Irish oral tradition and a Scottish surgeon. In 2003 Mantel published a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, which depicts her anxiety-ridden childhood and her later

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struggle with illness, and Learning to Talk, a collection of loosely autobiographical short stories. Beyond Black (2005), a wryly humorous novel about a psychic, was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Mantel was made CBE in 2006. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) McChrystal, Stanley (b. Aug. 14, 1954) U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan since June 2009, crafted a counterinsurgency strategy for the region that relied heavily on increased troop strength. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama approved the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops in December 2009, and the “surge” in Afghanistan began in earnest in early 2010. With a total strength of nearly 100,000 troops, McChrystal intended to reduce civilian deaths and promote security and development at the local level. In June, however, he was relieved of his command after he and members of his staff made derisive comments about top officials in the Obama administration to a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine. McChrystal attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and graduated as a second lieutenant in 1976. As a first lieutenant, McChrystal commanded a Green Beret unit (1979–80) before attending advanced infantry officer training school and receiving a promotion to captain. In the 1980s he served as an intelligence officer with the UN Command in South Korea, and he was promoted to major during an extended stint with the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1990 he earned a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and he was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)—a standing task force that integrates special operations units—at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During the Persian Gulf War (1990–91), McChrystal was deployed to Saudi Arabia, and JSOC oversaw the search for Iraqi mobile Scud missile launchers. Shortly after the conflict, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. McChrystal then held commands in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment. In 1996, shortly after he had begun a year of study at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, he was elevated to full colonel. He returned to the 82nd Airborne in 2000 and was promoted to brigadier general the follow100

Retired general Stanley McChrystal ing year. After the September 11 attacks of 2001, McChrystal served as chief of staff of the combined joint task force operating in Afghanistan. He assumed command of JSOC in 2003 and oversaw the capture that year of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the 2006 air strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. McChrystal’s success earned him his second (2004) and third (2006) stars. Though credited with initiating an era of cooperation between the previously insular JSOC and the Central Intelligence Agency, he was criticized for his role in suppressing evidence in the “friendly fire” death of Ranger and former National Football League player Pat Tillman, and incidences of prisoner abuse were alleged to have taken place under McChrystal’s supervision of Iraq’s Camp Nama. Nevertheless, he was named director of the Joint Staff in August 2008. In June 2009, as the tide in Afghanistan appeared to be turning against the U.S., McChrystal was given command of the joint NATO-U.S. mission there and received his fourth star soon afterward. When McChrystal retired from the military in July 2010, he was allowed to depart as a four-star general despite having not held that rank for the required three years. (MICHAEL RAY) McGorry, Patrick (b. 1952, Dublin, Ire.) In 2010 Irish-born Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, best known for his research and advocacy efforts in the area of youth mental health, was named Australian of the Year. He was

also appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his efforts to improve mental health services, particularly for Australia’s youth. Patrick Dennistoun McGorry was the son of a doctor. In 1955, when McGorry was two years old, the family moved from Finglas, an area of northern Dublin, to Swansea, Wales. In 1968 the family immigrated to Australia. McGorry earned bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery (1977) from the University of Sydney and followed with a doctorate (1991) in psychiatry from Monash University in Melbourne. While he pursued a medical degree from the University of Melbourne, he founded (1992) and was subsequently appointed director of the university’s Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC), which offered services intended to diagnose and treat the early symptoms of psychosis. Also in 1992 he became an associate professor of psychiatry, and in 1996 he became director of the university’s Centre for Young People’s Mental Health (renamed Orygen Youth Health in 2002). In 2003 the Australian federal government awarded McGorry the Centenary Medal for the establishment of EPPIC, which was the first organization of its kind in Australia to focus on young people in general, as opposed to adolescents or adults specifically. The centre’s structure and services proved to be an influential model for other such facilities in Asia, Europe, and North America. In 2002 McGorry completed his medical training, and four years later he was appointed to Australia’s first chair of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne. McGorry was a founding director and board member of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation (also known as Headspace), a mental health initiative of the Australian federal government. The foundation offered information, services, and support in the areas of mental health and social well-being. In addition to his work in the field of early psychosis, McGorry was noted for his significant research contributions to the broader field of youth mental health, including the areas of suicide, homelessness, substance abuse, personality disorders, schizophrenia, torture, and trauma. He received criticism for his advocacy of administering preventive medicine to individuals who might be at high risk of developing mental illness, as they could face potential side effects from medications prescribed to prevent disorders that might not materialize.

Biographies

McGorry held various editorial positions, including editor in chief of the journal Early Intervention in Psychiatry, associate editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, and editorial board member of Schizophrenia Bulletin and Schizophrenia Research. He was also the coauthor or coeditor of several books, including The Recognition and Management of Early Psychosis: A Preventive Approach, 2nd ed. (2009). (JEANNETTE NOLEN)

won at least one tournament in each of the following three years, and he finished the 1996 PGA season with his first top-10 world ranking (seventh). He rose to second in the rankings in 2001, behind fellow American Tiger Woods. The two developed a rivalry that came to dominate the sport throughout the decade as the outgoing Mickelson and the more reserved Woods divided golf fans with their disparate personalities and approaches to the game. Despite his great success on the Tour, Mickelson gained a reputation as the best player in the world to have never won a major tournament (the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, or the PGA Championship), a distinction made more burdensome by his finishing second or third in six majors between 1999 and 2003.

Mickelson, Phil (b. June 16, 1970, San Diego, Calif.) On April 11, 2010, American golfer Phil Mickelson won his third green jacket as champion of the Masters Tournament, placing himself into a tie with four others for the third highest career total in that prestigious tournament’s Chuck Burton/AP history. Although he fared less well later in the season, Mickelson was still among the top PGA money winners in 2010, and he qualified on points to represent the U.S. on his eighth consecutive Ryder Cup team. (He won his match, despite the overall U.S. loss.) Philip Alfred Mickelson took to golf at an extremely young age, hitting his first golf balls at just age 18 months. He learned the basics of the sport by mirroring his father’s swing, which led the naturally right-handed Phil to adopt the left-handed stroke that would later lead to his nickname, “Lefty.” He won dozens of Golfer Phil Mickelson San Diego-area tournaments as a junior golfer, and he captured an unprecedented three consecutive naHe finally broke through with a mational Junior Player of the Year awards jor victory in 2004 when he won the (1986–88). His golfing prowess earned Masters by one stroke over South him a full scholarship to Arizona State African Ernie Els. His hot play continUniversity (ASU), where he established ued through the rest of that season, and a reputation as one of the greatest he finished in the top six in the reAmerican amateur golfers of all time. mainder of the 2004 majors. Mickelson Mickelson was named first-team All- waited just one year for a second maAmerican in each of his four years at jor win, the 2005 PGA Championship, ASU, and he won three NCAA individ- which he followed with a victory in the ual championships (1989–90, 1992). In very next major, the 2006 Masters. He 1990 he won the U.S. Amateur Cham- continued to win less-prestigious tourpionship, and the following year he naments as well, and he was routinely won his first PGA Tour event, the among the sport’s annual top money Northern Telecom Open, becoming winners throughout the decade. only the fourth amateur to have won a (ADAM AUGUSTYN) PGA tournament. In 1992 Mickelson graduated from Miliband, Ed ASU with a degree in psychology and (b. Dec. 24, 1969, London, Eng.) joined the PGA Tour. His first profes- On Sept. 25, 2010, Britain’s Labour sional win came in 1993 at Torrey Pines Party elected 40-year-old Ed Miliband Golf Course in San Diego, where he had as the party’s youngest leader since played golf matches in high school. He World War II. He narrowly defeated his

older brother, David, at the end of a contest that provided both personal and political drama. Edward Samuel Miliband was the son of Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust during World War II. Ralph Miliband, who had fled Belgium in 1940, became a prominent Marxist intellectual in London, where he met and married Marion Kozak, who had been sheltered by a Roman Catholic family in Poland during the war. Their sons thus grew up in a household in which intense political debate was seldom absent for long. Ed Miliband followed his brother to Haverstock Comprehensive School and then to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to study politics, philosophy, and economics before forging his own path with a master’s degree from the London School of Economics. In 1993, after a brief period as a television researcher, he started working for Labour Party MP Harriet Harman. When Labour returned to power after the 1997 general election, Ed became a special adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. With David working for Prime Minister Tony Blair, the brothers found themselves in different camps that frequently devolved into intraparty conflict. More than once, the siblings provided the channel through which disputes between Brown and Blair could be settled or, at least, temporarily calmed. After having spent a year (2002–03) as a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Ed was selected as Labour candidate for Doncaster North, in Yorkshire. He was elected to Parliament in May 2005, four years after David had become an MP. When Brown took over as prime minister in 2007, he named David foreign secretary and added Ed to his cabinet, first as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and then, from October 2008, as the inaugural secretary of state for energy and climate change. Thus, two brothers sat in Britain’s cabinet for the first time since the 1930s. Ed represented the U.K. at the 2009 Copenhagen summit on climate change. Although the summit failed to achieve a legally binding agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, Ed was widely credited as having worked hard for a deal. Following Labour’s defeat in the 2010 general election, Brown resigned as party leader, and David was regarded as the favourite to succeed him. Ed’s deci101

Biographies

sion to stand against his brother (along with three other candidates) caused widespread surprise, but the contest quickly became a two-horse race. In the end, strong campaigns by leading trade unions gave Ed a narrow victory (trade union members held one-third of the votes). Subsequently, David decided to leave front-line politics and not serve in Ed’s “shadow cabinet.” On September 28, in his first major speech, Ed sought to repudiate the criticism that he was “Red Ed”—a left-wing extremist in thrall to trade union leaders. (PETER KELLNER) Mo’Nique (b. Dec. 11, 1967, Woodlawn, Md.) Stand-up comedienne Mo’Nique—considered a shoo-in for best supporting actress at the 2010 Academy Awards—indeed waltzed away with the golden statuette for her deft humanization of the violent, sexually abusive Mary in Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire (2009). As Mary, the zaftig Mo’Nique stalked the screen, constantly lambasting and assaulting her teenage daughter, Precious, who is already HIVpositive and pregnant with a second child by her own father. Though some critics thought her maniacal presence veered dangerously close to the stereotypical, most people agreed that sufficient counterpoint was provided in the film’s quieter moments, during which Mo’Nique was able to evoke the ignorance and desperation behind the cruelty of her character. The role also gar-

Academy Award-winning actress Mo’Nique

nered Mo’Nique the Golden Globe for best supporting actress. She was born Mo’Nique Imes, the youngest of four children. At her brother’s suggestion, she took to the stage in 1988 during an open-mike night at a comedy club. Encouraged by the success of her impromptu performance, she began performing professionally at other comedy clubs in Baltimore, Md., in Atlanta, and along the East Coast. Eventually, she left her job as a customer-service representative for a telecommunications company to pursue a full-time career in stand-up comedy, and she was soon opening for musicians and appearing in such television specials as Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam and Comic View. After Mo’Nique made popular guest appearances on the television sitcom Moesha in 1999 and 2000, a spin-off series was created for her character, and she starred for five seasons as Nikki Parker on the sitcom The Parkers (1999–2004), in which she played an ebullient single mother. Film roles soon followed, though the movies were of varying quality, ranging from Baby Boy (2001), about life in inner-city Los Angeles, to Soul Plane (2004), a widely reviled parody of Airplane! (1980) that featured stereotypical depictions of African Americans. Mo’Nique continued to perform stand-up, notably joining the Queens of Comedy tour in 2000. Mo’Nique first gained attention as a dramatic actress in Shadowboxer (2005), in which she played a drug addict. She then lent her voice to Farce of the Penguins (2006), a coarse spoof of the nature documentary The March of the Penguins (2005), and starred in Phat Girlz (2006), a romantic comedy. Mo’Nique also hosted Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance (2005–07), a television beauty pageant for full-figured women. In 2009 she took her confrontational brand of humour to the talk-show circuit with The Mo’Nique Show on Black Entertainment Television (BET). In addition, Mo’Nique penned (with Sherri McGee McCovey) Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Big Girl in a SmallMinded World (2003), a profanity-laden apologia for overweight women; a cookbook, Skinny Cooks Can’t Be Trusted (2006); and a novel, Beacon Hills High (2008). (RICHARD PALLARDY) Morgan, Piers (b. March 30, 1965, Guildford, Surrey, Eng.) In June 2010 it was announced that British journalist and media per-

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sonality Piers Morgan would replace veteran interviewer Larry King as host of the flagship nightly talk show on American news channel Cable News Network (CNN). For Morgan, inheriting the esteemed seat was merely the latest triumph in a versatile, resilient career that was highlighted by his flashy roles as a tabloid editor, television talent-show judge, and TV contestant (and winner in 2008) on The Celebrity Apprentice. Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan grew up in southern England. He displayed an affinity for journalism at age 15, when he wrote an article for a local newspaper about his village’s cricket team, and he went on to study the subject at Harlow College in Essex. After working as a reporter for papers in south London, he was hired in 1989 to be the showbusiness editor at the tabloid The Sun, at the time the most widely read daily newspaper in the U.K. The position allowed Morgan to socialize with celebrities, and he managed to boost his own public profile by frequently posing for photographs with them. Morgan’s ambition and savvy were rewarded when in 1994 publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch appointed him to be editor in chief of News of the World, the Sunday sister paper of The Sun; aged 28, he was the youngest national newspaper editor in the U.K. since 1937. He quickly won attention for his enthusiastic pursuit of scoops and his penchant for pushing against journalistic standards in the process. A year later Morgan took over the editorship of the rival tabloid The Daily Mirror, which he ran in the same provocative vein. A number of exclusive stories, such as an exposé of security at Buckingham Palace, positioned the newspaper at the forefront of national conversation. At the same time, Morgan was often criticized for his brash style and his seeming disregard for privacy. In 2000 a scandal erupted when it was discovered that Morgan had bought shares in a company shortly before The Daily Mirror’s financial column suggested that the firm was a good investment. Though he emerged from the situation unscathed, another controversy arose four years later when the paper published photographs purporting to depict British soldiers mistreating prisoners in the Iraq War. After the images were revealed to be a hoax, Morgan was fired. In 2006 Morgan was chosen by his friend Simon Cowell to appear as a judge on the American reality-TV com-

Biographies Mark Fagelson/Alamy

British TV personality Piers Morgan petition America’s Got Talent. His biting wit and self-confidence in that role led to further television opportunities, including a seat (2007–10) on the judging panel of Britain’s Got Talent and in 2009 his own interview program, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. The latter show, along with a monthly interview column for the British version of GQ magazine, attested to Morgan’s skill at drawing out celebrities’ personal lives, which would undoubtedly prove to be an asset in his new position. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Nasheed, Mohamed (b. May 17, 1967, Male, Maldives) In 2010 Maldives Pres. Mohamed Nasheed received plaudits abroad and dealt with crisis at home. He received a Champion of the Earth award from the UN in April for his outspoken efforts toward halting climate change. In June relations between Nasheed and the People’s Majlis (parliament) hit a new low when his entire cabinet resigned in order to protest the Majlis’s blocking of the government’s initiatives. Although Nasheed reappointed his cabinet, the political situation was deadlocked, as the opposition Maldive People’s Party did not have enough seats in the Majlis to impeach him. Nasheed attended grammar school in the capital, Male, before going on to schools in Colombo, Sri Lanka (1981– 82), and in West Lavington, Wiltshire, Eng. (1982–84). He received a bachelor’s degree in maritime studies from Liverpool (Eng.) John Moores University in 1989.

He returned to Maldives and in 1990 became assistant editor of the new magazine Sangu, which criticized the government of Pres. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Sangu was banned, and Nasheed was sentenced to house arrest. He was jailed later that year and was held in solitary confinement for 18 months. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 1992 but was released in 1993. Nasheed applied in 1994 for government permission to form an independent political party, but his request was rejected. Beginning in April 1996 he again served six months in prison for an article he wrote in a Philippine magazine. In 1999 Nasheed was elected to the People’s Majlis. He was arrested again in late 2001 and was sentenced to two and a half years’ exile on a remote island. In March 2002, while still in exile, he was expelled from the Majlis because he had not attended for six months; he was released in August. After riots in Male in 2003, Nasheed left Maldives for Sri Lanka, where in 2004 he helped found the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). Nasheed returned to Maldives in April 2005. After the government passed legislation that allowed political parties to participate in elections, Nasheed began a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience designed to bring greater democracy to the country. Detained again, he spent more than a year under

Maldivian Pres. Mohamed Nasheed surfacing from his 2009 underwater cabinet meeting

house arrest (2005–06). In the first free presidential election in Maldives, in October 2008, Nasheed defeated Gayoom with 54% of the vote. As president, Nasheed became known internationally for his environmental campaign. With none of the low-lying Maldive Islands rising to more than 1.8 m (6 ft) above sea level, the country would be severely affected by rising seas, and Nasheed made climate change a central issue of his administration. Maldives also announced plans to become the world’s first carbon-neutral country by 2020, and Nasheed even held a cabinet meeting underwater in October 2009 in an effort to draw attention to the danger of rising sea levels. (ERIK GREGERSEN) Ohno, Apolo Anton (b. May 22, 1982, Seattle, Wash.) At the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, short-track speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno became the most decorated American athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics. Ohno arrived in Vancouver with five medals from two previous Olympics, and with his silver medal in the 1,500 m and bronze in the 1,000 m, he eclipsed American speed skater Bonnie Blair’s total of six career Winter Olympic medals. On the final night of short-track competition in Vancouver, Ohno suffered a disqualification in the 500-m final but returned to lead the U.S. to a bronze medal in the 5,000-m relay. Thus, in his three Olympics (2002, 2006, and 2010), Ohno accumulated eight medals—two gold, two silver, and four bronze. Ohno’s Japanese-born father encouraged him from an early age to participate in sports as a constructive outlet for his abundant energy. (He had no contact with his American mother.) Ohno experienced success in competitive swimming and in-line roller skating before taking up short-track speed skating at the age of 12. His talent on the ice was recognized almost immediately, and at age 14 he became the youngest skater ever to be accepted into the residency program at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y. He won the first of his numerous U.S. championships in 1997, and by 2001 he had emerged as an elite competitor on the international shorttrack circuit, winning the overall World Cup title that year—the first American skater to do so. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ohno was among the favourites in the 1,000-m event. On the

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race’s final lap, China’s Li Jiajun caused a pileup that knocked everyone down except Australian Steven Bradbury (then skating in last place), who safely bypassed the other skaters for the gold. Ohno managed to lunge across the finish line to earn the silver medal. Four nights later Ohno won a controversial gold in the 1,500-m competition; although he finished the race second behind South Korea’s Kim Dong-Sung, Kim was subsequently disqualified for having obstructed Ohno’s path. Ohno claimed his second overall World Cup title in 2003 and achieved a third in 2005. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, he won the only short-track gold medal by an American, in the 500-m event, and earned bronze medals in the 1,000 m and the 5,000-m relay. In 2007 Ohno made headlines off the ice by appearing as a contestant on the televised dance competition Dancing with the Stars, which he won with his professional dance partner, Julianne Hough. After returning to skating, he quickly regained his winning form. At the 2008 short-track world championships in Kangnung, S.Kor., he captured the 500-m and overall world titles. Although Ohno struggled in 2009, he arrived in Vancouver back on form and ready to make history. (SHERMAN HOLLAR) Oz, Mehmet (b. June 11, 1960, Cleveland, Ohio) As his television series, The Dr. Oz Show, entered its second season in 2010, Mehmet Oz continued his reign as “America’s Doctor,” a nickname given to him by TV superstar Oprah Winfrey. The Turkish American surgeon found a prescription for success with his holistic approach to health and his easygoing and candid manner. In addition to his TV work—which included frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show—Oz wrote (with Michael F. Roizen) the best-selling YOU series of health books and was cohost of a radio show. With a legion of devoted followers, Oz was perhaps the most popular and trusted doctor in the United States. Mehmet Cengiz Oz, whose parents were Turkish immigrants, was raised in Wilmington, Del., where his father was a thoracic surgeon. After graduating from Harvard University (1982), he earned an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business (both in 1986). During this time Oz, who was a dual citizen of the 104

U.S. and Turkey, served in the Turkish army in order to maintain his citizenship in that country. He subsequently conducted his residency in general surgery (1986–90) and cardiothoracic surgery (1991–93) at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York City. He became an attending surgeon at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in 1993. An advocate of alternative medicine, Oz began incorporating hypnosis, meditation, acupuncture, and other non-Western treatments into his practice. In 2001 he became director of the hospital’s complementary medicine program. That year he also became professor of surgery at Columbia University. In 2005 Oz co-wrote YOU: The Owner’s Manual. The book—noted for its engaging text and humour—led to an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other programs. With Roizen, he continued the best-selling YOU series with such volumes as YOU: On a Diet (2006), YOU: The Smart Patient (2006), YOU: Staying Young (2007), YOU: Being Beautiful (2008), YOU: Having a Baby (2009), and YOU: Raising Your Child (2010). The popularity of the books and television appearances led to a daily talk show on Sirius XM Radio’s Oprah Radio. The program, which debuted in 2008, featured Oz and Roizen providing health advice. The following year Oz also began hosting the daytime TV series The Dr. Oz Show, an hourlong program that included information on various health topics and on preventive medicine.

Mehmet Oz of TV fame

Joe Fornabaio—Sony Pictures Television/PRNewsFoto/AP Images

In addition to his TV and radio work, Oz continued to practice medicine and teach. He also authored numerous papers and was a regular contributor to various periodicals, including Esquire and O, the Oprah Magazine. In 2003 he founded and became chairman of HealthCorps, a nonprofit organization that focused on obesity and other health problems, especially those affecting American youths. (AMY TIKKANEN) Patterson, James B. (b. March 22, 1947, Newburgh, N.Y.) American novelist James Patterson, already a prolific writer of thriller and suspense novels for adults, won recognition for his juvenile fiction when he was awarded Author of the Year honours for Maximum Ride: Max (2009) at the 2010 Children’s Choice Book Awards ceremony in New York City. The best-selling author was inspired to write for a younger audience when he discovered that his own son lacked a strong interest in reading. This discovery led Patterson to create (2005) the Maximum Ride science-fiction thriller series of children’s books designed to appeal to readers of all ages. The overwhelming success of this series led to several others, including the Daniel X and Witch & Wizard series. To fulfill his goal of helping children remain avid readers well into adulthood, Patterson launched the Web site ReadKiddoRead.com to suggest exciting books for children of various literacy levels. He also established (2005) the James Patterson Pageturner Awards, which acknowledge those who have developed successful methods to spread the joy of reading. Before embarking on his career as a novelist, Patterson found employment (1971) as a junior copywriter at advertising agency J. Walter Thompson Co. in New York City, where he created the slogan “I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid” and eventually worked his way up to CEO (1988) and chairman (1990–96) of JWT/North America. His first attempt at fiction, The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), won the 1977 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. By 2010 he had penned (alone or with a coauthor) more than 50 novels, with worldwide sales of at least 170 million copies. He was probably best known, however, for his series of books—notably, those featuring Alex Cross, beginning with Along Came a Spider (1993; filmed 2001) and Kiss the Girls (1995; filmed 1997). His other successful series include the Women’s Murder Club, which debuted with 1st to Die (2001) and served as the basis for a

Biographies Jeffery Salter/Redux

Detective novelist James Patterson short-lived 2007–08 television series. He was noteworthy as the first author to have had new titles concurrently listed at number one on the New York Times adult and children’s best-seller lists, and in 2009 he set the Guinness world record for the most entries on the New York Times best-seller list. Patterson continued to churn out novels at a frenetic pace in 2010, with the release of at least a dozen new titles on which he had collaborated with other authors. These novels include The 9th Judgment and Private, the inaugural book in a new series. Now You See Her was the first of several more novels due to be released in 2011. (BARBARA A. SCHREIBER) Piñera, Sebastián (b. Dec. 1, 1949, Santiago, Chile) For Chilean businessman-turned-politician Sebastián Piñera, much of 2010 was a journey from tragedy to joy. On February 27, less than two weeks before he was to assume the presidency, which he had won in a January runoff election, a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck the country, killing more than 560 people and directly affecting millions. A reminder of that earthquake came when on March 11 powerful aftershocks jolted Piñera’s inauguration ceremony. Seven months later Piñera found himself above an Atacama Desert mine, at the mouth of a rescue tunnel, happily welcoming one-by-one the 33 workers who had become the centre of the global media’s attention after having been trapped underground for 69 days.

Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique’s family moved to the United States when he was a baby. There his father, a civil servant, spent four years working for the Chilean Economic Development Agency. The family went back to Chile in the mid-1950s but left again in 1965 when Piñera’s father was appointed Chile’s ambassador to Belgium. After having earned a degree in commercial engineering (1971) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC), Piñera returned to the U.S. with the aid of a Fulbright scholarship to continue his studies, receiving a master’s degree and a Ph.D. (1976) in economics from Harvard University. He served on the PUC economics faculty throughout the 1970s and ’80s. He also taught at the University of Chile, Santiago, and the Valparaíso Business School (later Adolfo Ibáñez University). Piñera worked in the consulting and banking sectors prior to his founding of the hugely successful Bancard in the late 1970s. The company, which introduced credit cards to Chile, made him a billionaire. He also held large stakes in other companies, including LAN Chile, the country’s national airline; a private hospital; and the association football (soccer) team Colo Colo. Among Piñera’s other endeavours was the creation (1993) of the Fundación Futuro, a nonprofit organization concerned with water preservation and renewable energy that also established Tantauco Park, an ecological park on the Chilean island of Chiloé. Piñera took up politics in 1989, managing the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Hernán Büchi, the former finance minister under military dictator Augusto Pinochet. That same year Piñera was elected senator for East Santiago, a seat he held until 1998. He made an unsuccessful run for the presidency in the December 2005 election, as the candidate of the National Renewal party. Michelle Bachelet of the ruling Concertación coalition won, but she was constitutionally prohibited from serving a consecutive term, and in 2009 Piñera ran again. This time the Concertación candidate was former president Eduardo Frei, and Piñera’s victory over Frei in the January 2010 second-round runoff election, by a 52–48% margin, ended 20 years of Concertación rule. (EB ED.)

evening gowns and cocktail dresses coveted by many of Hollywood’s top actresses, launched a “fast fashion” collection for the American mass-market retail company Target Corp. and produced Z Spoke, a relatively affordable collection for the luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue. Posen, who had been criticized in the past for allegedly being more concerned with the social aspects of the fashion industry than with actual clothing design, vowed during the year that he was finished dressing New York socialites. In September Posen participated in his first Paris Fashion Week, though he promised that the Z Spoke line would show in New York. Posen attended Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, an independent school with a heavy focus on the arts. At age 16 he enrolled in a precollege program at Parsons School of Design (now Parsons the New School for Design), where he studied pattern making. In 1996 he landed a two-year internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, and subsequently he secured an internship at the Nicole Miller fashion house. After graduating (1999) from Saint Ann’s, he took a job as a design assistant for the Tocca fashion house. Later that year he entered the womenswear degree program at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design at the University of the Arts London. He gained recognition while still a student when in 2000 supermodel Naomi Campbell requested one of his designs.

Fashion designer Zac Posen

Posen, Zac (b. Oct. 24, 1980, New York, N.Y.) In 2010 American fashion designer Zac Posen, best known for his glamorous Landov

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The following year one of his dresses— made entirely from thin strips of leather held together by hook-and-eye closures—was selected to be featured in the “Curvaceous” exhibit (2001–02) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2001 Posen returned to New York and, at age 20, held his first fashion show. It was attended by buyers for the luxury retailer Henri Bendel, which began selling his dresses. He was subsequently selected to present a capsule collection—a limited range of designs with a particular theme or focus—as a part of the Fresh Faces in Fashion show. In the same year, Posen founded his own company, Outspoke, and thereby launched his signature label. In 2002 Posen debuted his ready-towear collection, which received mixed reviews. He gained significant recognition, however, when Hollywood actress Natalie Portman wore a gown that he designed to the London premiere of one of her films. Later that year, with Vogue editor Anna Wintour sitting in the front row, Posen made his debut at New York Fashion Week and garnered rave reviews. Posen’s 2004 collection ventured into sportswear and earned him Swarovski’s Perry Ellis Award for Womenswear from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In addition, Posen’s success secured him the financial backing of the American rapper and clothing designer Diddy. The Posen label also expanded to include handbags, shoes, accessories, and hosiery. (JEANNETTE NOLEN) Rajapakse, Mahinda (b. Nov. 18, 1945, Weeraketiya, Sri Lanka) In January 2010 Mahinda Rajapakse, who had served as president of Sri Lanka since 2005 and whose popularity had been buoyed by the end of the country’s long civil war in 2009, handily defeated retired general Sarath Fonseka and won election to a second term. Rajapakse later dissolved Parliament and called for parliamentary elections in April. His party, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), won a strong majority of seats, and in September Parliament amended the constitution to allow the president to serve more than two terms. Rajapakse was born into a large upper-caste family and brought up as a Buddhist. Throughout much of his childhood, his father was a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament. Although Rajapakse did not pursue undergraduate study, he received a law degree (1974) from Colombo Law College.

In 1970 Rajapakse, age 24, became the youngest-ever member of the Sri Lankan Parliament when he was elected to the seat that his father had vacated just five years earlier. After losing the seat in 1977, he focused on his law career until reentering Parliament in 1989. Viewed as a centre-left politician, he became known as a defender of human rights—a reputation that would later be undermined during his presidency when Sri Lanka was recognized as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for dissenting journalists. Rajapakse served as minister of labour (1994–2001) as well as minister of fisheries and aquatic resources (1997–2001) under Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga. In 2004 Kumaratunga appointed Rajapakse prime minister, and the following year she announced her endorsement of him as her successor. Rajapakse was elected president in 2005 as the UPFA candidate. At the time, the Sri Lankan government was in the midst of ongoing peace talks and a precarious cease-fire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Nevertheless, Rajapakse announced his intention in 2006 to eradicate the Tamil separatist group, which had operated as both a rebel army and a de facto government in parts of Sri Lanka for more than 20 years. The Sri Lankan army defeated the LTTE forces in 2009, ending the protracted civil war. Rajapakse’s popularity surged, but international observers criticized his army’s brutality in the war’s final battle, which had led to many civilian deaths.

In late 2009, four years into his sixyear term, Rajapakse called for a presidential election in early 2010. Fonseka, who commanded the Sri Lankan army in the final battle against the Tamil Tigers, emerged as his main opposition, but Rajapakse won with 58% of the vote. Despite Fonseka’s protests, as well as questions arising from Rajapakse’s possible misuse of state funds for his campaign, independent observers held that no voting fraud had taken place. (EB ED.) Rascal Flatts American country music trio Rascal Flatts began 2010 with a series of setbacks, including the shuttering in April of Lyric Street, their longtime record label, and the loss of millions of dollars in instruments and equipment in the historic floods that inundated Nashville in May. By July, however, the band had turned things around, signing with Big Machine Records, best known as the home of country superstar Taylor Swift. In November the band released its seventh studio album, Nothing like This, which debuted at number one on the Billboard magazine country album chart. The group, which consisted of lead vocalist Gary LeVox (born Gary Wayne Vernon, Jr., on July 10, 1970, in Columbus, Ohio), bassist Jay DeMarcus (born Stanley Wayne DeMarcus, Jr., on April 26, 1971, in Columbus), and guitarist Joe Don Rooney (born on Sept. 13, 1975, in Baxter Springs, Kan.), had its origins in the mid-1990s when cousins LeVox and DeMarcus moved from

Country trio Rascal Flatts (from left Joe Don Rooney, Gary LeVox, and Jay DeMarcus)

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Columbus to Nashville to pursue musical careers. DeMarcus played in the backing band of country vocalist Chely Wright, and he and LeVox performed regularly in the Nashville club scene. When their regular guitarist was unable to appear at a session, DeMarcus recruited Rooney, whom he knew from Wright’s band, to join them. The trio had an easy chemistry, and they decided to form Rascal Flatts in 1999. They signed to Disney’s Lyric Street Records imprint and released the self-titled Rascal Flatts (2000). The album went platinum on the strength of the group’s breakout single “Prayin’ for Daylight,” which reached number three on the Billboard country music chart and broke into the Top 40 on the mainstream pop chart. The band followed with Melt (2002), a ballad-heavy collection that featured “These Days,” a single that dominated the country charts and gave the group its first number one hit. Melt fared equally well on the country album chart, reaching number one and spending two years in the top 100. This success was repeated with each of the trio’s subsequent releases—Feels like Today (2004), Me and My Gang (2006), Still Feels Good (2007), and Unstoppable (2009)—all of which reached the top of the Billboard country album chart. Rascal Flatts also won accolades from their peers, collecting the Country Music Association (CMA) award for best new artist in 2002 and dominating the vocal group category of both the CMA and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) from 2003 to 2008. They won the ACM award again in 2009. (MICHAEL RAY) Ratmansky, Alexei (b. Aug. 27, 1968, Leningrad, U.S.S.R. [now St. Petersburg, Russia]) In December 2010 American Ballet Theatre (ABT) mounted the world premiere of a new production of Tchaikovsky’s classic The Nutcracker with choreography by ABT’s artist in residence, Alexei Ratmansky. The previous April, New York City Ballet (NYCB) staged the premiere of Ratmansky’s humorous pastiche Namouna as part of its Architecture of Dance festival. Against a musical backdrop by 19th-century French composer Édouard Lalo, the dancers enacted a storyless sequence of surreal interludes. The dual premieres embodied the exceptional musicality and stylistic versatility that had propelled Ratmansky into the global ballet spotlight—as both a dancer and a choreographer—in the mid-1990s.

Ratmansky grew up in Kiev, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. (now Ukraine); his mother was a psychiatrist and his father an aeronautical engineer and former champion gymnast. At age 10 Ratmansky enrolled in the school of the Bolshoi Ballet (now the Moscow State Academy of Choreography), from which he graduated in 1986. He then returned home to join the Kiev Ballet, with which he danced major roles of the classical repertoire before accepting an invitation to join the Royal Winnipeg (Man.) Ballet in 1992. During the following three years, Ratmansky expanded his repertoire to include works by such contemporary choreographers as George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, and Twyla Tharp, and he created a number of small-scale choreographies of his own. In 1995 Ratmansky returned to Kiev, where he danced and choreographed independently until he moved to Copenhagen in 1997 to join the Royal Danish Ballet. In Denmark he created several works for a small company led by Bolshoi ballerina Nina Ananiashvili that toured internationally. Among those works was the highly acclaimed Dreams of Japan (1998), performed to a percussive score featuring Japanese taiko drumming. Ratmansky was soon promoted to principal dancer of the Royal Danish, and he continued to create new works for major dance companies, including the Royal Danish (Turandot’s Dream, 2000), Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Ballet (The Firebird, 2002), St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet (Cinderella, 2002), the Bolshoi (The Bright Stream, 2003), and the San Francisco Ballet (The Carnival of the Animals, 2003). The positive reception of The Bright Stream, set to music by Dmitry Shostakovich, earned Ratmansky an appointment in 2004 as artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, which had been struggling since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. During the next four years, he returned the company to international prominence, primarily by expanding its repertoire to include modern works alongside the traditional classical ballets. Meanwhile, he choreographed new full-length works—notably Anna Karenina (2004) for the Royal Danish, The Bolt (2005) for the Bolshoi, and Russian Seasons (2006) for NYCB. Ratmansky left the Bolshoi in 2008 to focus on choreography. After declining an offer from NYCB to become its resident choreographer, he joined ABT in 2009 as the company’s first artist in res-

idence. His initial full-length work for ABT, On the Dnieper, premiered that year. (VIRGINIA GORLINSKI) Rousseff, Dilma (b. Dec. 14, 1947, Belo Horizante, Braz.) On Oct. 31, 2010, Dilma Rousseff, a Brazilian public official and former dissident who had never previously held elective office, was elected president of Brazil. Having failed to capture more than half of the vote in an initial round of polling earlier that month, Rousseff, the hand-chosen successor to highly popular outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, scored a commanding victory in the runoff with 56% of the vote. Upon her inauguration on Jan. 1, 2011, she would become Brazil’s first female president. Eraldo Peres/AP

Brazilian Pres. Dilma Rousseff Dilma Rousseff was raised in an uppermiddle-class household. Her father was a lawyer who immigrated to Brazil from Bulgaria, and her mother was a teacher. After Brazil’s president was overthrown by a coalition of civilian and military officials in 1964, the teenaged Rousseff became involved in the left-wing opposition to the government. She was associated with the militant group National Liberation Command (Colina), and she married fellow activist Cláudio Galeno Linhares in 1968. After a raid on a Colina safe house resulted in police fatalities, the pair went into hiding in Rio de Janeiro. She and Galeno later fled Rio for Porto Alegre, subsequently separated, and in 1981 divorced. Rousseff moved to São Paulo, and it was there that she was arrested in 1970 by gov107

Biographies

ernment forces. She was imprisoned for three years on the charge of subversion and during that time was subjected to torture by her captors. Rousseff resumed her education after her release in 1973; she graduated (1977) with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre. As the grip of the dictatorship weakened, Rousseff became active in local politics, and in 1986 she was appointed finance secretary for Porto Alegre. She left that position in 1988 and later spent two years as president (1991–93) of the Foundation of Economics and Statistics of Rio Grande do Sul state. As secretary of mines, energy, and communications (1993–94) for Rio Grande do Sul, she was credited with increasing energy efficiency and power production within the state. Rousseff subsequently pursued a Ph.D. in economics, but before receiving the degree, she was called back in 1999 to her former government post. She soon became affiliated with Lula’s Workers’ Party and left her government job in 2002 to work on his successful presidential campaign. Upon taking office in 2003, Lula appointed Rousseff minister of mines and energy. She also was named chair of the Brazilian state-run oil concern Petrobrás, where she emphasized the need for Petrobrás to expand its production capacity. In 2005 Lula named her his chief of staff. An expanding economy and a shrinking poverty rate boosted Lula’s popularity, but he faced a constitutional limit of two terms, so he began grooming Rousseff to be his successor. She stepped down from Petrobrás in March 2010 to prepare for her presidential campaign. (MICHAEL RAY) Santos, Juan Manuel (b. Aug. 10, 1951, Bogotá, Colom.) On June 20, 2010, Juan Manuel Santos secured an overwhelming 69% of the vote in the second round of balloting for the office of president of Colombia. In the first round, held the previous month, Santos had fallen just short of the 50% needed to forgo a runoff. His ties to popular outgoing president Álvaro Uribe made him appealing to voters, and he vowed to continue Uribe’s policies. Santos was sworn in on Aug. 7, 2010. Santos was born into an influential political family. His great-uncle Eduardo Santos was Colombia’s president (1938–42), and his cousin Francisco Santos held office as vice president (2002–10) under Uribe. The family also founded El Tiempo, one of the country’s 108

largest newspapers. Santos attended the Naval Academy of Cartagena before traveling to the U.S. to earn a B.A. (1973) in economics and business at the University of Kansas. After graduation, he headed the Colombian delegation to the International Coffee Organization in London. While there, Santos earned a master’s degree in economics, economic development, and public administration from the London School of Economics. He added a master’s degree (1981) in public administration from Harvard University before returning to Colombia to work as an editor at El Tiempo, where his reporting earned him accolades. Santos became minister of foreign trade under Pres. César Gaviria in 1991. Two years later he was appointed designee to the presidency, a position that was later folded into the office of vice president. In 1994 Santos was part of a team of negotiators who attempted to reach a peace agreement with the Marxist guerrilla group FARC. He was a leader of the Colombian Liberal Party in the late 1990s and served (2000–02) as minister of the treasury and public credit under Pres. Andrés Pastrana. In 2005 Santos helped found the Social Party of National Unity, a coalition of lawmakers and officials from various parties who supported President Uribe’s agenda, which included austerity measures and strong antiterrorism laws. Santos joined Uribe’s cabinet as defense minister in 2006, and he escalated the government military campaign against the FARC. A controversial strike in Ecuadoran territory in March 2008 killed a senior FARC leader and a number of his subordinates, causing a diplomatic rift with Colombia’s western neighbour. Four months later Santos supervised Operation Checkmate, an intelligence operation that led to the dramatic rescue of 15 hostages held by the FARC, including Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. Later that year, however, Santos faced controversy when it was revealed that paramilitary, police, and army units had killed hundreds of civilians and disguised them as rebels to inflate body counts during antiguerrilla campaigns. Santos sacked dozens of officers over the matter, but human rights groups criticized the government’s delay in bringing those responsible to trial. He resigned his cabinet post in 2009 to run for the presidency. (MICHAEL RAY) Sejima, Kazuyo; and Nishizawa, Ryue (b. Oct. 29, 1956, Mito, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan) (b. Feb. 7, 1966, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan) The year

2010 marked an apex in the careers of Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, founding partners of the firm SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates), when in March they were announced as joint recipients of the Pritzker Prize. While their work had long been admired for its refined simplicity and spatial fluidity, as well as its thoughtful integration into its surroundings, the honour solidified their international reputation. (Sejima and Nishizawa were only the second partnership to be so honoured, after Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in 2001.) Later in the year, Sejima presided over the opening of the Venice Biennale’s architecture sector as its first woman director. Sejima earned a master’s degree in architecture in 1981 from Japan Women’s University. After apprenticing with architect Toyo Ito, she launched her own firm, Kazuyo Sejima and Associates, in 1987. Nishizawa, a student who had also worked for Ito, was one of her first hires. The office gradually developed a national reputation, with Sejima winning the Young Architect of the Year award from the Japanese Institute of Architects in 1992. Not long after, Nishizawa, who had completed a master’s degree in architecture from Yokohama National University in 1990, sought to open his own practice. Sejima, however, persuaded him to stay with her, and the two founded SANAA in 1995. Nishizawa started his own firm two years later, and Sejima maintained hers, but both individual offices were devoted to small-scale projects, in contrast to the ambitious commissions accepted by the partnership. Most of SANAA’s early projects were in Japan, most notably the O-Museum (1995–99), built on a mountainside in Nagano. As with much of the duo’s work, the museum’s design was an elegant synthesis of the cerebral and the lyrical, and the closeness of their collaboration precluded attempts to assign responsibility for each element. Another major commission was the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (1999–2004), a circular building with a glass facade. It was heralded for its panoramic views of the surrounding city and for its unconventional nonlinear floor plan, which encouraged visitors to create their own random paths through the museum. This concern with a space’s social use and its potential for adaptation was a hallmark of SANAA’s design philosophy, and as a result, Sejima and Nishizawa

did not consider a structure to be finished until it was inhabited. In 2001 Nishizawa and Sejima took up teaching posts, at Yokohama National University and Tokyo’s Keio University, respectively. About this time they also began to concentrate more on international commissions. SANAA’s first completed large-scale project outside Japan was the cubelike Zollverein School of Management and Design (2003–06) in Essen, Ger. It was quickly followed by the elegant Glass Pavilion at the Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art (2001–06), a minimalist structure that in its use of curved glass quietly paid tribute to that city’s industrial history. Other notable international designs include those for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City (2003–07), the De Kunstlinie Theatre and Cultural Centre in Almere, Neth. (1998–07), and the Rolex Learning Center at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switz. (2005–09). In 2005 the pair was selected to design a new branch of the Louvre Museum in Lens, France. (JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM) Simon, David (b. 1960, Washington, D.C.) On April 11, 2010, American TV viewers saw the debut of American writer and producer David Simon’s latest show, Treme, which follows a group of people living in New Orleans soon after it was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The tone of the series was a surprise to many viewers and critics, as Treme showcased the positive aspects of urban environments, unlike the more dour programs that made Simon famous, particularly his critically acclaimed Baltimore-based crime dramas Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99) and The Wire (2002–08). Simon was raised in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Silver Spring, Md. He became interested in journalism as a young boy through his father, a former newspaperman. Simon attended the University of Maryland at College Park, where he wrote for and edited the school’s newspaper. During his senior year he served as the College Park stringer for the daily newspaper the Baltimore Sun, and after graduating in 1983 he became a staff reporter there and began working the police beat. Simon’s years immersed in reporting on the Baltimore criminal underground made him privy to its inner workings, which he used to great effect in his first book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The nonfiction work,

Prolific TV series creator David Simon Reed Saxon/AP

which chronicles a year he spent with the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit, was the source of Homicide: Life on the Street, Simon’s first foray into television. He began contributing scripts to Homicide and was also a producer for the show’s final two seasons. His career at the Baltimore Sun ended in 1995, when he accepted a buyout. In 1997 Simon co-wrote—with former Baltimore police officer Ed Burns, who became a frequent collaborator—The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, a no-holds-barred account of Baltimore’s drug culture. The Corner was adapted into a miniseries on the cable TV network HBO in 2000, with Simon serving as a writer and an executive producer. It was a critical success, and Simon won two Emmy Awards for his dual role in its production. In 2002 Simon created The Wire, which was ostensibly a take on the common “cop show” but was tailored to fit his views of contemporary American society. Unlike most other televised dramas in the genre, The Wire provided the perspectives of both the police and the criminals. The scope of the show expanded greatly over its fiveseason run on HBO to detail additional Baltimore institutions—including the school system, its political machinery, its shipping operations, and the press— and to explore how each facet of the city, in Simon’s opinion, corrupts or devalues the individuals who move within it. While the series won no Emmys, the program was beloved by critics, and Simon earned significant influence in the entertainment industry. Simon was also an executive producer and writer on

the HBO miniseries Generation Kill (2008), a chronicle of a U.S. Marine battalion during the early weeks of the Iraq War. (ADAM AUGUSTYN) Strauss-Kahn, Dominique (b. April 25, 1949, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) In 2010 Dominique StraussKahn, the French economist and politician who served as the managing director of the IMF (the UN agency that helps maintain a stable global system of currency exchange and promotes balanced economic growth), controversially proposed the introduction of a global currency backed by a global central bank. Although Strauss-Kahn had broached the subject on previous occasions, he expanded upon the idea in early June in a speech in Sitges, Spain, at the 2010 Bilderberg Conference, an annual threeday colloquium—attended by about 100 of the world’s most influential bankers, economists, politicians, and government officials—that was traditionally secretive and entirely off-the-record. Strauss-Kahn was raised initially in Agadir in southwestern Morocco, where his parents were employed. In 1960—following one of the deadliest and most destructive earthquakes in Moroccan history—the family relocated to Monaco. Strauss-Kahn attended secondary school at the Lycée Carnot in Paris, earning top grades, and gained acceptance to the School of Higher Commercial Studies in Paris. There he received a degree in business (1971), to which he added a degree in political science (1972) from the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He subsequently obtained a degree in public law, as well 109

Biographies

as a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Paris. Strauss-Kahn was hired as a professor of economics at the University of Nancy and later joined the faculty at the University of Paris, where he was granted tenure in 1978. After a stint as deputy commissioner (1981–86) of a government economic planning agency, he was elected (1986) to the French National Assembly, where he chaired the finance committee for three years (1988–91). Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

French economist and IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn

For many years Strauss-Kahn moved back and forth between government posts and his academic career. He served as France’s minister of industry and international trade (1991–93) but then left politics to work as a corporate lawyer (1993–97). Having returned to take the post of minister of economy, finance, and industry (1997–99), he oversaw the debut in 1999 of the euro as a noncash monetary unit. Back in the private sector again, he was an economics professor (2000–01) at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. StraussKahn also served as an adviser for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In the campaign for the 2007 French presidential election, he unsuccessfully sought the Socialist Party’s nomination. Later that year newly elected Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy helped persuade the IMF’s executive board to select StraussKahn to head the agency. Though many observers assumed that the IMF post would isolate Strauss-Kahn from French politics, his prominent role in dealing with the repercussions of the 110

2008–09 recession and subsequent slow recovery left others wondering if he would use the job as a springboard to mount a new campaign for the presidency in 2012. (JEANNETTE NOLEN) Tate, John (b. March 13, 1925, Minneapolis, Minn.) American mathematician John Tate was awarded the 2010 Abel Prize (which carries a $1 million cash award) by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He was cited “for his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers.” John Torrence Tate, Jr., received an undergraduate degree (1946) from Harvard College and a doctorate (1950) from Princeton University, where he studied under Austro-German mathematician Emil Artin. In his doctoral dissertation, Fourier Analysis in Number Fields and Hecke’s Zeta-Function, he applied harmonic analysis (the mathematical procedure for describing and analyzing phenomena of a periodically recurrent nature) to the study of a certain class of zeta function called Hecke L-functions. Tate served as an instructor at Princeton (1950–53) and a visiting professor at Columbia University, New York City (1953–54), before becoming (1954) a professor at Harvard University. In the 1950s Tate became one of the few non-French members of Nicolas Bourbaki, a pseudonymous group of young French mathematicians. In 1990 he moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as professor and held the Sid W. Richardson Chair in Mathematics until his retirement in 2010. As a testimony to Tate’s stature in the fields of number theory and algebraic geometry, many concepts used in those disciplines bear his name—e.g., the Tate twist, the Tate-Shafarevich group, the Tate module, Tate cohomology, the Tate duality theorem, the Tate trace, Hodge-Tate decompositions, and the Sato-Tate conjecture. One of his particular interests was elliptic curves: real number solutions to cubic polynomial equations, such as y2 − x3 = c. His work on that subject has applications in the field of cryptography in that it can be used to factor extremely large prime numbers, which are used in secure communications. In 1956 Tate received the Cole Prize from the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for his contributions to number theory, and in 1995 the AMS also awarded him the Leroy P. Steele Prize for lifetime achievement. Tate shared

with Japanese mathematician Sato Mikio the 2002–03 Wolf Prize in Mathematics, a prestigious international award presented in recognition of outstanding work in the field of mathematics. Tate’s books include Class Field Theory (coauthored with Artin, 1967), Les Conjectures de Stark sur les fonctions L d’Artin en s=0 (1984), and Rational Points on Elliptic Curves (with Joseph H. Silverman, 1992). (ERIK GREGERSEN) Toews, Jonathan (b. April 29, 1988, Winnipeg, Man.) In 2010 Jonathan Toews established himself as one of ice hockey’s leading players. In February he helped the Canadian men’s hockey team win a gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. For his stellar play he was named the best forward of the tournament. Four months later Toews—who was in just his third season in the NHL—led the Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup finals, where they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers four games to two. It was the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 49 years. Toews, who scored 29 points in the postseason, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs. Early in the 2010–11 season, he scored the 200th point of his professional career. Toews in 2005 enrolled at the University of North Dakota, where he played centre on the school’s ice hockey team. He garnered attention for his offensive play, and in the 2006 NHL draft, he was selected third overall by the Blackhawks, an “Original Six” team that had struggled in recent years. After his sophomore year at North Dakota, he left college for Chicago to play professionally. During his first season with the Blackhawks (2007–08), he scored 24 goals and was nominated for the Calder Trophy for best rookie in the NHL. The award was won by his frequent linemate Patrick Kane, who had been drafted in 2007 to join Toews as the core of the Blackhawks’ efforts to rebuild. Before the start of the 2008–09 season, Toews was named team captain. In 2009 he appeared in his first All-Star game, and he finished the regular season with 34 goals and 35 assists. Chicago made the play-offs for the first time since 2002, but they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference finals. The next season Toews scored 68 points to lead Chicago to the play-offs and, ultimately, the Stanley Cup.

Biographies Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

In addition to his play in the NHL, Toews continued as an important member of Canada’s national team, which won gold medals at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s junior world championships (2006, 2007) and world championships (2007). This, combined with his achievements in 2010, brought Toews inclusion in an elite group of ice hockey players, known as the “Triple Gold Club,” who have skated on teams that won a world championship, an Olympic gold medal, and a Stanley Cup. (AMY TIKKANEN) Virtue, Tessa; and Moir, Scott (b. May 17, 1989, London, Ont.) (b. Sept. 2, 1987, London, Ont.) At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canadian ice dancing favourites Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated a series of near-flawless programs en route to becoming the first non-Europeans to win the Olympic gold medal in the event, as well as the youngest winners in the event’s Olympic history. The following month Virtue and Moir capped their tremendous season by winning their first International Skating Union world championship. Virtue and Moir began skating together when they were aged seven and nine, respectively. Moir’s aunt, who was also his skating coach at the time, thought that the two similarly small, athletic children would make a good match on the ice, and the youngsters started training at a skating rink in Kitchener, Ont., some 113 km (70 mi) away from their homes in the London area. The two had a natural chemistry, and their performances around London often drew thousands of spectators. After six years of skating together, Virtue and Moir moved to Kitchener to further commit themselves to their training. Later they relocated to the U.S. and settled in a suburb of Detroit to work with renowned coaches Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpilband. Virtue and Moir’s first major success came in 2004 when the team won the Canadian junior national championship. Two years later they were the ice dancing world junior champions, the first Canadians to achieve that distinction. Their third-place finish at the 2006 national championships left them just short of qualifying for the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Virtue and Moir made their senior international debut during the 2006–07 skating season. The following season the duo won the gold medal at the Canadian championships and the silver

at the world championships. They repeated as national champions the following season, when they also won the world championship bronze medal. After years spent approaching the top of international ice dancing, Virtue and Moir had a near-perfect season in 2009–10. At a November 2009 event at their old training rink in Kitchener, the two were awarded the first perfect performance score in the history of the then-five-year-old 10-point scoring system. Three months later the duo, performing in a stadium packed with their fellow Canadians, captured the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver. Their winning free-skate routine included their signature move, “the goose,” an audacious— and borderline illegal, by ice dancing’s rigid technical standards—maneuver that consisted of Virtue balancing on a crouching Moir’s back and extending her arms like wings before flipping through the air to be caught by her partner. (ADAM AUGUSTYN) Wilders, Geert (b. Sept. 6, 1963, Venlo, Neth.) On June 9, 2010, Dutch politician Geert Wilders led his anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (PVV) to an impressive showing in the Dutch parliamentary election. The PVV’s gain, from 9 seats to 24, put Wilders in a position to play a pivotal role in the minority government formed by the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). Wilders, who had made headlines worldwide with inflammatory statements about Muslims, faced criminal prosecution in the Netherlands for inciting hatred. The trial, which began in January 2009, collapsed in October 2010, and a retrial was ordered with a new three-judge panel. Wilders was raised in the southeastern Netherlands, near the German border. After having completed secondary school, he took a series of law classes through the Dutch Open University. From 1981 to 1983 he lived in Israel and traveled throughout the Middle East. During his visits to Muslim countries in the region, Wilders began formulating the anti-Islamic views that later characterized his political career. Upon his return to the Netherlands, he worked in the health insurance industry. In 1997 he was elected to the Utrecht city council as a member of the right-of-centre VVD. The next year he was elected to the Dutch parliament. As an MP, Wilders initially drew little notice. In the early 2000s, however, a

Fiery Dutch politician Geert Wilders wave of anti-Islamic feeling in the Netherlands provided a platform for his views. In 2004 filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered after releasing the short film Submission, a collaboration with Somali-born Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali that critiqued the role of women in Muslim society. Wilders became a prominent voice on the political right, pronouncing Islam a “fascist ideology” and calling for restrictions on Muslim immigration to the Netherlands, and he quickly amassed a devoted following. Wilders left the VVD in 2004, partly to protest that party’s support for Turkey’s proposed accession to the EU, and two years later he founded the PVV. The fledgling party won nine seats in the 2006 parliamentary election, and Wilders continued to make public pronouncements against Islam. In 2007 he proposed that the Qur#an be banned in the Netherlands, and the next year he produced Fitna (“Strife”), a controversial short film that interlaces passages from the Qur#an with graphic images of Islamist terrorist attacks. Unable to find a commercial distributor for Fitna, Wilders released the film on the Internet. He then embarked on a promotional tour and made headlines in February 2009 when he was refused entry to the U.K. because British officials said that his visit would threaten public order (the ban was ultimately overturned). In spite of these setbacks, Wilders and the PVV fared well at the polls. The party won four seats in the election for the European Parliament in 2009, having earned 16.9% of the total vote. (MICHAEL RAY) 111

Biographies Li Huang—Color China Photo/AP

Woo, John (b. October 1946, Guangzhou, China) Chinese film director John Woo, who was honoured in September 2010 at the Venice International Film Festival with a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, returned to the martial-arts subjects of his earliest films with the release in 2010 of Jianyu Jianghu (Reign of Assassins), an epic set in ancient China that he co-directed with Su Chao-Bin (Su Zhaobin). Woo was noted for his action movies, which combine copious stylized violence with lyrical, melodramatic depictions of male bonding. In 1950 Woo and his family immigrated to Hong Kong, where they lived in a crime-ridden slum. To escape his surroundings, Woo often went to the movies, and he was particularly fond of American musicals and later the westerns of American filmmaker Sam Peckinpah and the gangster films of French director Jean-Pierre Melville. In 1969 Woo became a script supervisor at Cathay Film Company. After moving to Shaw Brothers in 1971, he became assistant to martial-arts film director Chang Cheh, whose work, with its bloody violence and emphasis on male bonding, was a significant influence on him. In 1973 Woo became a director with Golden Harvest, where he garnered a reputation for slapstick comedies. Though he left that studio in 1983 because he had grown tired of the genre, he was still compelled by his new studio, Cinema City, to make two more comedies in Taiwan. In 1986 Woo released the gangster film Yingxiong bense (A Better Tomorrow). A huge box-office success, it initiated a series of action films that won Woo international acclaim for their mixture of expressive slow motion, nostalgia for lost codes of honour, Christian symbolism, melodramatic emotions, and hyperbolic violence. Woo and Chow Yun-Fat (Zhou Runfa), who became one of Hong Kong’s most popular actors by playing a character unique to Woo’s work—a 20th-century chivalrous mythic hero—collaborated on a sequel, Yingxiong bense II (1987; A Better Tomorrow II), as well as on Diexue shangxiong (1989; The Killer), Zongheng sihai (1991; Once a Thief), and Lat sau san taam (1992; HardBoiled). During this period, Woo also made Diexue jietou (1990; Bullet in the Head). Woo had some initial difficulties when he began working in the United States. Hard Target (1993) was submitted to the ratings board of the Motion 112

Picture Association of America seven times before it received a commercially acceptable R rating. While Face/Off (1997) was a critical and commercial success, Mission: Impossible II (2000) achieved even higher earnings, grossing more than $215 million in the U.S. Dissatisfaction with Hollywood led Woo back to China, where he made a two-part production, Chibi (2008; Red Cliff) and Chibi II (2009; Red Cliff II). With a budget of $80 million, it was the most expensive Chinese-language production to date. A historical epic set during the unstable ancient period of the Three Kingdoms, it balances tough action scenes with convincing characters. The Red Cliff film franchise grossed more than $200 million worldwide. (ERIK GREGERSEN) Xi Jinping (b. June 1953, Beijing, China) In October 2010 Xi Jinping, vice president of the People’s Republic of China since 2008, was named vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. Xi’s elevation to the powerful commission was widely seen as one of the last stepping stones on his path to the presidency of China after Pres. Hu Jintao’s expected departure from office in 2012. Xi was the son of Xi Zhongxun, who was once deputy prime minister of China but was often out of favour with his party and government, especially after he openly criticized the government’s actions during the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. In 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, the younger Xi was sent to rural Shaanxi province, where he worked for six years as a manual labourer on an agricultural commune. During this period he developed a good relationship with the local peasantry, which aided the wellborn Xi’s credibility in his eventual rise through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1974 he became an official party member, serving as a branch secretary, and in 1975–79 he attended Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he earned a degree in chemical engineering. After his graduation, he served for three years as secretary to Geng Biao, who at the time was China’s vice-premier and minister of national defense. Xi worked as a deputy secretary and then as secretary for the CCP in Hebei province from 1982 until 1985, when he was appointed a committee member and vice-mayor of Xiamen (Amoy) in Fujian province. While living in Fujian, he married (1987) the popular folk

Chinese Vice Pres. Xi Jinping singer Peng Liyuan. By 1995 Xi had ascended to the post of deputy provincial party secretary. He became acting governor of Fujian in 1999 and was named governor the following year. In the latter post he focused his attention on environmental conservation and cooperation with nearby Taiwan. He held both the deputy secretarial and governing posts until 2002, when he was elevated to acting governor of Zhejiang province. The following year he became provincial party secretary. In Zhejiang he focused on restructuring the province’s industrial infrastructure in an effort to promote sustainable development. In early 2007, following a pensionfund scandal surrounding the upper leadership of Shanghai, Xi took over as the city’s party secretary. In contrast to his reformist father, Xi had by then established a reputation for prudence and for following the party line; as Shanghai’s secretary he focused squarely on promoting stability and on rehabilitating the city’s financial image. He held the position only briefly, however, and in October 2007 he was named one of the nine members of the standing committee of the CCP’s Political Bureau. Xi’s status as Hu’s likely successor appeared more assured when in March 2008 he was elected vice president. In that role he focused on conservation efforts and on improving international relations. (MELISSA ALBERT)

Obituaries In 2010 the world LOST many LEADERS, pathfinders, NEWSMAKERS, heroes, CULTURAL ICONS, and ROGUES. The pages below RECAPTURE the lives and ACCOMPLISHMENTS of those we REMEMBER best.

Abraham, Raimund Johann, Austrian-born American architect (b. July 23, 1933, Lienz, Austria—d. March 4, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), created visionary and powerful architectural projects on paper; among the few of his designs that were built, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City (completed 2002), an arresting 24-story building on a narrow 7.6-m (25-ft) plot, won plaudits. Abraham established (1959) an avant-garde architectural studio in Vienna before relocating (1964) to the United States. He taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and later (1971–2002) primarily at the Cooper Union, New York City, and also at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. Abu Daoud (MOHAMMED DAOUD OUDEH), Palestinian militant (b. May 16, 1937, East Jerusalem, British Palestine—d. July 3, 2010, Damascus, Syria), organized the Black September attack at the Munich 1972 Olympic Games, in which 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and murdered. He was born Mohammed Oudeh and lived in East Jerusalem, where he taught math and science to Palestinian schoolchildren, until Israel took control of the area in the 1967 Six-Day War. He moved to Jordan, where he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Eventually he took the nom de guerre Abu Daoud and became involved in the Black September movement, a militant offshoot of the Palestinian group Fatah. He claimed to have planned the capture of the Israeli athletes in an attempt to trade them for some 200 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and to bring the PLO’s cause international prominence. After the attack resulted in the deaths of the hostages, five militants, and a West German police officer, he fled into exile. In 1981 he survived a presumed assassination attempt in Warsaw. Israel allowed his return in 1996 to attend the amending of the

Palestine National Charter, and he voted to remove the call for an armed struggle to destroy the Israeli state. After the publication in Paris of his memoir, Palestine: De Jérusalem à Munich (1999; Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist, 2000), in which he acknowledged his role in the Munich attack, Israeli authorities denied him reentry to his home in the West Bank.

voice in post-Stalinist Soviet literature, although her uncompromisingly individualistic work elicited official criticism and met with some difficulty in publication. Akhmadulina, who was of Tatar and Italian descent, completed her education at the Gorky Literary Institute (1960) and then traveled in Central Asia. She was eventually admitted to the Soviet Writers’ Union, and like

Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid, Egyptian scholar (b. July 10, 1943, Quhafah, Egypt—d. July 5, 2010, Cairo, Egypt), challenged mainstream Muslim views and sparked controversy and debate through his interpretations of the Qur#an. Abu Zayd attended Cairo University and received a Ph.D. (1981) in Arabic and Islamic studies. His research and writings on Qur#anic exegesis, including his well-known Critique of Islamic Discourse (1995), offended some Islamists. In 1993 a colleague denounced Abu Zayd in a major Cairo mosque, and Islamist radicals sought in court to have his marriage nullified on the grounds that his writings demonstrated that he was an apostate. (Under Islamic law a Muslim woman may not be married to a nonMuslim man.) Though that court declined to pass judgment, an appeals court ordered Abu Zayd to divorce his wife (a fellow professor at Cairo University), a decision that was upheld by Egypt’s highest court. In 1995 Abu Zayd and his wife went into exile in the Netherlands, where he taught at the University for Humanistics, Utrecht, and Leiden University. Abu Zayd’s other works include the autobiographical Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam (2004).

ITAR-TASS Photo Agency/Alamy

Akhmadulina, Bella (IZABELLA AKHAAKHMADULINA), Russian-language poet (b. April 10, 1937, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. Nov. 29, 2010, Peredelkino, Russia), was a distinctive

TOVNA

Poet Bella Akhmadulina her fellow poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, to whom she was married during the 1950s, she drew audiences of thousands at readings of her work. Her first collection, Struna (“The Harp String”), appeared in 1962. The long poem Moya rodoslovnaya (1964; “My Family Tree”), the title of which alludes to a poem by Aleksandr Pushkin from 1830, is marked by ambitious but assured experimentation in both theme and technique. Subsequent volumes include Uroki muzyki (1969; “Music Lessons”), Stikhi (1975; “Poems”), and Taina 113

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(1983; “Secret”). Akhmadulina also published translations of poetry from Georgian and other languages. Among Akhmadulina’s many honours were the State Prize of the Soviet Union (1989) and the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2004). Alan, Ray(mond) (RAY WHYBERD), British ventriloquist and writer (b. Sept. 18, 1930, London, Eng.—d. May 24, 2010, Reigate, Surrey, Eng.), created numerous much-loved puppet characters, notably the drunken aristocrat Lord Charles and a boy and his pet duck named, respectively, Tich and Quackers. Introduced in 1959, the monocled Lord Charles was Alan’s longest-lasting and most well-known creation. Alan worked both on stage at variety theaters and on television, where he held the record for most perMyung Jung Kim—Press Association/AP

Allais, Maurice Félix Charles, French economist (b. May 31, 1911, Paris, France—d. Oct. 9, 2010, Saint-Cloud, France), was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1988 for his development of principles to guide efficient pricing and resource allocation in large monopolistic enterprises. Allais studied at the École Polytechnique (1931–33) and the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines, Paris (1934–36), before earning a doctorate (1949) at the University of Paris. In 1936 he began working for the state-owned French mine administration, and in 1944 he became a professor at the École des Mines. He also served as a professor of theoretical economics (1947–68) at the University of Paris, and from the mid-1940s he directed an economics research unit at the National Centre for Scientific Research. In his groundbreaking theoretical work, Allais sought to balance social benefits with economic efficiency in the pricing plans of state-owned enterprises such as utility companies, which proved particularly valuable in the decades following World War II, when the state-owned monopolies of western Europe experienced tremendous growth. His influential books include In Quest of an Economic Discipline (1943). In 1977 Allais was named an officer of the Legion of Honour; he was made grand officer in 2005 and promoted to grand cross in 2010.

Ventriloquist Ray Alan

Anderson, Alex (ALEXANDER HUME ANDERSON, JR.), American cartoonist (b. Sept. 5, 1920, Berkeley, Calif.—d. Oct. 22, 2010, Carmel, Calif.), created the beloved animated characters Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocky the flying squirrel, as well as Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right and others that were featured in the TV series Rocky and His Friends (1959–61), later renamed The Bullwinkle Show (1961–64).

formances (19) on the show The Good Old Days. He performed with Tich and Quackers on a variety of children’s shows, including Time for Tich (1963–64) and Tich and Quakers (1965–68). Alan also hosted a variety of TV programs, including Ice Cabaret (1968–69), It’s Your Word (1972–73), and Three Little Words (1980–86), and from 1980 to 1988 he was the host of the radio show The Impressionists. Alan also wrote scripts and segments for TV sitcoms (under the name Ray Whyberd), two documentaries, two nonfiction books, and three crime novels.

Anderson, Fred, American musician (b. March 22, 1929, Monroe, La.—d. June 24, 2010, Evanston, Ill.), improvised on tenor saxophone with a robust sound and a flair for extended melodic invention that made him a major freejazz figure. Anderson was inspired by Charlie Parker’s music, but he developed his own sound. He spent most of his career in Chicago, where in 1965 he played in the first concert produced by the pioneering musicians’ cooperative the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Over the years, his music grew in fluency and confidence as he led combos that in-

troduced a series of important young musicians, including drummer Hamid Drake, trombonist George Lewis, and saxophonist Douglas Ewart. Anderson recorded his first album in 1977 as AACM leader during his first tour of Europe. The growth of his international reputation in the 1990s and 2000s led to the release or rerelease of more than 20 albums featuring his work. In those decades the Velvet Lounge, his Chicago nightclub, became a centre for the city’s free-jazz community and presented noted American and European free-jazz artists. Anderson, Sparky (GEORGE LEE ANAmerican baseball player and manager (b. Feb. 22, 1934, Bridgewater, S.D.—d. Nov. 4, 2010, Thousand Oaks, Calif.), guided teams to three Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series titles, two (1975 and 1976) for the National League (NL) Cincinnati Reds and one (1984) for the American League (AL) Detroit Tigers, and thereby became the first manager in the history of baseball to capture a World Series in both the NL and the AL. Anderson played some 10 years in the minor baseball leagues (with the exception of one year [1959] as a player for the MLB Philadelphia Phillies) before embarking in 1964 on a managing career in the minors, where he remained until 1969. In his first season (1970) with the Reds, he led the team to the NL title. During his nine-year tenure with the “Big Red

DERSON),

Hall of Fame baseball manager Sparky Anderson

Kirthmon Dozier—MCT/Landov

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Machine,” the team, which included such future Hall of Fame superstars as Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, and Pete Rose, won five NL pennants. Anderson was fired by the Reds at the end of the 1978 season after the team placed second in the NL West in consecutive seasons. He moved to the Tigers in 1979 and won 1,331 games before retiring in 1995. He was named Manager of the Year four times: twice for the NL (1972 and 1974) and twice for the AL (1984 and 1987). Anderson, who had a career record of 2,194 wins and 1,834 losses, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000. Annabi, Hédi, Tunisian diplomat (b. Sept. 4, 1944, Stains, France—d. Jan. 12, 2010, Port-au-Prince, Haiti), served in the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) from its inception in 1992, initially with responsibility for missions in Africa, and from 2007 led the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Annabi began his career in 1966 in the Tunisian foreign service and in 1981 joined the UN, working in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in South-East Asia; he was appointed director of the office in 1991 and was instrumental in the establishment that year of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. He was appointed (1993) director of the DPKO’s Africa division and given responsibility for the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda. Though that office was widely excoriated for the inadequacy of its response to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Annabi maintained that the mission was hamstrung by its weakness and lack of reinforcements. Annabi was preparing MINUSTAH to oversee elections scheduled for February 2010 in Haiti when he was killed by the collapse of the building housing his office in the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti. Arbatov, Georgy Arkadyevich, Russian foreign policy adviser (b. March 23, 1923, Kherson, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. [now in Ukraine]—d. Oct. 1, 2010, Moscow, Russia), advised five general secretaries of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, from Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev, on relations with the United States and explained Soviet foreign policy to Americans in speeches and television appearances. Arbatov graduated (1949) from the Moscow

State Institute of International Relations. After working as a journalist for several years, he became (1962) a sector leader in the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, part of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences. He founded the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies in 1967 and served as its director until 1995. Arkhipova, Irina Konstantinova, Russian mezzo soprano (b. Dec. 2, 1925, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. Feb. 11, 2010, Moscow, Russia), sang with impressive range and dramatic intensity throughout an opera career that spanned more than four decades and encompassed some of the great mezzo (and, later, contralto) roles, notably Marfa in Modest Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, Marina in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida. Arkhipova graduated (1948) from the Moscow Architectural Institute and then studied singing at the Moscow Conservatory; she joined (1954) the Sverdlovsk (later Yekaterinburg) Opera before moving to the Bolshoi Theatre, where she made her debut as Carmen in 1956 and was a mainstay during the 1960s and ’70s. She continued performing in Russia and elsewhere well into her 70s, including making a noteworthy appearance as Filippyevna in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera in 1997. Arkhipova was made a People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1966, and from 1993 she and her husband, tenor Vladislav Piyavko, promoted young singers through her foundation. Auchincloss, Louis Stanton, American novelist, short-story writer, and critic (b. Sept. 27, 1917, Lawrence, N.Y.—d. Jan. 26, 2010, New York, N.Y.), was best known for his novels of manners set in the world of contemporary upper-class New York City. Auchincloss studied (1935–38) at Yale University and graduated (1941) from the University of Virginia School of Law. He was admitted to the New York state bar that same year and began a legal career that lasted until 1987. For his first novel, The Indifferent Children (1947), Auchincloss used the pseudonym Andrew Lee, but by 1950 he was publishing stories under his own name. Noted for his stylistic clarity and skill at characterization, he became the prolific chronicler of life in the rarefied world of corporate boardrooms and brownstone mansions. Several of his best novels, in-

cluding The House of Five Talents (1960) and Portrait in Brownstone (1962), examine family relationships over a period of decades. Others, notably The Rector of Justin (1964) and Diary of a Yuppie (1986), are studies of a single character, often from many points of view. Subsequent works include the novels Tales of Yesteryear (1994), The Education of Oscar Fairfax (1995), Her Infinite Variety (2000), The Scarlet Letters (2003), and The Headmaster’s Dilemma (2007). Short-story collections include Tales of Manhattan (1967), Skinny Island (1987), Three Lives (1993), The Anniversary and Other Stories (1999), and Manhattan Monologues (2002). In addition, Auchincloss published biographies of U.S. presidents—including Woodrow Wilson (2000) and Theodore Roosevelt (2002)— and the essay collections The Man Behind the Book: Literary Profiles (1996) and Writers and Personality (2005). Bainbridge, Dame Beryl Margaret, British novelist (b. Nov. 21, 1934, Liverpool, Eng.—d. July 2, 2010, London, Eng.), was known for her psychologically astute portrayals of lower-middleclass English life; her works often presented in a comical yet macabre Michael Crabtree—Press Association/AP

Novelist Dame Beryl Bainbridge manner the destructiveness latent in ordinary situations. Although her early novels were mainly semiautobiographical, her later works drew on historical figures and events. Bainbridge began a theatrical career at an early age and 115

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acted in various repertory theatres; later she occasionally appeared on television. She wrote Harriet Said in the late 1950s, but the novel, which deals with two teenage girls who seduce a man and murder his wife, was not published until 1972. Bainbridge’s first published novel, A Weekend with Claud (1967), is an experimental work concerning a predatory, violent man. Five of her novels—The Dressmaker (1973; filmed 1988), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), An Awfully Big Adventure (1989; filmed 1995), Every Man for Himself (1996), and Master Georgie (1998)— were short-listed for the Booker Prize, and two, Every Man for Himself and Injury Time (1977), were awarded the Whitbread Prize. Other novels include Sweet William (1975; filmed 1980), Young Adolf (1978), The Birthday Boys (1991), and According to Queeney (2001). Bainbridge also wrote short stories, television plays, and some nonfiction, notably a collection of theatre reviews and essays, Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre: Pieces from the Oldie (2005). She was made DBE in 2000. Basu, Jyoti, Indian politician (b. July 8, 1914, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India—d. Jan. 17, 2010, Kolkata), served as the chief minister (1977–2000) of West Bengal state and was a cofounder of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]). Though Basu’s political career had radical roots, his later style of governance was defined by pragmatism and concerns about corruption. Basu, the son of an affluent physician, began his studies in Calcutta before traveling to London in 1935 to complete his law education and qualify as a barrister. In England he also came under the influence of Marxist political theorist Harold Laski. On his return to Calcutta in 1940, Basu became a party worker for the Communist Party of India (CPI), participating in the organization of rail workers. In 1946, the year before India became independent of British rule, Basu was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly. In 1964 the CPI split into two factions, with Basu among the founders of the more radical CPI(M). In 1996, in the absence of a clear majority by any party, he was slated to become India’s prime minister at the head of a national coalition, but some CPI(M) party members felt that their Marxist principles would be compromised by the selection, and he was obliged to turn down the opportunity. Basu made strides toward literacy and rural development in West Bengal, with his land reforms in partic116

ular receiving praise, and he played a large part in the actualization of Kolkata’s commuter rail project, but his industrial policies were criticized. In late 2000 he stepped down as chief minister, but he remained a member of his party’s Politburo, and his pragmatic approach was evident in 2004 when the CPI(M) allied itself with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party. Bazin, Marc Louis, Haitian politician (b. March 6, 1932, Saint-Marc, Haiti— d. June 16, 2010, Port-au-Prince, Haiti), contested Haiti’s first free presidential election in 1990, with the support of U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush, but he was unpopular with the masses and badly lost to Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although a military takeover set Bazin up in 1992 as prime minister and acting president, again supported by the Bush administration, he resigned in 1993 as the new administration of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton helped reinstall Aristide. Growing up as part of a minority of socially mobile blacks in Haiti, Bazin studied law, economics, and sociology at the Lycée Petion in Port-au-Prince, the University of Paris, and the Solvay Institute of Sociology in Brussels. He was minister of finance and economy in 1982 under the corrupt dictatorship of Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier until his criticism of Duvalier forced Bazin to leave the government and the country. As the founder (1986) and president of the Movement for the Establishment of Democracy in Haiti, Bazin failed in subsequent presidential bids. He remained an active politician and media commentator, however, writing for the daily Le Nouvelliste. Bedser, Sir Alec Victor, English cricketer (b. July 4, 1918, Reading, Berkshire, Eng.—d. April 4, 2010, Woking, Surrey, Eng.), was one of the all-time greatest of English fast-medium bowlers and the mainstay of the England attack during the post-World War II years; his 236 Test wickets stood as a world record from 1955 until 1963. Bedser and his identical-twin brother, Eric, joined the Surrey ground staff in 1938, and Alec made his first-class debut the following summer. After service in World War II, Bedser returned to Surrey in 1946 and, with only 12 first-class matches behind him, was selected for the Test series against India. In the first Test, at Lord’s, Bedser took 11 wickets, followed by another 11 in the second Test at Old Trafford, finishing the series with 24 wickets. On the winter tour to Australia in 1946–47, in

which he took 16 wickets, he developed a leg cutter, which he used with great effect. Bedser took 30 wickets in the 1950–51 Ashes series and 39 in the 1953 series, including 14 for 99 in the first Test at Trent Bridge, in which England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1932–33. Illness ended Bedser’s Test career in 1955. In 51 Test matches, he took 236 wickets (average 24.89), with a best-bowling analysis of 7 wickets for 44 runs. He scored 714 runs in 71 innings (average 12.75) and took 26 catches. After retiring from first-class cricket in 1960, Bedser served as an England selector for a record 23 years (1961–85), 13 as chairman (1968–81). He also managed the 1974–75 and 1979–80 tours of Australia and was president of Surrey in 1987. Having been made OBE (1964) and CBE (1982), Bedser was knighted in 1997 for services to cricket. Beeson, Jack Hamilton, American composer (b. July 15, 1921, Muncie, Ind.—d. June 6, 2010, New York, N.Y.), wrote symphonies, chamber works, and opera scores, notably Lizzie Borden, based on the life of the accused ax murderess of that name, which premiered at the New York City Opera in 1965 and was later performed and recorded (1999) as part of the television series Live from Lincoln Center. He wrote his first opera, Jonah (1950), while studying in Rome (1948–50). His operas draw on a range of musical styles and often incorporate American texts or history, as with Lizzie Borden, the chamber opera Hello Out There (1954), from William Saroyan’s play, and The Sweet Bye and Bye (1957), which mixes evangelical hymns and chants with more traditional arias. Beeson also collaborated with Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick on several operas, including Dr. Heidegger’s Fountain of Youth (1978), based on a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Berlanga, Luis García, Spanish filmmaker (b. June 12, 1921, Valencia, Spain—d. Nov. 13, 2010, Madrid, Spain), directed satiric comedies that skewered Spanish politics and culture under the dictator Francisco Franco while maintaining sufficiently subtle humour to escape serious censorship by the government. After his service in World War II, he attended film school in Madrid with fellow writer-director Juan Antonio Bardem (uncle of actor Javier Bardem), and he used scripts cowritten with Bardem in some of his

Obituaries CBS/Landov

early films, notably Esa pareja feliz (1951; That Happy Couple) and ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! (1952; Welcome, Mister Marshall!), a classic farce in which a poor Castilian village mistakenly believes that it is in line to receive aid from the postwar Marshall Plan. Berlanga featured screenplays by Rafael Azcona in some of his later films, including the Academy Awardnominated Plácido (1961), El verdugo (1963; The Executioner), the French sex farce Grandeur nature (1973), and La vaquilla (1985; The Heifer). Berlanga was honoured with a Prince of Asturias Award in 1986. Bigeard, Marcel Maurice (“BRUNO”), French general (b. Feb. 14, 1916, Toul, France—d. June 18, 2010, Toul), was a veteran of three wars and one of France’s most decorated military heroes. Bigeard was working as a bank clerk in 1939 when he was called to the army to defend France against German invasion. He was captured by the enemy in June 1940 but later escaped to join the Free French Forces. After World War II he remained in the army and was dispatched to French Indochina at the head of a parachute battalion. Bigeard was interned after Viet Minh guerrillas overran the French stronghold of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. Following several months of imprisonment, he was repatriated to France and then returned to active paratroop service during the war for independence (1954–62) in Algeria, where he fought in the Battle of Algiers (1957). Bigeard served a year (1975–76) as the secretary of state for defense and retired in 1976 with the rank of général de corps d’armée (equivalent to lieutenant general in other NATO countries). Later he became a deputy in France’s lower house of parliament. Bigeard’s military awards included the French grand cross of the Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre, the British Distinguished Service Order, and the U.S. Commander of the Legion of Merit. Billingsley, Barbara (BARBARA LILLIAN COMBES), American actress (b. Dec. 22, 1915, Los Angeles, Calif.—d. Oct. 16, 2010, Santa Monica, Calif.), portrayed June Cleaver, the even-tempered and perfectly coiffed stay-at-home mother who kindly shepherded her two sons, Wally and Theodore (“Beaver”), through their childhood travails on the television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–63). Her character wore high heels, shirtwaist dresses, and a trademark string of

oratories as director of therapeutic research in 1978. From 1984 he was professor of analytical pharmacology at King’s College, London, becoming emeritus in 1993. He also served (1992–2006) as chancellor of the University of Dundee, Scot., which in 2006 opened the Sir James Black Centre, a research facility for the investigation of cancer, tropical diseases, and diabetes. Black was knighted in 1981 and became a member of the Order of Merit in 2000.

Quintessential TV mom Barbara Billingsley pearls in the course of her everyday housework, a style that became emblematic of the 1950s typical housewife, though few women at that time actually performed household duties in such finery. Prior to joining the sitcom, Billingsley worked briefly as a model and appeared in a few B movies. In the film Airplane! (1980), Billingsley spoofed her Cleaver character in a cameo in which she interpreted jive talk. She later provided the voice (1984–91) for the character Nanny in the Nickelodeon cable TV show Muppet Babies. Black, Sir James Whyte, Scottish pharmacologist (b. June 14, 1924, Uddingston, Scot.—d. March 21, 2010), received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (along with George H. Hitchings and Gertrude B. Elion) for his insights into the pharmacotherapeutic potential of receptor-blocking drugs and his development of two such drugs, propranolol (the first clinically useful beta-receptor blocking drug) and cimetidine (a drug that could block histamine receptors), which revolutionized the treatment of coronary heart disease and of gastric and duodenal ulcers, respectively. Black earned a medical degree (1946) from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and taught at various universities before joining (1958) Imperial Chemical Industries as a senior pharmacologist. He became head of biological research at Smith Kline and French Laboratories in 1964 and joined the Wellcome Research Lab-

Blackwell, David Harold, American statistician and mathematician (b. April 24, 1919, Centralia, Ill.—d. July 8, 2010, Berkeley, Calif.), made significant contributions to game theory, probability theory, information theory, and Bayesian statistics and broke racial barriers when he was named (1965) the first African American member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Blackwell, the son of a railroad worker, taught himself to read as a boy. He initially planned to become an elementary school teacher, and at age 16 he entered the University of Illinois, where his early aptitude for mathematics blossomed. He earned bachelor’s (1938), master’s (1939), and doctorate (1941) degrees, and after a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, he briefly worked for the U.S. Office of Price Administration; Southern University, Baton Rouge, La.; and Clark College, Atlanta. Blackwell taught (1944–54) in the mathematics department at Howard University, Washington, D.C., and then in 1954 was invited to join the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became that institution’s first black tenured professor. He also served as chairman (1957–61) of the statistics department there before retiring in 1988. While working (1948–50) as a consultant at the RAND Corporation, Blackwell pioneered game theory by analyzing the optimum timing of theoretical armed duelists. Blanda, George Frederick, American football player (b. Sept. 17, 1927, Youngwood, Pa.—d. Sept. 27, 2010, Alameda, Calif.), became a legend as a placekicker and backup quarterback who won numerous games in the final seconds, and he established records (first as a quarterback and later as a kicker) for most seasons played (26), most games played (340; broken in 2004), most points scored (2,002; broken in 2000), most points after touchdowns (943 of 959 attempted), and 117

Obituaries NFL Photos/AP

Broadway revival of Fiddler. In the 1950s Bock had teamed up with Larry Holofcener on songs for television’s Your Show of Shows and the musical Mr. Wonderful (1956).

Legendary quarterback George Blanda most field goals (335 of 638 attempted; broken in 1983). Blanda played football at the University of Kentucky before he joined (1949) the NFL Chicago Bears. In 1953 he became the team’s starting quarterback and led the league in pass completions. After an injury in 1954, he acted mainly as a placekicker through 1958. He was inactive in 1959 and joined the Houston Oilers of the AFL in 1960. He propelled the Oilers to league championships (1960–61) as a quarterback and led the league in touchdown passes (36) in 1961 (tied in 1963 by Y.A. Tittle), a record until 1984. He was signed (1967) by the AFL Oakland Raiders (part of the NFL from 1970) and retired in 1976. Blanda was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1981.

Bohlen, Jim (JAMES CALVIN BOHLEN), American-born antiwar activist and environmentalist (b. July 4, 1926, Bronx, N.Y.—d. July 5, 2010, Comox, B.C.), was a founder of the organization Greenpeace in 1971, when he and several other people from the Sierra Club formed the group—originally called the Don’t Make a Wave Committee—to protest U.S. nuclear testing on Amchitka Island in Alaska’s Aleutian chain. Although their boat was stopped, the protest ultimately proved successful. The organization eventually expanded to some three million members campaigning for environmental causes around the world. After the Amchitka event, Bohlen was not involved in Greenpeace again until the 1980s, when the organization renewed its active opposition to nuclear testing, notably in the Nuclear Free Seas campaign; he was a Greenpeace director until 1993. Bol, Manute, Sudanese basketball player and political activist (b. Oct. 16, Towering star basketball defenseman Manute Bol

Bosley, Tom (THOMAS E DWARD BOSLEY), American actor (b. Oct. 1, 1927, Chicago, Ill.—d. Oct. 19, 2010, Palm Springs, Calif.), was best remembered for his portrayal of Howard Cunningham, the affable paternal head of a Wisconsin family that included son Richie, daughter Joanie, and wife Marion on the television series Happy Days (1974–84). The sitcom centred on the high-school antics of Richie and his best friends Potsie, Ralph, and Fonzie and the sage advice dispensed to them by the affectionately known “Mr. C.” Bosley also had a recurring TV role (1984–88) on Murder, She Wrote as Sheriff Amos Tupper, and he appeared in the title role as a Chicago priest with a knack for solving crimes on the TV series Father Dowling Mysteries (1987–91). In addition to his television work, Bosley appeared in several films and earned a Tony Award in 1960 for best featured actor for his original role as crusading New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in the Broadway musical Fiorello!.

Bock, Jerry (JERROLD LEWIS BOCK), American composer (b. Nov. 23, 1928, New Haven, Conn.—d. Nov. 3, 2010, Mount Kisco, N.Y.), had his greatest successes in collaborations with lyricist Sheldon Harnick on such Broadway smash hits as Fiorello! (1959, Pulitzer Prize) and Fiddler on the Roof (1964), for which he earned a Tony Award for best composer. Bock and Harnick’s other musicals include The Body Beautiful (1958), Tenderloin (1960), the admired She Loves Me (1963), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970). The duo had a falling out over the latter production, but in 2004 they resumed their partnership to write additional tunes for David Leveaux’s Mike Derer/AP

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1962, southern Sudan—d. June 19, 2010, Charlottesville, Va.), used his tremendous height—variously identified as 2.31 m (7 ft 7 in) or 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in)—to great effect as one of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) best defensive players throughout his 10-year (1985–95) NBA career with the Washington Bullets, the Golden State Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Miami Heat. In his playing days, the spindly-looking Bol rarely weighed much more than 91 kg (about 200 lb), but his quick reflexes and incredible 2.6-m (8-ft 6-in) arm span made him a formidable shot blocker: in 624 games he made 2,086 blocks, for an average of 3.34 per game, the second best in NBA history. Bol, a Dinka from southern Sudan, tended his family’s cattle and at age 15 began playing basketball. He arrived in the U.S. in 1982 with no formal education or knowledge of the English language. Within three years, however, he had studied English at the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, played a year of college ball at the University of Bridgeport, Conn., and been drafted by the Bullets. After retiring in 1995, Bol campaigned for peace in war-torn Sudan, where he maintained a part-time home and funded the construction of new schools. He died of complications from a rare skin disease and kidney failure.

Obituaries

Bourgeois, Louise, French-born American sculptor (b. Dec. 25, 1911, Paris, France—d. May 31, 2010, New York, N.Y.), was known for her monumental abstract and often biomorphic works that deal with the relationships of men and women. For many people, however, she was most closely associated with Maman (1999) a looming 9.27-m (30-ft)-tall steel-and-marble spider that was commissioned as the centrepiece of the inaugural exhibit in the vast Turbine Hall at the opening (2000) of London’s Tate Modern museum. (Bourgeois presented the piece to the Tate for its permanent collection in 2008.) Six bronze versions were cast in 2003 and later traveled to several sites throughout the world. Bourgeois was born to a family of tapestry dealers and restorers and made her first drawings to assist her parents in their restorations. She studied mathematics at the Sorbonne, but in her early 20s she changed her focus to art, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and the studio of Fernand Léger. In 1938 she married the American art historian Robert Goldwater and moved with him to New York City, where she began exhibiting her distinctly Surrealist paintings and engravings. In the late 1940s she began to experiment with sculptural forms, producing a series of long, lean wooden shapes that she exhibited singly and in groups. In the following decades she built many often unsettling environments of latex and found objects and structures of marble, plaster, and glass. In 1982 she was granted a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, an honour seldom granted to a living artist, and in 1993 she represented the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. Boyle, Robert Francis, American art director (b. Oct. 10, 1909, Los Angeles, Calif.—d. Aug. 1, 2010, Los Angeles), designed some of the most realistic and memorable scenes in cinematic history—including the cropduster chase and Mt. Rushmore sequences in director Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest (1959), which earned Boyle the first of his four Academy Award nominations for best art direction–set decoration, and the seagull attack scene in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Other movie credits include Cape Fear (1962), In Cold Blood (1967), The Shootist (1976), and several with director Norman Jewison, including The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Gaily, Gaily (1969),

and Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Boyle received a Lifetime Achievement Award (1997) from the Art Directors Guild, and in 2008, at the age of 98, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his distinguished career in art direction. Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas, Lithuanian politician (b. Sept. 22, 1932, Rokiskis, Lith.—d. June 26, 2010, Vilnius, Lith.), was the first elected president (1993–98) of his homeland after it withdrew from the U.S.S.R. Brazauskas rose through the ranks of the Lithuanian Communist Party (LKP) and in 1988 became first secretary of the party’s Central Committee. The LKP severed its connections with the Soviet Union’s Communist Party in 1989, and the following year Lithuania declared independence. In 1991 the country was formally recognized, and Brazauskas became acting president after his Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDDP) won a majority of seats in the general election for the new parliament in 1992. As president and later as prime minister (2001–06), Brazauskas promoted Lithuania’s economic freedom and eventual membership in the EU and NATO. He resigned in 2006 amid accusations of economic corruption, and the next year he retired as leader of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party—a party created in 2001 by the merger of the existing Social Democratic Party and the LDDP. Brazauskas was awarded Russia’s Order of Honour in 2010 for his diplomatic role in strengthening relations between Russia and Lithuania. Breuker, Willem, Dutch jazz musician and composer (b. Nov. 4, 1944, Amsterdam, Neth.—d. July 23, 2010, Amsterdam), championed the uniqueness of blossoming European jazz traditions as he led his ensemble, the Willem Breuker Kollektief, in playing works by jazz and pop songwriters and avantgarde composers, such as Bela Bartók and Kurt Weill, and, most of all, in playing his own original, often satiric, works. A pioneer of free jazz in Europe, Breuker became a soloist on several saxophones in the 1960s, recording with the German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and multi-instrumentalist Gunter Hampel and cofounding the Instant Composers Pool. In 1974 he formed the Kollektief, a tightly disciplined ensemble that included other soloists and that spiced his dramatic music with occasional slapstick comedy; the group usually consisted of 10–11 members, 7 of

whom performed with the Kollektief for more than 30 years. The Kollektief toured extensively, often working with added singers and instrumentalists. Breuker also composed for the theatre and motion pictures and for other jazz ensembles, such as the Italian Instabile Orchestra and the Globe Unity Orchestra. In addition, he was an active music educator, founded an annual Amsterdam music festival and the BVHaast label to record contemporary jazz and avant-garde music, produced a 48-hour radio documentary (1997) on the music of Weill, and was a leading advocate of public funding for new music in the Netherlands. Burbidge, Geoffrey Ronald, Britishborn American astrophysicist and astronomer (b. Sept. 24, 1925, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, Eng.—d. Jan. 26, 2010, La Jolla, Calif.), played a key role in several important developments in astrophysics and cosmology. He coauthored with his wife (astronomer E. Margaret Peachey Burbidge) and two other colleagues a seminal paper published in 1957 that showed how all but the lightest chemical elements are produced through nuclear reactions within stars. (Atoms of the heavier elements are then scattered into the universe when more massive stars eventually explode.) He and his wife carried out early research in quasars and radio galaxies and measured the masses of galaxies from the galaxies’ rotational speeds. Burbidge never accepted the big-bang model of the origin of the universe and instead argued that the universe periodically expands and contracts. Burbidge obtained a bachelor’s degree (1946) from Bristol University and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics (1951) from University College, London. He taught at several universities before he joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, in 1962. Burbidge spent the rest of his career there except for a six-year period (1978–84) when he served as director of the Kitt Peak (Arizona) National Observatory. During 1974–2004 he was editor of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Burbidge and his wife were jointly awarded the American Astronomical Society’s Warner Prize (1959) and the Royal Astronomical Society’s gold medal (2005). Burke, Solomon, American singer (b. March 21, 1940, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. Oct. 10, 2010, Haarlemmermeer, Neth.), helped to usher in the soul mu119

Obituaries Alan Spearman—The Commercial Appeal/Landov

chart in 1978. Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Soul singer Solomon Burke sic era in the 1960s by merging the gospel style of the African American church with rhythm and blues; two of his most memorable songs were “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” (1964) and “Got to Get You off My Mind” (1965), which he was inspired to write following the death of his friend singer Sam Cooke. Burke’s family established its own church, and he had become a preacher and the host of a gospel radio program by age 12. He began recording in 1955 but did not have his first national hit until 1961, with a rhythm-and-blues version of a country ballad, “Just out of Reach.” His recordings, most of which were produced in New York City, incorporated gospel-derived vocal techniques—shouted interjections, an exhortatory recitation, melisma, and rasping timbre. At Atlantic Records, under producer Bert Berns, Burke became one of the first rhythm-and-blues performers to be called a soul artist, based on his success with “Cry to Me” (1962), “If You Need Me” (1963), “Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)” (1964), and his last Top 40 pop hit, “Tonight’s the Night” (1965). After the mid-1960s Burke continued to record but with lessening success, last placing a record on the rhythm-and-blues

Byrd, Robert Carlyle (CORNELIUS CALVIN SALE, JR.), American politician (b. Nov. 20, 1917, North Wilkesboro, N.C.—d. June 28, 2010, Falls Church, Va.), achieved a historical landmark during his tenure as a U.S. Democratic senator (1959–2010) from West Virginia when he became (2006) the longest-serving U.S. senator; that tenure, combined with his three terms (1953–59) as a U.S. representative, allowed him to claim the record in 2009 as the longest-serving member of Congress. His achievements as a skilled orator, a staunch advocate for the working class, and an expert on senatorial procedures and the U.S. Constitution established his reputation as a towering figure on Capitol Hill. Byrd held such Senate leadership positions as Democratic whip (1971–77), majority leader (1977–80, 1987–88), minority leader (1981–86), and president pro tempore (1989–95, 2001–03, and 2007–10). Despite not having gained a bachelor’s degree until 1994, he earned a law degree (1963) from American University in Washington, D.C., while serving in the Senate. In the early 1940s Byrd organized a local Ku Klux Klan chapter, but he later apologized for this and became a strong supporter Longtime senator Robert Byrd

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of civil rights. He launched his political career by winning election (1946) to the West Virginia House of Delegates. Byrd served in the state Senate (1951–52) before winning election in 1952 to the U.S. House of Representatives. As chairman (1988–2008) of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd worked to attract industry and federal jobs to West Virginia, but his efforts to bolster his state with billions of dollars of federal funding also attracted criticism. In addition, he provided guidance on procedural matters during Senate hearings in 1998–99 on the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton. Byrd opposed the reorganization of federal security agencies undertaken by Pres. George W. Bush, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security—in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—and he was a vocal critic of the Iraq War. Byrd also published the celebrated four-volume series The Senate, 1789–1989 (1989–94). Captain Beefheart (DON GLEN VLIET; DON VAN VLIET), American avant-garde musician (b. Jan. 15, 1941, Glendale, Calif.—d. Dec. 17, 2010, Arcata, Calif.), was an innovative rock and blues singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Performing with the shifting lineup of musicians known as the Magic Band, Captain Beefheart produced a series of albums from the 1960s to the ’80s that had limited commercial appeal but were a major influence on punk and experimental rock. Beefheart, a child prodigy as a sculptor, grew up in the Mojave Desert region of California, where he and Frank Zappa met as teenagers. Having learned to play the harmonica and saxophone, Beefheart formed the first Magic Band in 1964, and the group (which briefly included Ry Cooder) had moderate success with the albums Safe as Milk (1967) and Strictly Personal (1968). Beefheart’s most famous recording, Trout Mask Replica (1969), produced by Zappa, proved an astonishing departure from previous rock conventions, combining eerie slide guitars, unpredictable rhythms, and surrealistic lyrics that Beefheart (who possessed a nearly fiveoctave range) wailed with fierce intensity. He earned critical acclaim with Clear Spot (1972), Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978), Ice Cream for Crow (1982), and other albums. In the early 1980s Beefheart, again using the name Don Van Vliet, left the music business altogether and devoted himself to painting.

Obituaries Hamilton—REA/Redux

Carmichael, Ian Gillett, British actor (b. June 18, 1920, Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, Eng.—d. Feb. 5, 2010, Grosmont, North Yorkshire, Eng.), brilliantly embodied the character of a bumbling affable twit in numerous stage productions and films and memorably played the parts of Bertie Wooster in the television series The World of Wooster (1965–67) and Lord Peter Wimsey in BBC TV adaptations of the detective novels of Dorothy L. Sayers in the 1970s. Carmichael was also known for his work in the films of John and Roy Boulting, especially Private’s Progress (1956), Lucky Jim (1957), and I’m All Right Jack (1959), as well as for School for Scoundrels (1960). Carmichael was appointed OBE in 2003. Carter, Dixie Virginia, American actress (b. May 25, 1939, McLemoresville, Tenn.—d. April 10, 2010, Houston, Texas), often portrayed independent, successful Southern women and was best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker on the television situation comedy Designing Women (1986–93). She later (2007) received an Emmy nomination for her guest-starring role as brusque mother-in-law Gloria Hodge in the TV series Desperate Housewives. Carter appeared on Broadway in the musical Sextet (1974) as well as in a revival of Pal Joey (1976). Her final Broadway performance (2004) was as Mrs. Meers in a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. She married actor Hal Holbrook in 1984. Cecchi d’Amico, Suso (GIOVANNA CECCHI), Italian screenwriter (b. July 21, 1914, Rome, Italy—d. July 31, 2010, Rome), contributed to more than 100 films in post-World War II Italian cinema, notably the Neorealist classic Ladri di biciclette (1948; The Bicycle Thief), directed by Vittorio De Sica, and Il gattopardo (1963; The Leopard), directed by Luchino Visconti, with whom Cecchi d’Amico often worked. She began writing screenplays in 1945 but received her first credit for Mio figlio professore (1946; Professor, My Son). She later collaborated on such films as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le amiche (1955; The Girlfriends) and Mario Monicelli’s Casanova ’70 (1965)—for which Cecchi d’Amico was nominated (1966) for an Academy Award for best screenplay—as well as Franco Zeffirelli’s TV miniseries Gesù di Nazareth (1977; Jesus of Nazareth). Cecchi d’Amico acquired the nickname “Suso” because her father called her Susanna. The

Venice Film Festival awarded her the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 1994. Chabrol, Claude, French motion-picture director, scenarist, and producer (b. June 24, 1930, Paris, France—d. Sept. 12, 2010, Paris), was France’s master of the mystery thriller and a preeminent figure in the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) in French cinema of the 1950s, notably with his debut movie, Le Beau Serge (1958). Chabrol’s fascination with the grotesque, his use of irony, and his commingling of tragedy and comedy reflect the strong stylistic influence of the English director Alfred Hitchcock, and he was coauthor with director Eric Rohmer (q.v.) of a 1957 book on Hitchcock. Chabrol attended the University of Paris and worked at Twentieth Century-Fox’s French office before becoming a filmmaker. He followed the critical and commercial success of Le Beau Serge with Les Cousins (1959), Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), Landru (1963), Les Biches (1968), and Le Boucher (1970), among others that featured his second wife, Stéphane Audran. As the New Wave receded, Chabrol maintained a prodigious output, creating such works as Violette Nozière (1978), Le Cheval d’orgueil (1979), Blood Relatives (1978), Une Affaire de femmes (1988; Story of Women), an adaptation (1991) of Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary, the César Award-nominated La Cérémonie (1995), Merci pour le chocolat (2000), La Fleur du mal (2003; The Flower of Evil), and La Fille coupée en deux (2007; The Girl Cut in Two), many of which starred actress Isabelle Huppert. His last film was the thriller Bellamy (2009; Inspector Bellamy). In 2003 Chabrol was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the European Film Awards. Charpak, Georges, Polish-born French physicist (b. March 8, 1924, Dabrowica, Pol. [now Dubrovytsya, Ukr.]—d. Sept. 29, 2010, Paris, France), was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992 for his invention of subatomic particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber, which revolutionized high-energy physics and had applications in medicine, biology, and industry. Charpak’s family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old. During World War II he served in the French Resistance, but he was imprisoned by Vichy authorities in 1943, and the next year he was de-

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Georges Charpak ported to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, where he remained until the camp was liberated in 1945. Charpak became a French citizen in 1946. He studied mining engineering at the École des Mines (B.S., 1948) and later received a doctorate (1954) from the Collège de France, Paris, where he worked in the laboratory of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. After having worked at the National Centre for Scientific Research (1948–59), Charpak joined (1959) the staff of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva; in 1984 he also became Joliot-Curie Professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Physics and Chemistry, Paris. He retired in 1991. Charpak built the first multiwire proportional chamber in 1968. Charpak was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1985. Chartrand, Michel, (JOSEPH MICHEL RAPHAËL CHARTRAND), Canadian labour leader and political activist (b. Dec. 20, 1916, Montreal, Que.—d. April 12, 2010, Montreal), was a fiercely outspoken proponent of a sovereign, socialist Quebec. In October 1970 Chartrand was arrested and charged with sedition after he publicly voiced his support for members of the radical separatist group Front de Libération du Québec who that month had kidnapped and killed Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s minister of labour. (A British diplomat, James Cross, was also taken hostage but was later released.) Chartrand spent four months in prison, but all 121

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charges against him were eventually dropped. Chartrand helped found the Socialist Party of Quebec in 1963 and in 1964–65 was the party’s first president. He also served (1968–78) as president of the federation of trade unions in Montreal. Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich, Soviet administrator and government minister (b. April 9, 1938, ChernyOtrog, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. Nov. 3, 2010, Moscow, Russia), as prime minister of Russia (1992–98), steered a middle course between those favouring free-market reforms and those advocating the continued support of Soviet-era state enterprises, but he lost his post when Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin installed a new team to carry out ongoing economic reforms. Chernomyrdin became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1961. After having held several jobs in the oil and gas industry, Chernomyrdin went to Moscow (1978) to work for the CPSU Central Committee. In 1982 he was appointed deputy minister of the Soviet natural-gas industry, and three years later Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev promoted him to minister. In this post Chernomyrdin converted (1989) the Ministry of Gas into the state-owned Gazprom, where he remained during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In June 1992 Chernomyrdin was named a deputy prime minister and minister of fuel and energy in the new Russian government. However, when Russia’s legislature refused to confirm Yegor T. Gaidar as prime minister, Yeltsin replaced him with Chernomyrdin. Chilton, Alex (WILLIAM ALEXANDER CHILTON), American singer and songwriter (b. Dec. 28, 1950, Memphis, Tenn.—d. March 17, 2010, New Orleans, La.), as the frontman of the seminal power pop band Big Star, crafted a body of work whose influence far outstripped its output. Chilton began his musical career as the lead singer of the Box Tops (formerly the Devilles). The quintet’s song “The Letter” was a surprise hit, spending four weeks in 1967 at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Box Tops returned to the top 10 in 1968 with “Cry like a Baby,” but the group experienced diminishing success over the following years and disbanded in 1970. In 1971 Chilton and fellow songwriter Chris Bell formed the core of Big Star. The quartet released #1 Record in 1972, and the album’s ex122

quisitely crafted power pop met with critical acclaim. Melancholy lyrics, sweet harmonies, and jangly guitars combined on tracks such as “The Ballad of El Goodo” to create a unique sound. The group’s follow-up, Radio City (1974), featured what is considered Chilton’s masterpiece, “September Gurls.” Big Star’s final album, Third (1978; also released as Sister Lovers), was a dark, meandering work that lacked the focus of its predecessors. Chilton embarked on a solo career in the late 1970s, and he worked as a producer, recording the first single for the “psychobilly” (a fusion of punk and rockabilly) group the Cramps. Chilton’s solo albums met with mixed reviews.

making a foray into films. Other notable movie credits include Silver Streak (1976), Semi-Tough (1977), First Monday in October (1981), and I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982), in which she was cast as a hard-driving career woman addicted to Valium. Her career spiraled down, however, as her script selection became poor. Clayburgh’s death followed her 21-year battle with chronic leukemia.

Christopher (VELIMIR KOVACEVICH), American religious leader (b. Dec. 25, 1928, Galveston, Texas—d. Aug. 18, 2010, Chicago, Ill.), became the first U.S.-born bishop to serve a North American diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Kovacevich was one of 12 children born to Serbian immigrants. Ordained in 1951, he served as a parish priest in Johnstown, Pa., Pittsburgh, and Chicago, establishing such innovations as bilingual religious education programs and participating in ecumenical dialogue with Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians. In 1978 he was made bishop of Eastern America and Canada, taking the monastic name Christopher. In 1991 he was appointed metropolitan of the see (ecclesiastical jurisdiction) of Libertyville-Chicago and thus primate of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the United States and Canada. He also served as dean of St. Sava Orthodox School of Theology in Libertyville, Ill.

Mark Lennihan/AP

Poet Lucille Clifton

Clayburgh, Jill, American actress (b. April 30, 1944, New York, N.Y.—d. Nov. 5, 2010, Lakeville, Conn.), was equally adept in dramatic and comedic roles but was especially noted for her performances as independent-minded women, notably in An Unmarried Woman (1978), as a divorcée who experiments sexually following her newfound status, and in Starting Over (1979), as the love interest of a man who is unable to separate himself emotionally from his ex-wife; she was nominated for Academy Awards for both of these portrayals and won the best actress award at the Cannes film festival for An Unmarried Woman. She appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musicals The Rothschilds (1970) and Pippin (1972) while

News About the Earth (1972), and An Ordinary Woman (1974). Clifton’s later poetry collections include Quilting: Poems 1987–1990 (1991); Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988–2000 (2000), winner of the National Book Award; and Voices (2008). She was born of a family that was descended from slaves, and Generations: A Memoir (1976) is a prose piece celebrating her origins. Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969–1980 (1987) collects some of her previously published verse. She attended Howard University (1953–55) and Fredonia State Teachers College (1955; now State University of New York College at Fredonia). Clifton worked in state and federal government positions until

Clifton, Lucille (THELMA LUCILLE SAYLES), American poet (b. June 27, 1936, Depew, N.Y.—d. Feb. 13, 2010, Baltimore, Md.), examined family life, racism, and gender in books of verse that included Good Times (1969), Good

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serving (1971–74) as writer in residence at Coppin State College, Baltimore. From 1982 to 1983 she was a visiting writer at Columbia University School of the Arts, New York City, and at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Thereafter Clifton taught literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and then at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Clifton’s many children’s books, written expressly for an African American audience, include All Us Come Cross the Water (1973), Three Wishes (1976), and My Friend Jacob (1980). She also penned an awardwinning book in a series that featured events in the life of Everett Anderson, a young black boy. In 2007 Clifton was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Cochran, Hank (GARLAND PERRY COCHRAN), American songwriter and musician (b. Aug. 2, 1935, Isola, Miss.— d. July 15, 2010, Hendersonville, Tenn.), penned chart-topping songs for numerous country music artists, including Patsy Cline (“I Fall to Pieces,” co-written with Harlan Howard; “She’s Got You”), Ronnie Milsap (“Don’t You Ever Get Tired [of Hurting Me]”), George Strait (“Chair”), and Eddy Arnold (“Make the World Go Away”), as well as noncountry performers such as Bing Crosby and Elvis Costello. Cochran became interested in music while singing and playing guitar at his grandfather’s church. After moving to California as a teenager, he formed a band with the unrelated Eddie Cochran called the Cochran Brothers. The two appeared together on a country music variety show, toured, and recorded before they split up in the late 1950s. Cochran, who had already had several songs published, got a job writing and plugging songs for Pamper Music. He brought along thenstruggling singer-songwriter-actor Willie Nelson; the two collaborated on several songs. Cochran continued writing and recording his own songs into the early 2000s. He was elected in 1974 to the Nashville Songwriters Association International’s Hall of Fame. Coleman, Gary Wayne, American actor (b. Feb. 8, 1968, Zion, Ill.—d. May 28, 2010, Provo, Utah), achieved stardom as a child in the television sitcom Diff’rent Strokes (1978–86) with his portrayal of the younger of two impoverished African American brothers adopted by a wealthy white businessman after their mother, a domestic worker in his household, dies. As the

precocious chubby-cheeked Arnold Jackson, Coleman was usually at the centre of the comic capers that also involved his on-screen sibling Willis (Todd Bridges) and often included the businessman’s daughter, Kimberly (Dana Plato). After Diff’rent Strokes ended, Coleman tried to capitalize on his trademark catchphrase, “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” by parlaying it into a second career as a reality-TV personality. The diminuitive Coleman, who suffered from congenital kidney disease, attained an adult height of only 1.4 m (4 ft 8 in) as a result of treatment for that illness. Plagued with health issues, Coleman died after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Conrad, Paul Francis, American editorial cartoonist (b. June 27, 1924, Cedar Rapids, Iowa—d. Sept. 4, 2010, Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.), garnered both praise and scorn for his political cartoons, which skewered dozens of politicians, including 11 U.S. presidents (notably Richard M. Nixon) and several other public figures. One unforgettable drawing that appeared during the Watergate Scandal depicted Nixon nailing himself to a cross. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Conrad earned a B.A. in art (1950) from the University of Iowa. Soon after graduation he became the staff cartoonist for the Denver Post newspaper. He served (1964–93) on the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times, where the popularity of his political cartoons, which focused on moral corruption and social injustice, helped to elevate the reputation of the newspaper to national prominence. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1964, 1971, and 1984. Corneau, Alain, French film director (b. Aug. 7, 1943, Meung-sur-Loire, France—d. Aug. 30, 2010, Paris, France), achieved international fame with Tous les matins du monde (1991; All the Mornings of the World), which earned seven César Awards, including best picture and best director, as well as a Golden Globe nomination and a Golden Bear nomination for Corneau at the Berlin Film Festival. Corneau’s compelling drama about the life of the Baroque composer and viola de gamba virtuoso Marin Marais also revived interest in French Baroque music, and the CD of the sound track became a best seller. Corneau’s other noteworthy films include Le Choix des armes (1981; Choice of Arms), Fort Saganne (1984), and Crime d’amour (2010).

Corneille (CORNELIS GUILLAUME VAN BEVERLOO), Belgian-born Dutch artist (b. July 3, 1922, Liège, Belg.—d. Sept. 5, 2010, Paris, France), was a cofounder of the influential art collective COBRA (1948–51). Although he painted vibrant expressionistic works, his subjects were often landscapes, and in the mid-1960s his work became more figurative. Corneille studied (1940–43) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam but was largely self-taught as a painter. His first solo show was in Groningen, Neth., in 1946. With a group of like-minded artists, he founded (1948) the Dutch Experimental Group; this led to the formation of COBRA, which issued a manifesto decrying formalism and dogma and espoused an art of spontaneity. Corneille participated in the COBRA group shows in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum (1949) and in Liège (1951). From 1950 onward, he based himself in Paris. He also contributed poetry to the 10 issues of the group’s magazine. Cossiga, Francesco, Italian politician (b. July 26, 1928, Sassari, Sardinia, Italy—d. Aug. 17, 2010, Rome, Italy), served as Italy’s prime minister (1979–80), Senate president (1983–85), and the president of the republic (1985–92). For many, however, he was most notable for his role as interior minister (1976–78) during the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro by the militant leftist organization the Red Brigades; Cossiga’s refusal to negotiate with the kidnappers resulted in Moro’s murder and his own resignation from the Interior Ministry. Cossiga’s outspoken, often caustic, criticism of the government during the later part of his term as president earned him the nickname “Il Picconatore” (“the Pickax-wielder”). He resigned from the presidency in 1992 following criticism of his involvement in a 1960s clandestine operation, sponsored by NATO, to prepare guerrilla fighters in the event of an invasion by Warsaw Pact countries. Crémer, Bruno (BRUNO-JEAN-MARIE CRÉMER), French actor (b. Oct. 6, 1929, Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France—d. Aug. 7, 2010, Paris, France), portrayed Georges Simenon’s classic Parisian detective Jules Maigret on French television in 54 episodes over 14 years (1991–2005). Although he often portrayed gangsters and military officers, Crémer’s burly build and world-weary face made him the ideal choice to play 123

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Simenon’s imperturbable pipe-smoking police commissioner. Crémer studied acting at the Paris Conservatory in the early 1950s, and after having appeared onstage as Saint Just in Jean Anouilh’s Poor Bitos (1956), he created the role of Thomas Becket in Anouilh’s Becket, ou l’honneur de Dieu at the Théâtre Montparnasse in 1959. Crémer’s films include La 317ème Section (1965; The 317th Platoon), Paris brûle-t-il? (1966; Is Paris Burning?), Noce blanche (1989), Sous le sable (2000; Under the Sand), and, mostly notably, Lo straniero (1967; The Stranger), Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Albert Camus’s classic novel L’Étranger, with Crémer cast against type as the prison priest. Cullum, Leo Aloysius, American cartoonist (b. Jan. 11, 1942, Newark, N.J.— d. Oct. 23, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), featured humans as well as dogs, cats, birds, and other animals in his masterful gag cartoons, hundreds of which appeared (1977–2010) in The New Yorker magazine and in such publications as the Harvard Business Review and Barron’s. Cullum consistently hit readers’ funny bone with his spot-on depictions of bombastic businessmen, incompetent doctors, and slippery lawyers. His classic drawings include a man standing near a litter box and telling a cat, “Never, ever, think outside the box”; a buffalo talking on a cell phone and complaining, “I love the convenience, but the roaming charges are killing me”; and an anchovy warning its child, “Some will love you, Cartoonist Leo Cullum

son, and some will hate you.” Cullum’s cartoon of a woman and a man at a bar became the first cartoon that The New Yorker published after its weeklong moratorium on the publication of lighthearted material following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. The woman remarks, “I thought I’d never laugh again. Then I saw your jacket.” Cullum, who served as a commercial airline pilot for more than 30 years, took up cartooning as an avocation. Culp, Robert Martin, American actor (b. Aug. 16, 1930, Oakland, Calif.—d. March 24, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), starred as Bill Cosby’s partner in a government secret agent team in the trailblazing espionage television drama I Spy (1965–68), the first program to feature a black actor (Cosby) in a leading role. The show’s premise cast Culp as agent Kelly Robinson and Cosby as his partner, Alexander Scott, who embarked on secret missions while traveling around the world disguised as, respectively, an international tennis player and his trainer. The actors often engaged in comic banter as they tried to brainstorm how to engineer their escape from imminent danger. Though Culp’s big-screen credits were slim, a few of his most memorable movies include Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), in which he played one of the sexually adventurous participants in a foursome; Hickey & Boggs (1972), in which he and Cosby were a team of seedy private detectives; and The Pelican Brief (1993), in which he was the president of the United States. In 1994 Culp and Cosby reunited in the TV movie sequel I Spy Returns. Cunningham, Evelyn (EVELYN ELIZABETH LONG), American journalist (b. Jan. 25, 1916, Elizabeth City, N.C.—d. April 28, 2010, New York, N.Y.), as a pathbreaking newspaperwoman for the Pittsburgh Courier, a black weekly, covered some of the most prominent stories of the civil rights era, notably the numerous lynchings that occurred in the segregated South. She interviewed Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and prepared a three-part series on the King family. In the late 1960s New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who was impressed with Cunningham’s skills when she interviewed him, invited her to serve as his special assistant. She later led women’s rights groups and took part on government panels that addressed women’s rights and community issues. Cunningham

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continued to advise Rockefeller even after he became (1974) U.S. vice president under Pres. Gerald Ford. In 1998 she was one of five reporters who accepted the George Polk Award on behalf of the Courier for that newspaper’s civil rights coverage. Curtis, Tony (BERNARD SCHWARTZ), American actor (b. June 3, 1925, Bronx, N.Y.—d. Sept. 29, 2010, Henderson, Nev.), was a Hollywood heartthrob whose handsome looks propelled him to fame in a series of adventure romps, including The Prince Who Was AP

Matinee film idol Tony Curtis a Thief (1951) and its sequel, Son of Ali Baba (1952), but he earned critical acclaim for his performances in Houdini (1953), as the master magician; Trapeze (1956), as an aerialist; Sweet Smell of Success (1957), as an unprincipled press agent; Spartacus (1960), as a former slave; and The Defiant Ones (1958), in which his portrayal of an escaped prisoner chained to a black convict (Sidney Poitier) earned him his only Academy Award nomination. For many of his fans, however, Curtis was best known for his comedic role in Some Like It Hot (1959), in which he romanced Marilyn Monroe and posed as a woman in an all-girl band to elude mobsters whom he and partner Jack Lemmon could identify from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Other Curtis film credits include The Vikings (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959), The

Obituaries

Great Imposter (1961), Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Goodbye Charlie (1964), The Great Race (1965), The Boston Strangler (1968), and The Last Tycoon (1976). Curtis made a string of films with his first wife, Janet Leigh, including The Perfect Furlough (1958) and Who Was That Lady? (1960), before the couple divorced in 1962 after an 11-year marriage. One of their two daughters, Jamie Lee Curtis, became a successful actress. Curtis, who was married six times, went on to become a noted painter after his retirement from acting. Daly, Mary, American theologian, philosopher, and ethicist (b. Oct. 16, 1928, Schenectady, N.Y.—d. Jan. 3, 2010, Gardner, Mass.), pioneered radical feminist theology. Daly, who was born into a Roman Catholic family, earned a Ph.D. (1953) in religion from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind. She studied medieval philosophy and Thomist theology at the University of Fribourg, Switz., receiving doctorates in theology and philosophy. As a faculty member from 1966 at Boston College, she had several clashes with the administration over her policy of barring male students from her classrooms, a practice she justified as necessary to create a “safe space” in which women (including some survivors of domestic abuse) could speak comfortably and freely. In 1998 a male student backed by a conservative political organization sued the college when Daly refused to admit him into one of her classes. The college dismissed her and revoked her tenure, spurring a bitter legal battle; the matter was settled in 2001, when Daly agreed to retire. Daly increasingly identified herself as “post-Christian” as her own theology evolved. She drew from a deep knowledge of the Western tradition and exhibited a poetic use of etymological wordplay in developing her theoretical “expos” of patriarchy, by which she meant both the systematic domination of women by men throughout society and the social and cultural institutions that serve to justify that domination. Rejecting traditional conceptions of a transcendent (and often male) God, Daly promoted a sense of the Absolute as a “Be-ing” that was not only immanent but actualized through women’s creativity. Daly’s works include The Church and the Second Sex (1968), Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978), and Quintessence— Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto (1998).

Dankworth, Sir John Philip William, British jazz musician and composer (b. Sept. 20, 1927, Woodford, Essex, Eng.—d. Feb. 6, 2010, London, Eng.), helped popularize modern and bebop jazz in Britain; he was also a notable composer of film music and a champion of music education. Dankworth began his career playing clarinet with traditional jazz bands but, inspired by Andrew Parsons/AP

Jazz musician and composer Sir John Dankworth a recording by Charlie Parker, had switched by the mid-1940s to the alto saxophone. In 1948 he was a founder of Club Eleven, a refuge for lovers of bebop, and about a year later he introduced the Johnny Dankworth Seven. That group broke up in 1953, and Dankworth formed a big band fronted by the actress and vocalist Cleo Laine; Laine and Dankworth married in 1958. The band was reorganized in 1956 and had a popular hit song that year, “Experiments with Mice” (based on “Three Blind Mice”), and in 1959 it played at the Newport (R.I.) Jazz Festival. Throughout the 1960s Dankworth composed scores for a large number of films as well as themes for television shows. He took charge as Laine’s musical director in 1971, and in 1985 he founded and became musical director of the pops program of the London Symphony Orchestra. Dankworth was made CBE in 1974 and was awarded a knighthood in 2006.

Daya Mata (FAYE WRIGHT), American religious leader (b. Jan. 31, 1914, Salt Lake City, Utah—d. Nov. 30, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), led for more than 50 years (1955–2010) the Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, one of the largest Hindu groups in the U.S. She was raised Mormon but converted as a teenager after meeting Swami Paramahansa Yogananda at a Yoga lecture and recovering from a serious illness. She subsequently became a nun in Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship, taking the Sanskrit name Daya Mata (“Mother of Compassion”) and serving as Yogananda’s assistant. After becoming spiritual leader and president of the organization, she greatly expanded its outreach. De Laurentiis, Dino (AGOSTINO DE LAURENTIIS), Italian-born American film producer (b. Aug. 8, 1919, Torre Annunziata, Campania, Italy—d. Nov. 11, 2010, Beverly Hills, Calif.), was known for his prolific output of more than 160 films ranging from the populist to the cerebral. De Laurentiis acted and performed odd jobs and then produced his first movie at age 20. He scored his first hit with Riso amaro (1949; Bitter Rice), which was dominated by the sensuous presence of his first wife, actress Silvana Mangano. De Laurentiis formed a company with Carlo Ponti, and they jointly produced such films as Federico Fellini’s La strada (1954) and Le notti di Cabiria (1957; Nights of Cabiria), both of which won Academy Awards for best foreignlanguage film. De Laurentiis opened (1964) his first independent studio, Dinocittà, but was compelled to sell it in the early 1970s. By that time, however, he had established relations with American studios, particularly Paramount Pictures, which distributed Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Barbarella (1968). After moving to the U.S., he formed a series of companies and produced such films as Serpico (1973), King Kong (1976), Blue Velvet (1986), and four movies based on Thomas Harris’s novels about serial killer Hannibal Lecter. In 2001 De Laurentiis was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. de Marco, Guido, Maltese politician (b. July 22, 1931, Valletta, British Malta—d. Aug. 12, 2010, Msida, Malta), shaped Malta’s domestic politics as the country’s deputy prime min125

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ister (1987–96, 1998–99) and president (1999–2004) and was a driving force behind his homeland’s admission in 2004 as a member of the EU. De Marco was a law student (LL.D., 1955) and professor at the Royal University of Malta (later the University of Malta) and an advocate in the Superior Courts of Malta from 1956. He joined the Nationalist Party (PN) as a proponent of Maltese independence (which came in 1964) and was the party’s secretarygeneral (1972) before becoming deputy leader (1977–99). He represented the PN in the parliament from 1966 to 1999. He was named deputy prime minister in 1987 when the PN won the majority of votes but a minority of seats; during the late 1980s and ’90s, he also served as minister of justice, minister of the interior, and minister of foreign affairs. In 1990 De Marco formally submitted Malta’s bid to join the EU, and he remained a diligent campaigner at home and abroad for years until membership was achieved. As president (1990–91) of the UN General Assembly, De Marco oversaw that body’s support for Kuwait after its invasion by Iraq, as well as the admission of both North and South Korea to the UN. Dean, Jimmy Ray, American performer and businessman (b. Aug. 10, 1928, Seth Ward, Texas—d. June 13, Country singer and sausage king Jimmy Dean

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2010, Varina, Va.), penned (in less than two hours) and recorded the Grammy Award-winning song “Big Bad John” (1961), which showcased Dean’s flair for dramatic recitation and immortalized the heroics of a coal miner who saves fellow workers following a cavein. Dean delighted television audiences with his folksy charm and country twang, especially on his variety program The Jimmy Dean Show, which ran on ABC (1963–66) after a brief run in 1957 on CBS. Earlier, the accordionplaying Dean fronted the Texas Wildcats band, which scored its first national hit, “Bummin’ Around,” in the early 1950s. Other Dean recitation songs include “Dear Ivan,” “The Cajun Queen,” “To a Sleeping Beauty,” and “I.O.U.” Besides his numerous appearances on TV (he portrayed Josh Clements on Daniel Boone [1967–70] with Fess Parker [q.v.] and was a guest on numerous variety and talk shows), Dean founded (1969) the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. and served as its sausage spokesperson until 2003, though he sold the firm in 1984 to Sara Lee Corp. In 2010 Dean was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Delibes, Miguel (MIGUEL DELIBES SETIÉN), Spanish novelist, essayist, and journalist (b. Oct. 17, 1920, Valladolid, Spain—d. March 12, 2010, Valladolid), wrote widely of travel, the outdoors, sport, and his native Valladolid, but his fiction is best known for its critical analysis of 20th-century Spanish society. At age 17 Delibes enlisted in the Spanish navy, hoping to avoid infantry combat in the Spanish Civil War. (The war affected him powerfully and figured in his later writings.) Following his military service, Delibes studied commerce and law at the University of Valladolid. He was also hired as a caricaturist for the Valladolid newspaper El Norte de Castilla. His first novel, La sombra del ciprés es alargada (1948), was awarded the Nadal Prize. Delibes became director of El Norte de Castilla in 1958, but his advocacy for Castilian causes in the face of government censorship brought about his resignation in 1963. The plight of Castile also informed his novel Las ratas (1962; Smoke on the Ground). Other major works include El camino (1950; The Path), La hoja roja (1959), Cinco horas con Mario (1966; Five Hours with Mario), Las guerras de nuestros antepasados (1975; The Wars of Our Ancestors), and El hereje (1998; The Heretic). Delibes collected numer-

ous literary honours, including election to the Royal Spanish Academy (1973), the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters (1982), and the Cervantes Prize (1993). di Tiro, Hasan, Indonesian rebel leader (b. Sept. 25, 1925, Aceh province, Indon.—d. June 3, 2010, Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indon.), founded (1976) the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in the Indonesian province of Aceh, which fought the Jakarta government for more than three decades. Di Tiro studied in Yogyakarta, Indon., and at Columbia University, New York City, but in 1976 he left his wife and son in the U.S. to begin a campaign for Aceh’s independence. GAM, also known as the AcehSumatra National Liberation Front, grew from approximate 150 rebels at its inception to thousands of members whose guerrilla war against the Indonesian government ultimately resulted in an estimated 15,000 or more deaths. Di Tiro in 1977 fled to Sweden, where he eventually became a citizen, but he remained a key decision-making leader and international lobbyist for GAM. Peace talks between the Indonesian government and GAM were boosted by the December 2004 tsunami that killed about 170,000 people and devastated Aceh. The final peace agreement signed in August 2005 allowed Aceh greater autonomy and authorized local political parties. Di Tiro returned to Aceh in 2008. His Indonesian citizenship was restored the day before his death. Dixon, Bill (WILLIAM ROBERT DIXON), American jazz artist (b. Oct. 5, 1925, Nantucket, Mass.—d. June 16, 2010, North Bennington, Vt.), composed brooding, impressionist scores and played trumpet solos that incorporated silence, quiet passages, and distortions of his sound into large, abstract forms. One of the earliest free-jazz artists in New York City, Dixon produced (1964) the historically important October Revolution in Jazz festival, which introduced a generation of post-Ornette Coleman musicians, and cofounded the cooperative Jazz Composers Guild. Dixon introduced his characteristic dark ensemble-sound colours in Intents and Purposes (1967); he composed longer works for later albums, such as 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur (2008) and Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra (2008). He taught for many years (1968–95) at Bennington College, where he founded the Black Music Division.

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Dobrynin, Anatoly Fyodorovich, Soviet diplomat (b. Nov. 16, 1919, Krasnaya Gorka, Russia—d. April 6, 2010, Moscow, Russia), served as the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the U.S. (1962–86) and as dean of the Washington, D.C., diplomatic corps (1979–86). Throughout his 24-year tenure—spanning six Soviet leaders and six U.S. presidents—Dobrynin provided a vital continuity to U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War, and his fluency in English and French, good humour, and intellectual flair made him a highly visible presence on the Washington scene. After graduating (1942) from the Sergo Ordzhonikidze Moscow Aviation Institute, Dobrynin worked as an engineer at an aircraft plant. In 1944–46 he studied at the Higher Diplomatic School of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (becoming a Communist Party member in 1945), and he thereafter served in the Moscow Foreign Office until 1952, when he was sent to Washington, first as counselor (1952–54) and then as the second-ranking minister-counselor (1954–55). From 1955 to 1957 he was again based in Moscow and took part in several international conferences abroad, and from 1957 to 1960 he held posts in the UN Secretariat in New York City. Dobrynin was appointed ambassador to the U.S. by Nikita Khrushchev in March 1962; he was called back to Moscow in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev to serve (1986–88) as head of the international department of the Communist Party’s Secretariat. Dobrynin retired from that position. Donner, Clive Stanley, British film director (b. Jan. 21, 1926, London, Eng.—d. Sept. 6, 2010, London), established himself with The Caretaker (1963), an intense low-budget blackand-white adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play. The movie earned a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and marked the beginning of Donner’s high-profile directing career, but he became better known for his bawdy comedies, notably the box-office hit What’s New Pussycat? (1965), Nothing but the Best (1964), Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush (1968), and Luv (1967), based on Murray Schisgal’s play about an attempted marital swap. Draves, Victoria (VICTORIA TAYLOR MANALO; VICKI), American diver (b. Dec. 31, 1924, San Francisco, Calif.—d. April 11, 2010, Palm Springs, Calif.), became the first woman to win gold medals in both 3-m springboard and

10-m platform diving at the same Olympic Games, accomplishing this feat at the 1948 Games in London. Before she could begin competing for a San Francisco swimming club, the Asian American teenager had to assume her English mother’s maiden name (Taylor), instead of her Filipinoborn father’s surname (Manolo), because of racial prejudice. In 1946 she won her first U.S. outdoor highboard diving championship, and she married her coach, Lyle Draves, that year. She retained the highboard championship in 1947 and 1948 and also won the indoor 3-m diving championship in 1948. Draves was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) starring Audrey Hepburn. Edwards demonstrated equal facility with dramas such as Days of Wine and Roses (1962). In 1969 Edwards married English actress and singer Julie Andrews, who appeared in several of his films, among them 10 (1979) and Victor/Victoria (1982), which he revived in 1995 as a Broadway musical, also starring Andrews. In 2004 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Edwards an honorary award for lifetime achievement.

Dumas, Jean-Louis (JEAN-LOUIS ROBERT FRÉDÉRIC DUMAS-HERMÈS), French fashion executive (b. Feb. 2, 1938, Paris, France—d. May 1, 2010, Paris), transformed Hermès (founded in 1837 by his mother’s great-grandfather Thierry Hermès) from a prestigious but languishing company into an international high-fashion retailer with some 300 stores and revenues of about $2.5 billion. Dumas took Hermès public in 1993 but retained most of the stock in family hands; he retired in 2006.

Yossi Zamir—EPA/Landov

Edwards, Blake (WILLIAM BLAKE CRUMP), American film director, producer, and screenwriter (b. July 26, 1922, Tulsa, Okla.—d. Dec. 15, 2010, Santa Monica, Calif.), was perhaps best known for his often-ribald comedies, notably The Pink Panther (1963), starring Peter Sellers, and its sequels. Edwards’s stepfather was the son of silentfilm director J. Gordon Edwards, and he found his stepson work as a script courier for Twentieth Century-Fox. Edwards acted in films in the 1940s and wrote two screenplays before beginning a successful stint in radio. He transitioned back to writing for film when director Richard Quine, who worked for Columbia Pictures, asked him to cowrite a script. The two collaborated for several years—notably on My Sister Eileen (1955)—during which time Edwards also wrote for several television shows. He made his directing debut with Bring Your Smile Along (1955). After creating the TV series Peter Gunn (1958–61), Edwards mainly worked in film, often writing and producing as well as directing his own material. Early directorial efforts included the comedy Operation Petticoat (1959), set aboard a pink submarine, and an acclaimed adaptation of Truman Capote’s

Eliyahu, Mordechai, Israeli religious leader (b. March 12, 1929, Jerusalem, British Palestine—d. June 7, 2010, Jerusalem, Israel), was an outspoken

Religious leader Mordechai Eliyahu proponent of religious Zionism and a staunch defender of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories. In the early 1950s Eliyahu served 10 months in prison for cofounding an organization that advocated the establishment of a theocracy in Israel. He graduated in 1959 from the Institute of Rabbis and Religious Justices and subsequently became Israel’s youngest religious court justice. He also served for 10 years (1983–93) as chief rabbi for Israel’s Sephardic Jews, a position that he used for outreach to secular Jews. Throughout his career, Eliyahu publicly denounced plans by the Israeli government to withdraw Jewish settlers from occupied Gaza and the West Bank, often using violent anti-Palestinian rhetoric. Inflammatory statements that Eliyahu made in which he reportedly blamed the victims of the Holocaust 127

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and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 attracted further controversy. Ellis, Herb (MITCHELL HERBERT ELLIS), American jazz artist (b. Aug. 4, 1921, Farmersville, Texas—d. March 28, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), played graceful, lyrical guitar as a soloist and accompanied singers and jazz combos with buoyant swing. Ellis was one of several outstanding Charlie Christianinfluenced guitarists who emerged in the 1940s. He played in the Soft Winds trio (1947–52) but created his most noted work in the Oscar Peterson Trio (1953–58), which toured internationally in Jazz at the Philharmonic; he also accompanied such stars as Billie Holiday, Lester Young, and Louis Armstrong. In the 1960s, besides performing with singer Ella Fitzgerald (1958–62), Ellis worked in bands on television shows. From 1972 Ellis toured and recorded on his own, in small groups, with fellow guitarist Joe Pass, and most popularly with Barney Kessel and Charlie Byrd in the Great Guitars trio, which they formed in 1973. Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn (AYATOLLAH SAYYID MUHAMMAD HUSAYN FADLALLAH), Iraqi-born Lebanese Muslim cleric (b. Nov. 16, 1935, Al-Najaf, Iraq—d. July 4, 2010, Beirut, Leb.), was a prominent Shi!ite religious leader and was thought to have been a cofounder (1957) of the Shi#ite Islamic Da#wa Party in Iraq. Fadlallah was schooled at a traditional madrasa in his birthplace, where he studied under many of the eminent Shi!ite scholars of his day. His scholarly acumen eventually earned him the honorific title of ayatollah. He moved to Lebanon (where his parents had been born) in 1966 and quickly established a reputation as a leading religious authority. He was also admired for his extensive charitable work and for his relatively progressive ideas on women’s rights. Although some believed that Fadlallah was the leader of the Shi!ite militia and political party Hezbollah after its founding in 1982, both he and the party denied any direct link. He was impressed by the Islamic revolution in Iran (1978–79), but he generally stood aloof from the more radical position of its leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. Feller, Bob (ROBERT WILLIAM ANDREW FELLER; “RAPID ROBERT”; “BULLET BOB”), American baseball player (b. Nov. 3, 1918, Van Meter, Iowa—d. Dec. 15, 2010, Cleveland, Ohio), was a righthanded pitcher whose fastball made 128

him a frequent leader in games won and strikeouts during his 18-year professional career with the Cleveland Indians of the American League (AL). He also had an effective curveball and sinker in his pitching arsenal. Feller made his major league debut at age 17, when he joined the Indians mid-season in 1936, and he broke the AL single-game strikeout record in just his fifth start. The young hurler soon became a national sensation; his high school graduation was covered live by NBC radio, and he appeared on the cover of Time magazine before his second season. Initially Feller had control problems (his AL record of 208 bases on balls in 1938 still stood in 2010), but his pitching quickly improved, and for three consecutive years (1939–41), he led the league in innings pitched, wins, and strikeouts. In 1940 he also had the best earned run average (ERA) in the AL, which, along with his registering the highest win and strikeout totals for the year, earned him that season’s pitching triple crown. Following service in the navy in World War II, he returned to baseball and again led the league in strikeouts from 1946 through 1948, throwing 348, 196, and 164 strikeouts, respectively, in those years. In 1948, Feller also played a pivotal role in the Indians’ winning the World Series. He pitched three no-hit games (1940, 1946, and 1951), the first pitcher in the 20th century to do so. In his career he pitched 12 one-hit games. Feller retired as a player in 1956 with a win-loss record of 266–162, 2,581 strikeouts, and a lifetime ERA of 3.25, and he briefly served as a TV broadcaster for the Indians. An eight-time career All-Star, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. Fenn, John Bennett, American scientist (b. June 15, 1917, New York, N.Y.— d. Dec. 10, 2010, Richmond, Va.), won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002 with Tanaka Koichi and Kurt Wüthrich for developing techniques to identify and analyze proteins and other large biological molecules. Fenn’s prizewinning research expanded the applications of mass spectrometry (MS), an analytic technique used in many fields of science since the early 20th century. (MS can identify unknown compounds in minute samples of material, determine the amounts of known compounds, and help deduce the molecular formulas of compounds.) In the late 1980s he originated electrospray ionization, a technique that involves injecting a solution of the sample into a strong electric

field, which disperses it into a fine spray of charged droplets. As each droplet shrinks by evaporation, the electric field on its surface becomes intense enough to toss individual molecules from the droplet, forming free ions ready for analysis with MS. Fenn’s electrospray ionization proved to be a highly versatile technique, and it was used in the development of pharmaceuticals and the analysis of foodstuffs for harmful substances. After receiving a Ph.D. (1940) in chemistry from Yale University, Fenn spent more than a decade working for various companies before joining (1952) Princeton University. In 1967 he moved to Yale, where he became professor emeritus in 1987. Fenner, Frank Johannes, Australian virologist and microbiologist (b. Dec. 21, 1914, Ballarat, Vic., Australia—d. Nov. 22, 2010, Canberra, Australia), led smallpox-eradication efforts, first by assisting (from 1969) the World Health Organization in its smallpox program; he was later appointed (1977) chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. On May 8, 1980, he delivered the official announcement that proclaimed the program’s success. Fenner earned an M.D. (1942) from the University of Adelaide. From 1940 to 1946, while in the Australian Army Medical Corps, he learned about malaria and implemented strategies to reduce soldiers’ deaths from the disease. He later studied pox viruses. In the 1950s he headed a program to eradicate some 600 million feral rabbits that were devastating the Australian countryside; to reassure the public that the myxoma virus used to kill the rabbits was safe for humans, Fenner and two other researchers injected themselves with samples that contained enough of the virus to kill 1,000 rabbits. Among his many awards were the Japan Prize (1988), the Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2000), and the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in Australia (2002). Fignon, Laurent, French cyclist (b. Aug. 12, 1960, Paris, France—d. Aug. 31, 2010, Paris), won more than 75 races in his 11-year professional career (1982–93), including the Tour de France twice—in 1983 aged only 22 and again in 1984—but for many he was best remembered for the 1989 Tour de France that he narrowly lost to American Greg LeMond. After Fignon secured his second Tour, injuries hampered his performance, but he returned to form in

Obituaries Lionel Cironneau/Ap

with Perry Como and Elvis Presley as RCA Victor’s top-selling pop vocalists. Fisher had a string of smash hits between 1950 and 1956 that included “Tell Me Why,” “Cindy, Oh Cindy,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Count Your Blessings,” and “Somebody Like You,” but his divorce from the popular Reynolds derailed his career. His television series, The Eddie Fisher Show (1957–59), was canceled, and RCA Victor dropped him. His children with Reynolds (director Todd and actress Carrie of Star Wars fame) and Stevens (actresses Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher), were also involved in show business. His attempted comebacks were unsuccessful.

Cycling champion Laurent Fignon 1988, winning the Milan–San Remo, and took both the Milan–San Remo and the Giro d’Italia the following year. In the 1989 Tour de France, he built up what appeared to be an insurmountable 50-second lead going into the final day’s 25-km (15.5-mi) time trial. LeMond set a record pace in the time trial, however, and won the Tour by eight seconds, the closest finish in history. Fisher, Eddie (EDWIN JACK FISHER), American singer (b. Aug. 10, 1928, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. Sept. 22, 2010, Berkeley, Calif.), was a handsome crooner as well known for his renditions of such top 10 singles as “Thinking of You” (1950), “Trust Me” (1951), and “Oh! My Papa!” (1953) as he was for his marital scandals, which included a divorce from actress Debbie Reynolds to wed (1959) actress Elizabeth Taylor (who divorced him in 1964 after a highly public affair with actor Richard Burton) and a two-year union (1967–69) with singer-actress Connie Stevens. While performing at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, Fisher was discovered by established star Eddie Cantor, who featured the young singer on his radio program. In 1953 the melodious tenor and bobby-sox idol was rewarded with the TV show Coke Time with Eddie Fisher, which was sponsored until 1957 by the soft drink giant. Fisher’s first million-selling song, “Any Time” (1951), became his signature tune, and he reigned

Flew, Antony Garrard Newton, English philosopher (b. Feb. 11, 1923, London, Eng.—d. April 8, 2010, Reading, Eng.), made noteworthy contributions to analytic philosophy, but he became more widely known as a longtime atheist who later declared belief in God. Flew was the son of a Methodist minister but became an atheist as a teenager. While studying philosophy at St. John’s College, Oxford, he came under the influence of ordinary-language philosopher Gilbert Ryle; he later edited two volumes of papers (Logic and Language, First Series [1951] and Second Series [1953]) that were important in disseminating the ideas of postWorld War II analytic philosophy. It was also at Oxford that Flew was exposed to the critiques of traditional religious beliefs espoused by the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Flew’s 1950 essay “Theology and Falsification” argued that the concept of God was philosophically meaningless because his existence could be neither proved nor refuted. In 2004, however, he declared that scientific evidence had persuaded him to adopt a conception of a God that was similar to Aristotle’s “prime mover.” Foot, Michael Mackintosh, British politician and author (b. July 23, 1913, Plymouth, Devon, Eng.—d. March 3, 2010, London, Eng.), was leader of Britain’s Labour Party from November 1980 to October 1983 and an intellectual left-wing socialist who was a strong ally of the British trade unions, an advocate of sharply increased public expenditures and state ownership of industries, and a founder (1958) of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Foot, the son of a Liberal Party MP, attended Wadham College, Oxford, and then began a career as a newspaper ed-

itor and columnist (1937–74). The mass unemployment of the 1930s turned him to socialism, and from 1945 to 1992, apart from a break between 1955 and 1960, Foot was a Labour MP. He was secretary of state for employment (1974–76) in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s cabinet and then served as leader of the House of Commons (1976–79) under Wilson’s successor, James Callaghan. In November 1980, by a vote of 139–129, Foot rose from deputy Labour leader (1976–80) to become the party’s chief by defeating Denis Healey, the candidate of Labour’s right wing. This vote, as well as other leftward trends in the party, caused some right-wing Labourites to resign from the party and four months later to found the Social Democratic Party. Following a disastrous showing in the June 1983 general election, Foot resigned as Labour leader, although he remained in Parliament. He wrote a number of books, including Aneurin Bevan: A Biography, 2 vol. (1962 and 1973) and studies on literary figures. Foot, Philippa (PHILIPPA BOSANQUET), British philosopher (b. Oct. 3, 1920, Owston Ferry, Lincolnshire, Eng.—d. Oct. 3, 2010, Oxford, Eng.), was influential in advancing the naturalistic point of view in moral philosophy against the prevailing nonnaturalism of post-World War II analytic philosophy. After receiving a B.A. (1942) from Somerville College, Oxford, she worked as a researcher at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London. Returning to Oxford after the war, she received an M.A. (1946) and later became a fellow (1949) of Somerville College, where she was lecturer in philosophy and served as viceprincipal (1967–69). She joined (1976) the philosophy department of the University of California, Los Angeles, and retired in 1991. Influenced by one of her colleagues at Somerville, Elizabeth Anscombe, herself a disciple of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Foot began to question the dominant view in moral philosophy that moral judgments say nothing about the actual world but are merely expressions of emotion (e.g., Sir A.J. Ayer) or prescriptive statements (e.g., R.M. Hare). In her 1958 papers “Moral Arguments” and “Moral Beliefs,” Foot attacked the assumptions of nonnaturalistic ethics and attempted to show that moral ideas are grounded in human life. In Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives (1972), Foot introduced an element of subjectivism into her system, accepting that values are chosen, not grounded in 129

Obituaries

nature. She revised her views again in Natural Goodness (2001), arguing that values are objectively rooted in natural human needs. Perhaps her best-known contribution to ethics was the Trolley Problem, a hypothetical case that highlights the tension between deontological (duties-based) ethics and consequentialist (consequences-based) ethics. Forsythe, John (JOHN LINCOLN FREUND), American actor (b. Jan. 29, 1918, Penns Grove, N.J.—d. April 1, 2010, Santa Ynez, Calif. ), possessed good looks and a sensuous voice that contributed to his fame on three television series: Bachelor Father (1957–62), as the guardian to his teenage niece; Charlie’s Angels (1976–81), as the voice of a multimillionaire private eye who outlines cases via telephone to his female protégés; and the nighttime soap opera Dynasty (1981–89), as oil mogul Blake Carrington, a role that brought him two Golden Globe Awards (four nominations) and three Emmy nominations. Other TV shows, including The John Forsythe Show (1965–66), To Rome with Love (1969–71), and The Powers That Be (1992–93), were less successful. Big-screen credits include The Trouble with Harry (1955), Madame X (1966), and In Cold Blood (1967). He also lent his voice to the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels and its 2003 sequel. Francis, Dick (RICHARD STANLEY FRANCIS), British jockey and mystery writer (b. Oct. 31, 1920, Lawrenny, Pembrokeshire, Wales—d. Feb. 14, 2010, Grand Cayman), thrilled fans Jockey and thriller writer Dick Francis

with more than 40 detective novels that featured realistic plots centred on the sport of horse racing. Francis grew up in a family of amateur steeplechase jockeys and breeders, and in 1946, after completing his World War II military service as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, he took up steeplechase riding. Turning professional in 1948, he won some 350 National Hunt races, though he failed to win the Grand National in eight attempts. He was named Champion Jockey in 1953–54 and for four years (1953–57) rode for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. In 1957 he published The Sport of Queens: The Autobiography of Dick Francis and took a job as a racing correspondent for London’s Sunday Express newspaper, where he remained until 1973. Francis’s successful first novel, Dead Cert (1962; filmed 1974), was followed by Nerve (1964); thereafter he averaged a book a year. Three books won Edgar Awards—Forfeit (1968), Whip Hand (1979), and Come to Grief (1995)—and other novels include Hot Money (1987), Shattered (2000), and Under Orders (2006). Late in life he coauthored four novels with his son Felix. Francis was made OBE in 1984 and advanced to CBE in 2000. Geesink, Anton (ANTONIUS JOHANNES GEESINK), Dutch judoka (b. April 6, 1934, Utrecht, Neth.—d. Aug. 27, 2010, Utrecht), in 1961 was the first nonJapanese world judo champion and thus transformed the image of judo from a Japanese-dominated sport into a truly international event that was worthy of inclusion in the Olympic Games. Geesink, at 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) and 120 kg (267 lb), used his great size to advantage, but it was his training in Japan and technical skills that helped him prevail over his competitors. Between 1951 and 1967 he earned 21 European judo titles, three world championships (1961, 1964, and 1965), and the first open (unlimited weight) Olympic gold medal when the sport was introduced at the 1964 Tokyo Games. Geesink was honorary president of the European Judo Union and was elected (2003) to the International Judo Federation Hall of Fame. In 1995 Geesink’s hometown of Utrecht erected a statue in his honour. Miep (HERMINE SANTROUHERMINE SANTRUSCHITZ), Austrian-born heroine (b. Feb. 15, 1909, Vienna, Austria-Hungary—d. Jan. 11, 2010, Hoorn, Neth.), was the last

surviving member of the group of five non-Jewish people who concealed eight Jews, including Anne Frank and her family, from the Nazis in the secret annex above their Amsterdam office for more than two years (July 9, 1942–Aug. 4, 1944). After the Gestapo arrested the hidden group, who had been betrayed by an unidentified person, Gies rescued Anne’s private diary, which she later returned (unread) to Anne’s father, Otto, the only one of those eight Jews to survive the Holocaust. Sent as a child from Vienna to Leiden, Neth., in 1920 to recuperate from malnutrition, young Hermine was given the nickname Miep and was adopted by a Dutch family. She later took a job (1933) in Amsterdam as Otto Frank’s assistant and married (1941) Jan Gies. The couple, who also took Otto Frank into their home for several years after his return, received numerous awards, and in 1972 Yad Paul Hurschman/AP

Miep Gies, preserver of Anne Frank’s diary Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, recognized Miep and Jan Gies as Righteous Among the Nations. Miep’s memoir, Anne Frank Remembered (1987), was the basis for the television movie The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) and was adapted in 1995 into an eponymous Academy Awardwinning documentary.

Gies,

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Giraudeau, Bernard René, French actor (b. June 18, 1947, La Rochelle, France—d. July 17, 2010, Paris, France), was a versatile performer, di-

Obituaries Photos 12/Alamy

1965. He continued his academic career (1966–86) at Rice University, Houston.

Filmmaker and actor Bernard Giraudeau rector, and writer. His early films were primarily romantic comedies and adventures, but he later expanded into darker roles, notably in the Academy Award-nominated Ridicule (1996) and the psychological thriller Une Affaire de goût (2000; A Matter of Taste), for which he earned one of his six César Award nominations. An accomplished theatre actor, he was nominated for the Molière Award three times and presided over the jury in 2009. After having been diagnosed with cancer in 2000, Giraudeau reduced his acting commitments and wrote several novels and children’s stories. Gordon, William Edwin, American engineer and scientist (b. Jan. 8, 1918, Paterson, N.J.—d. Feb. 16, 2010, Ithaca, N.Y.), designed and built the Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope, in Puerto Rico. While serving in the armed forces during World War II, Gordon began studying the effects of weather on radar transmission range, and he pursued work in this area after joining (1948) Cornell University, Ithaca, as a research associate. A related interest in measuring the properties of the ionosphere led him to begin designing the radio telescope in 1958, at which time he was serving as a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell. Gordon designed a telescope with a dish 305 m (1,000 ft) wide, nearly seven times the size of extant radio telescopes. Gordon became director of the observatory on its completion in 1963, and he remained in that position until

Gorecki, Henryk Mikolaj, Polish composer (b. Dec. 6, 1933, Czernica, near Rybnik, Pol.—d. Nov. 12, 2010, Katowice, Pol.), enjoyed extraordinary international popularity with his sombre Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (1976), a three-movement piece based on a modal canon that gradually builds upward from low strings to a solo soprano voice. Gorecki studied at the Music Academy of Katowice. The works of Anton Webern, Olivier Messiaen, and Karlheinz Stockhausen informed his often atonal and violent early compositions. A change in his compositional style came in 1963 when, challenged to write simple tunes, he created Three Pieces in Old Style for orchestra. Folk songs, medieval music, and references to his Roman Catholic faith characterized his subsequent work, which frequently was based on tragic themes and cast in very slow tempi. Gorecki was elected provost (1975) of the Music Academy in Katowice, but he resigned in protest four years later when the government refused to allow Pope John Paul II to visit the city. He then conducted his choral work Beatus Vir for the pope in Krakow and composed new pieces for subsequent papal visits to Poland. Miserere, also a choral composition, was written in 1981 to honour a Solidarity leader beaten by the militia, but the piece was not performed until 1987. The Song of Rodziny Katynskie, for unaccompanied chorus, was completed in 2004 and premiered in Krakow in 2005. Graham, Bruce John, American architect (b. Dec. 1, 1925, La Cumbre, Colom.—d. March 6, 2010, Hobe Sound, Fla.), designed some of the world’s tallest, most iconic skyscrapers and was a dominant force behind Chicago’s architectural prominence during the late 20th century. His most notable Chicago buildings include the Inland Steel Building (1957); the 100story John Hancock Center (1970), which received (1999) the American Institute of Architects’ 25-Year Award for its “enduring significance”; and the 110-story Sears Tower (1974; renamed Willis Tower in 2009), which was constructed by using the groundbreaking tubular frame method and stood as the world’s tallest skyscraper until 1996. He graduated (1948) from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in architec-

ture and relocated to Chicago, where he secured a position with architectural firm Holabird, Root & Burgee. In 1951 Graham joined the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), where he was promoted (1960) to partner. After retiring (1989) from SOM, Graham established his own firm in Florida. Graves, Peter (PETER DUESLER AURNESS), American actor (b. March 18, 1926, Minneapolis, Minn.—d. March 14, 2010, Pacific Palisades, Calif.), was best known for his portrayal of Jim Phelps, the intensely serious leader of a secret government organization charged with presenting dangerous assignments to a diverse crew of operatives on the television drama series Mission: Impossible (1967–73 and 1988–90). Prior to his TV work, Graves appeared in such notable motion pictures as Stalag 17 (1953), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) as well as such B films as Killers from Space (1954) and It Conquered the World (1956); the latter two provided material for a number of send-ups. Graves, who was the brother of actor James Arness (Marshall Matt Dillon of TV’s Gunsmoke fame), tried to create a serious niche for himself. Though he was initially reluctant to appear in the wildly popular spoof film Airplane! (1980), he ultimately played pilot Capt. Clarence Oveur. Graves also appeared in that role in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). From 1987 Graves used his sonorous voice as host of Biography for the A&E cable television network. Grayson, Kathryn (ZELMA KATHRYN ELISABETH HEDRICK), American actress (b. Feb. 9, 1922, Winston-Salem, N.C.—d. Feb. 17, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), showcased her operatic coloratura voice in a string of 1940s and ’50s movie musicals, notably Thousands Cheer (1943), Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Kissing Bandit (1948), Show Boat (1951), and Kiss Me Kate (1953). When Grayson’s Hollywood film career ended, she performed in nightclubs, on television (including General Electric Theater and Playhouse 90), in concert, and on the stage; she made her operatic debut in 1960 in Madame Butterfly. Greenberg, Moshe, American-born Israeli rabbi and biblical scholar (b. July 10, 1928, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. May 15, 2010, Jerusalem, Israel), was best known for his scholarship of the Hebrew 131

Obituaries Richard Drew/AP

Bible, in which he integrated traditional rabbinic scriptural commentary with the historical-critical method of religious studies, drawing from archaeological and linguistic research, which had been developed largely by nonJewish scholars. In 1994 he was one of the first two recipients of the Israel Prize, Israel’s highest civilian honour, for biblical studies. Greenberg studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York City, and at the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D., 1954). He was professor of Bible and Judaic studies at the University of Pennsylvania Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione with his (1954–70) and at the Hebrew Uni- magazine versity of Jerusalem (1970–96). Among his works are Biblical Prose Prayer (1983) and a two-volume magazine that featured scantily clad or commentary on the biblical book of nude women in provocative positions. Guccione launched Penthouse in the Ezekiel (1983, 1997). United Kingdom in 1965 and followed Greenspan, Bud (JONAH JOSEPH with an American version four years GREENSPAN), American sports docu- later. The magazine’s success made him mentary filmmaker (b. Sept. 18, 1926, a multimillionaire and spawned a pubNew York, N.Y.—d. Dec. 25, 2010, New lishing empire, but a series of failed inYork City), chronicled international vestments, a string of legal misfortunes, sporting events and individual athletes and the migration of pornography to for more than 60 years. Beginning with video and the Internet greatly diminthe 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games ished his personal fortune. (16 Days of Glory), he documented every Summer and Winter Olympics (in Guillot, Olga, Cuban singer (b. Oct. 9, print or on film), many on behalf of the 1922, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba—d. July International Olympic Committee 12, 2010, Miami Beach, Fla.), was (IOC); his final effort, on the 2010 Van- known to her many fans as “the queen couver Winter Olympics, was scheduled of the bolero” as she entranced audifor release in early 2011. He began as ences with her heartfelt ballads for a sports journalist and covered the more than half a century. She was dis1948 London Olympics as a 21-year-old covered in a singing competition as a radio reporter. His first TV documen- child in a duo with her sister (who quit tary, Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin in 1940); by the age of 20, Guillot was (1968), was originally filmed in 1964 performing with the legendary French and was later rebroadcast in the 1970s singer Edith Piaf. In 1945 she recorded as part of his award-winning Olympiad “Miénteme,” which was a hit throughseries. Greenspan was honoured with out Latin America. It became her sigseven Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award nature song, and in 1954 the song be(1996) for creating “his own genre of came the first gold-selling record by sports documentary,” lifetime achieve- any Cuban singer. She was also well ment awards from the Directors Guild known throughout the Spanish-speakof America (1995) and the Academy of ing world for her recording of “La gloTelevision Arts and Sciences (2006), in- ria eres tú” (1947). Guillot earned three duction into the U.S. Olympic Hall of consecutive awards as Cuba’s best feFame (2004), and the IOC’s Olympic male singer, but she fled the country in Order (1985). 1961 after having strongly criticized Fidel Castro’s government. Although Guccione, Bob (ROBERT CHARLES Guillot never sang in English, she later JOSEPH EDWARD SABATINI GUCCIONE), split her time between the U.S. and American publisher (b. Dec. 17, 1930, Mexico, where she began acting and Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Oct. 20, 2010, Plano, eventually appeared in 16 movies, usuTexas), founded Penthouse magazine as ally as herself. In 1964 she became the a more explicit alternative to Hugh first Latin singer to perform as a solo Hefner’s provocative Playboy, a men’s artist at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. 132

She was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Latin Grammys in 2007. Guinzburg, Thomas Henry, American editor and publisher (b. March 30, 1926, New York, N.Y.—d. Sept. 8, 2010, New York City), cofounded (1953) the literary magazine The Paris Review, which helped to launch the careers of such up-and-coming novelists as Jack Kerouac and Mona Simpson. Guinzburg earned a Purple Heart while serving in the U.S. Marines during World War II, and shortly thereafter he attended Yale University, where he was managing editor of the Yale Daily News. In 1954 Guinzburg joined his father’s publishing company, Viking Press, which contracted such writers as Graham Greene, Arthur Miller, and John Steinbeck. Guinzburg became president of Viking in 1961 upon his father’s death, and he employed several top-notch editors, along with some famous individuals, such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Although Viking continued to be successful during Guinzburg’s tenure (he published the 1974 National Book Award winner Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon), he sold the company in 1975 to a British media group that owned Penguin Books. He continued until 1978 to serve as president of the new publishing company, Viking/Penguin. Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., American general and government official (b. Dec. 2, 1924, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. Feb. 20, 2010, Baltimore, Md.), achieved prominence as White House chief of staff (May 1973–September 1974) under U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon, as commander in chief of American forces in Europe and supreme allied commander of NATO forces (1974–79), and as secretary of state (January 1981–June 1982) under Pres. Ronald Reagan. Haig was widely credited with keeping the White House functioning during the period surrounding Nixon’s resignation as president in August 1974, but he left his post shortly after Pres. Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon, issued a presidential pardon for Nixon. After graduating (1947) from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., Haig served under Gen. Douglas MacArthur in occupied Japan and saw combat in the Korean War. Haig then continued his education at Columbia University, New

Obituaries

York City; the Naval War College, Newport, R.I.; and Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where he earned (1961) a master’s degree in international relations. He worked at the Pentagon and attended the Army War College, Carlisle, Pa., before serving (1966–67) as battalion and brigade commander of the First Infantry DiviThumma/AP

General and government official Alexander Haig sion in Vietnam; his service there won him the Distinguished Service Cross. He became a military assistant on the staff of the National Security Council led by Henry Kissinger in 1969 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a full (four-star) general in 1973. Haig retired from the military in 1979 and went into business. Hannah, (Howard) Barry, American author (b. April 23, 1942, Meridian, Miss.—d. March 1, 2010, Oxford, Miss.), wrote darkly comic, often violent novels and short stories set in the Deep South. His first novel, Geronimo Rex (1972), which received a National Book Award nomination, is a raucous coming-of-age story addressing the theme of racism. In the less-successful Nightwatchmen (1973), both a secret killer and a hurricane are unleashed upon a small college town. Hannah’s reputation as a daring stylist was secured with Airships (1978), a collection of short stories. The book’s recurrent motif of American Civil War valour is developed more fully in the short novel Ray (1980). Hannah’s other novels include The Tennis Handsome (1983), Hey

Jack! (1987), Never Die (1991), and Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001), which tells the stories of a town of eclectic and unsavoury characters. His short-story collections include Captain Maximus (1985), which also contains the outline of an original screenplay; Bats out of Hell (1993); and High Lonesome (1996). He collaborated with the fashion designer Gianni Versace and several others on the photography book Men Without Ties (1994). Hannah was educated at Mississippi College (B.A., 1964) and the University of Arkansas (M.A., 1966; M.F.A., 1967). He taught writing at several schools and was a writer in residence at the Universities of Iowa, Montana, and Mississippi. Harwell, Ernie (WILLIAM EARNEST HARWELL), American sports broadcaster (b. Jan. 25, 1918, Washington, Ga.—d. May 4, 2010, Novi, Mich.), was the announcer for a number of Major League Baseball teams—including the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Baltimore Orioles, the New York Giants, and the California Angels—but he was indelibly identified as the beloved folksy radio voice of the Detroit Tigers during his more than four decades (1960–91 and 1993–2002) of calling the action on the field for that team. In 1981 the Baseball Hall of Fame bestowed upon him the Ford C. Frick Award, which celebrates a broadcaster’s major contributions to baseball. Havoc, June (ELLEN E VANGELINE HOVICK), Canadian-born American actress (b. Nov. 8, 1912, Vancouver, B.C.— d. March 28, 2010, Stamford, Conn.), enjoyed a successful stage and screen career, beginning with vaudeville performances at the age of two as Baby June (later Dainty June) with her sister, who went on to become the famous striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee. The sisters’ lives were immortalized in the 1959 stage musical Gypsy (and the 1962 movie), but Havoc’s early accomplishments as a child star, making as much as $1,500 a week, were diminished in the fictionalized account.

rock music. The variously titled song (“Suzy-Q,” “Suzie Q,” or “Susie-Q”), sometimes referred to as an example of “swamp rock” because it drew heavily on the blues sounds of South Louisiana, became a favourite of several bands, notably Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose rendition reached the Billboard Top 20 in 1968. Hawkins formed his own band shortly after service in the U.S. Navy and was one of the first white artists to sign with Chess Records, the notable Chicago rhythmand-blues label. His albums include L.A., Memphis & Tyler, Texas (1969), Wildcat Tamer (1999), and Back Down to Louisiana (2007). Height, Dorothy Irene, American civil rights and women’s rights activist (b. March 24, 1912, Richmond, Va.—d. April 20, 2010, Washington, D.C.), was a widely respected and influential leader of organizations focused primarily on improving the circumstances of and opportunities for African American women. Height graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree (1933) and a master’s degree (1935) in educational psychology. She was involved in social service for some six decades, four of them as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), an umbrella organization that comprises civic, church, educational, labour, community, and professional groups. Height’s involvement with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) facilities for Prominent civil rights activist Dorothy Height

Hawkins, Dale (DELMAR ALLEN HAWKINS, JR.), American songwriter and singer (b. Aug. 22, 1936, Goldmine, La.—d. Feb. 13, 2010, Little Rock, Ark.), featured the spectacular riffs of guitarist James Burton in his rockabilly standard “Susie Q” (1957), which became a bandstand classic and was chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped David Kohl/AP

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black women, dating to the 1930s, led to her advocacy of improved conditions for black domestic workers, her election to national office within the YWCA, and her involvement with that organization’s integration policy. In 1957 she became the fourth president of the NCNW, which she steered through the civil rights struggles of the 1960s by organizing voter registration in the South, voter education in the North, and scholarship programs for student civil rights workers. Height subsequently urged the black community to join in the war against drugs, illiteracy, and unemployment. Before retiring in 1998, she helped secure funding for a national headquarters for the NCNW in the historic Sears House in Washington, D.C., where the organization also housed its Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute. Her numerous honours include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994) and the Congressional Gold Medal (2004). Higgins, Alex (ALEXANDER GORDON HIGGINS; “HURRICANE”), Northern Irish snooker player (b. March 18, 1949, Belfast, N.Ire.—d. July 24, 2010, Belfast), raised the visibility and popularity of the billiards game of snooker with his quick, impulsive style of play and his entertaining flamboyance during televised matches. His brilliant playing career was marred, however, by erratic behaviour, gambling, frequent drunkenness (even during matches), and violent outbursts (he was known to attack the referee and on at least one occasion threatened to kill another player). By 1968 he had secured the Northern Irish and All-Ireland amateur snooker titles. He won the world championship in 1972, at age 22, in his first year as a professional. After having racked up several other titles, he returned to the limelight with his second world championship in 1982.

Holbrooke, Richard Charles Albert, American diplomat (b. April 24, 1941, New York, N.Y.—d. Dec. 13, 2010, Washington, D.C.), brokered the Dayton Accords (1995) to end the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, served as the U.S. ambassador to the UN (1999–2001), and was the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009–10) in the administration of Pres. Barack Obama. After receiving a B.A. (1962) from Brown University, Providence, R.I., Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service and was posted to Vietnam until 1966. His experience there and in Washington, D.C., on Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam staff led to his being named a junior member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1968–69. After serving (1970–72) as Peace Corps director in Morocco, he edited (1972–76) the quarterly magazine Foreign Policy. He returned to the government in 1977 when Pres. Jimmy Carter appointed him assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. From 1981 to 1985 Holbrooke was both vice president of Public Strategies, a Washington consulting firm, and senior adviser to the New York investment firm Lehman Brothers; he then served (1985–93) as managing director of Lehman Brothers. In 1996 he became vice-chairman of Crédit Suisse First Boston. In the administration of Pres. Bill Clinton, he was ambassador to Germany (1993–94) and assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs (1994–95). In 1997 he was appointed special envoy to

Diplomat Richard Holbrooke

Hirsch, Moshe, American-born Orthodox Jewish rabbi (b. 1923, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. May 2, 2010, Jerusalem, Israel), was a leading figure in Neturei Karta, a politically active anti-Zionist Orthodox sect that opposed the existence of a sovereign Jewish state. After studying at a rabbinical yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J., Hirsch immigrated to Israel. He never sought citizenship there, however, and his opposition to what he considered the unlawful creation of Israel in Palestine led him to become a close ally and adviser to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Charles Dharapak/AP

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Cyprus, where he attempted to broker a settlement of the two-decade-old dispute over that island between Greece and Turkey. In 1998 Holbrooke returned to the Balkans to attempt to negotiate a cease-fire between Serbs and the ethnic Albanian majority in the ongoing Kosovo conflict, but he was unable to bring the fighting to a close. From 2001 to 2009 he served as vice president of Perseus, LLC, a private equity fund management company. Holmes, Andy (ANDREW JEREMY HOLMES), British rower (b. Oct. 15, 1959, London, Eng.—d. Oct. 24, 2010, London), partnered with Steven Redgrave (later Sir Steven) to win the gold medal in the coxed fours (with Martin Cross and Richard Budgett) at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and followed with golds in the coxless pairs and coxed fours at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, the coxed pairs at the 1986 world championships, the coxless pairs at the 1987 world championships (as well as a silver in the coxed pairs), and the coxless pairs at the 1988 Seoul Olympics (plus a bronze in the coxed pairs). When he and Redgrave split right after the 1988 Olympics, Holmes was unable to find another partner, and he retired from rowing, though he later coached. He was made MBE in 1989. Holmes reportedly died of Weil disease (leptospirosis), a rare bacterial illness contracted from infected water. Hooks, Benjamin Lawson, American jurist, minister, and government official (b. Jan. 31, 1925, Memphis, Tenn.—d. April 15, 2010, Memphis), as executive director (1977–92) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped reinvigorate the flagging organization and was successful in boosting the sagging NAACP membership. During his tenure the eloquent Hooks stressed the need for affirmative action and pressed for increased minority voter registration. He also deplored underrepresentation of minorities in media ownership. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and later studied law at De Paul University, Chicago (J.D., 1948); at that time no law school in Tennessee was admitting blacks. While practicing law (1949–65) in Memphis, he participated in restaurant sit-ins during the late 1950s and early ’60s and joined numerous civil rights and public-service organizations; notably, he presided on the board of directors of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leader-

Obituaries CBS/Landov

ship Conference. Ordained a Baptist minister in the mid-1950s, Hooks preached regularly at churches in both Memphis and Detroit. From 1961 he served as assistant public defender of Shelby county, Tenn., until his appointment (1965) as judge of Shelby County Criminal Court; he was the first African American to hold that position. He was elected to a full eight-year term in 1966, but he resigned in 1968. In July 1972 Hooks was appointed to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and became the first black FCC commissioner. He resigned to become executive director of the NAACP, succeeding Roy Wilkins. Hooks also served as the chairman of the board of directors of the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, and helped to found (1996) the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Hopper, Dennis Lee, American actor, director, and writer (b. May 17, 1936, Dodge City, Kan.—d. May 29, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), became a countercultural icon following his starring role as the long-haired Billy in the classic drug-fueled motorcycle drama Easy Rider (1969). The film also marked Hopper’s directorial debut and situated him at the forefront of the burgeoning youth-oriented resistance to the status quo. Hopper, Peter Fonda (his costar), and writer Terry Southern earned an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay. Hopper made his film debut as a high-school gang member in the teenage-angst classic Rebel Without a Cause (1955) opposite James Dean. Despite Hopper’s reputation for having a volatile temperament on the film set, he was cast in a string of movies, including the epic western Giant (1956), also opposite Dean, and The Story of Mankind (1957). Throughout the 1960s Hopper appeared in movies of varying quality, ranging from horror films such as Night Tide (1961) to Cool Hand Luke (1967), a classic prison drama starring Paul Newman. Hopper’s substance abuse and erratic behaviour overshadowed his work in the following decade, and studios balked at casting him. He rallied sufficiently to play an addled photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). By the mid-1980s Hopper, having overcome his addictions, was enjoying a career resurgence. In 1986 he appeared in director David Lynch’s Blue Velvet as the sadistic Frank Booth and in Hoosiers as

the alcoholic assistant coach of a smalltown high-school basketball team; the latter performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Later work included turns as the villain in Speed (1994) and a poet in Elegy (2008). Horne, Lena Mary Calhoun, American singer and actress (b. June 30, 1917, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. May 9, 2010, New York, N.Y.), was a velvety-voiced jazz songstress who broke down racial barriers as the first black performer to land, in the 1940s, a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio and who went on to promote civil rights while she showcased her expressive vocals on the stage, on television, in films, on recordings, and in nightclubs; during World War II the sultry beauty also became a popular pinup for African American servicemen. Horne left high school to become a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City, where she appeared with such entertainers as Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway and eventually starred. In 1935 she joined the Noble Sissle orchestra, under the name Helena Horne. She was hired in the early 1940s to sing for Charlie Barnet’s allwhite orchestra, becoming one of the first African Americans to breach the music-business colour divide. Soon after being discovered by producer John Hammond, she performed in a solo show at Carnegie Hall, New York City. In 1942 Horne moved to Los Angeles, signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, and performed in Panama Hattie. The following year she appeared in such films as Thousands Cheer, Cabin in the Sky, and Stormy Weather; the title song for the latter became one of her signature tunes. Her marriage in Paris to a white man, arranger and composer Lennie Hayton (1947 until his death in 1971), was kept secret for three years because their union was illegal in much of the U.S. In the U.S. she was a fixture on numerous television shows. As an actress, she refused to accept roles that stereotyped African American women, and many of her scenes were filmed in such a way that they could be cut for Southern distribution. Other movies include Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) and The Wiz (1978), in which she starred as Glinda the Good. Lena Horne at the WaldorfAstoria (1957) became the best-selling album by a female singer in RCA Victor’s history, and her first featured performance on Broadway—in the musi-

Jazz singing sensation Lena Horne cal Jamaica (1957–59)—won her a New York Drama Critics’ Poll Award in 1958. In addition, her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981), garnered a Drama Critics’ Circle Award as well as a specialachievement Tony Award. In 1984 Horne received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime contribution to the arts, and in 1989 she was the recipient of a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. Houk, Ralph George (“THE MAJOR”), American baseball manager (b. Aug. 9, 1919, Lawrence, Kan.—d. July 21, 2010, Winter Haven, Fla.), as manager (1961–63, 1966–73; general manager 1964–65) of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, won the World Series in his first two seasons and the pennant in his first three. Houk signed with the Yankees organization in 1939 and played in the minor leagues before serving in the army in World War II, earning a Silver Star (at the Battle of the Bulge) and a Purple Heart and rising to the rank of major (which provided his professional nickname in later years). After the war he played in only 91 games as a backup catcher (behind Yogi Berra) in eight seasons (1947–54) with the Yankees. In 1955 Houk began managing the franchise’s top minor league team, the Denver Bears. He returned to New York City in 1958, and after three years as the Yankees first-base coach, he took over management of the team from Casey Stengel in 1961. Houk resigned in 135

Obituaries John Pryke/AP

1973, soon after George Steinbrenner (q.v.) acquired the franchise. He then managed the Detroit Tigers (1973–78) and, after a brief retirement, the Boston Red Sox (1981–84). Houk finished his 20-year managing career with a record of 1,619 wins and 1,531 losses. Huang Hua (WANG RUMEI), Chinese diplomat (b. Jan. 25, 1913, Hebei province, China—d. Nov. 24, 2010, Beijing, China), served as China’s public face to Western governments for the latter half of the 20th century. Born Wang Rumei, he adopted the name Huang Hua when he joined the Communist Party in 1936. Having mastered English Aboriginal singer and songwriter Ruby Hunter at the American-run Yanjing University in Beijing, Huang acted as an interpreter for journalist Edgar with the release of Thoughts Within, Snow, whose book Red Star over China Hunter became the first Aboriginal (1937) provided the first exposure for woman to produce a solo album; it was many in the West to the Chinese Com- nominated for an ARIA (Australian munist Party and its leadership. After Recording Industry Association) Award the war against Japan (1937–45) and for best indigenous release. Her second the Chinese civil war (1945–49), Huang album, Feeling Good (2000), also was served in the new government’s Min- nominated for an ARIA Award. In 2004 istry of Foreign Affairs. Thereafter he Ruby’s Story, a musical collaboration filled a number of diplomatic roles, no- between Hunter, Roach, and the Austably serving as China’s first permanent tralian Art Orchestra, was staged in representative to the UN. Among his Sydney, and two years later Hunter beother acccomplishments, Huang held came a founding member of the Black talks with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Arm Band musical collective. Kissinger that led to the normalization of ties between China and the U.S. in Ioannidis, Dimitrios, Greek military 1972, brokered a key friendship treaty officer (b. March 13, 1923, Athens, with Japan in 1978, and negotiated Greece—d. Aug. 16, 2010, Athens), was with British Prime Minister Margaret a leading figure in the Greek military Thatcher in 1980 to secure the return junta (1967–74), which imposed a reof Hong Kong to Chinese control. pressive government and established Huang formally retired in the 1980s. censorship, exile of political opponents, and the torture of dissenters; he also Hunter, Ruby, Australian Aboriginal was responsible for the 1974 military singer and songwriter (b. 1955, South intervention in Cyprus that led to Australia, Australia—d. Feb. 17, 2010, Turkey’s invasion and the subsequent Victoria, Australia), with her partner, political division of that island repubArchie Roach, embodied the spirit and lic. Although Ioannidis never officially experience of the “stolen generation” of led the Greek government, as head of Aborigines in music and performances the much-feared military police (ESA) in Australia and elsewhere. The pair, and the interrogation force known for both of whom had been taken from its use of torture (EAT), he was called their family homes and placed with the “invisible dictator.” Ioannidis atwhite foster families when they were tended a military academy before joinyoung children, met as homeless ing the army in 1943, and he fought teenagers. Hunter was known for her against both the fascist occupying distinctive gravelly voice and her songs forces in World War II and the comthat told stories of her life and ad- munist forces during the Greek Civil dressed Aboriginal and women’s issues. War. He held the rank of lieutenant Roach’s debut album, Charcoal Lane colonel at the time of the 1967 military (1990), contained a song written by coup, which installed as dictator Col. Hunter, “Down City Streets.” In 1994, Giorgios Papadopoulos. Ioannidis be136

came head of the ESA and forcefully repressed opposition to the regime, notably in a violent response to student protests in 1973 at Athens Polytechnic University. He was promoted to brigadier general that same year, but he was dissatisfied with government reforms, and in November he staged a coup against Papadopoulos. The turmoil in Cyprus heightened civil unrest in Greece. Ioannidis was ousted in 1974 and sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment. Isley, Marvin, American bass guitarist and songwriter (b. Aug. 18, 1953, Cincinnati, Ohio—d. June 6, 2010, Chicago, Ill.), reimagined the gritty rhythmand-blues singing trio the Isley Brothers (Kelly, Rudolph, and Ronald); after joining (1973) his older brothers (together with another brother, Ernie, on lead guitar and brother-in-law Chris Jasper on keyboards), Marvin infused the enlarged group with a distinctive funky sound. Prior to becoming fullfledged bandmembers, Marvin, Ernie, and Chris played on the group’s recordings after it left Motown in 1969, including the seminal “It’s Your Thing” (1969). Marvin Isley also co-wrote many of the six-member band’s greatest hits, including “That Lady (Part 1)” (1973), “The Highways of My Life” (1973), “Fight the Power (Part 1)” (1975), “Harvest for the World” (1976), “Livin’ in the Life” (1977), and “It’s a Disco Night” (1979). Their debut album as a sextet, 3+3 (1973), heralded the change in musical style and went platinum. Though the three newest bandmates formed (1984) their own group— Isley-Jasper-Isley—and scored a hit with “Caravan of Love” (1985), the three rejoined the Isley Brothers in 1990. In 1992 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jankowski, Henryk, Polish Roman Catholic priest (b. Dec. 18, 1936, Starogard Gdanski, Pol.—d. July 12, 2010, Gdansk, Pol.), supported the pivotal Polish trade union Solidarity in its 1980s resistance to the communist government, notably by celebrating masses in 1980 for striking shipyard workers, which earned him the sobriquet “the chaplain of Solidarity.” Jankowski, the parish priest at St. Brygida Church in Gdansk, was part of Solidarity’s delegation to the Vatican in 1981 (in 1990

Obituaries

he was named an honorary chaplain to the pope). He came under political fire from the government throughout the 1980s as he continued to assist the bythen-banned Solidarity. As Poland shifted to democracy during the 1990s, Jankowski was criticized for his statements against the European Union as well as for his lavish lifestyle. He also was investigated for sexual abuse of a minor, though he denied the charges. In 1997 Jankowski was banned from giving sermons for a year following a series of anti-Semitic remarks; he lost his position as St. Brygida’s rector in 2004. Johnson, Eunice Walker, American entrepreneur (b. April 4, 1916, Selma, Ala.—d. Jan. 3, 2010, Chicago, Ill.), was the influential wife of John H. Johnson, the founder in 1945 of Ebony magazine. The publication, the title of which Eunice Johnson conceived, became the flagship for the Johnson Publishing Co. Besides serving as secretary-treasurer of the publishing empire that she and her husband built, Johnson became a force in the fashion world, creating the Ebony Fashion Fair, an annual countrywide tour (beginning in 1958) featuring haute couture and ready-to-wear fashions designed mainly for African American women. Johnson was also instrumental in establishing (1973) a line of beauty products, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, that were formulated for the complexions of women of colour. Johnson presided as producer and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair for nearly 50 years, from 1961 until 2009. Johnson, Lester, American painter (b. Jan. 27, 1919, Minneapolis, Minn.—d. May 30, 2010, Westhampton, N.Y.), was known for bold, energetic canvases depicting human figures. Johnson studied at the Minneapolis School of Art, the St. Paul School of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago before moving in 1947 to New York City, where he received his first solo show four years later. His early paintings took as their subject urban landscapes or else were abstract, but he gradually became drawn to figurative work. Nevertheless, Johnson’s association with the Eighth Street Club, a social group that consisted mainly of Abstract Expressionists, strongly influenced his style and technique. His moody thickly painted works of the 1960s gave way to busy brightly coloured paintings thereafter. From 1964 to 1989 he also taught figurative drawing at Yale University.

Jones, Hank (HENRY WILLIAM JONES, JR.), American jazz musician (b. July/Aug. 31, 1918, Vicksburg, Miss.— d. May 16, 2010, Bronx, N.Y.), played lyrical solo piano and accompanied other musicians with such taste, sensitivity, and versatility that he became one of the most in-demand modernMaigre Alain—Dalle/Landov

Jazz pianist Hank Jones jazz musicians. Jones launched his career in the Detroit area but moved in 1944 to New York City. Performing (1947–51) with the all-star Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe led to his accompanying (1947–53) Ella Fitzgerald. In his hundreds of recordings, he led his own trios and accompanied Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, and dozens of other major artists, including his younger, more-famous brothers, trumpeter-arranger-bandleader Thad Jones and drummer-bandleader Elvin Jones. While Jones performed from 1959 to 1974 as a staff musician at CBS Studios, he continued to record jazz piano. He played in the Great Jazz Trio and directed the music in the Broadway show Ain’t Misbehavin’ during the 1970s and, beginning in the 1980s, became best known as the leader of his own jazz trios. Jones won a National Medal of Arts in 2008 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

tional Football League’s Chicago Bears for 12 years (1954–65); he was one of the first NFL players to use a weightlifting regimen to build muscle. In his final college season (1953) at the University of Maryland, Jones was an All-American, earned the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy for outstanding lineman, and helped the team to a place in the Orange Bowl. Jones spent his first year (1954) with the Bears as an offensive tackle before moving to offensive guard. When the Bears’ defensive line needed strengthening in 1962, Jones played both offense and defense, and thereafter he played only defense. In 1963 the Bears won the NFL title game against the New York Giants; the defense that Jones anchored forced six turnovers. He played his final season (1966) for the Washington Redskins. Jones was voted to the Pro Bowl seven times, and in 1991 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Kaczynski, Lech, Polish politician (b. June 18, 1949, Warsaw, Pol.—d. April 10, 2010, Smolensk, Russia), as president of Poland (2005–10), was known as a fierce nationalist and religious conservative who advocated a strong central government, promoted both tax cuts and a strong economic safety net, and was often critical of the EU. In 2009, however, having secured opt-outs for Poland from EU policy on some social issues, including abortion, he initialed the Lisbon Treaty. Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, first attained prominence as child actors, appearing in The Two Who Stole the Moon (1962). After having attended the UniPolish politician Lech Kaczynski

Jones, Stan (STANLEY PAUL JONES), American football player (b. Nov. 24, 1931, Altoona, Pa.—d. May 21, 2010, Broomfield, Colo.), established himself as a strong, quick, and versatile offensive and defensive lineman for the NaAlik Keplicz/AP

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versity of Warsaw, Kaczynski earned a Ph.D. in law at the University of Gdansk. During the 1970s he and his brother were active in anticommunist movements, and he was jailed briefly (1981–82) by the government. Kaczynski also held leadership positions in Solidarity, the trade-union movement headed by Lech Walesa, and when Solidarity came to power in 1989, the two brothers began careers in government. In 1990 they formed the political party Centre Agreement. Both brothers won election to the Sejm (lower house of parliament) and held a number of government appointments. By 1993, however, the pair had begun a falling out with Walesa, and in 2001 they cofounded the Law and Justice Party (PiS), initially headed by Kaczynski and then from 2003 by his brother. In 2002 Kaczynski became mayor of Warsaw, and in 2005 the PiS won a plurality in the Sejm and he was elected president. He died in a plane crash. Kamenshek, Dorothy (DOTTIE; KAMMIE), American baseball player (b. Dec. 21, 1925, Norwood, Ohio—d. May 17, 2010, Palm Desert, Calif.), was a sensational left-handed first baseman and leadoff hitter for the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches in the All-American Girls ProBaseball superstar Dorothy Kamenshek

fessional Baseball League (AAGPBL). She played in the AAGPBL from its inception in 1943 until a back injury forced her temporary retirement in 1951, and she returned in 1953 for the league’s penultimate season. Kamenshek was recruited by a scout for the AAGPBL while playing for an industrial league softball team in Cincinnati, Ohio. During her professional career, she was named to seven All-Star teams, won batting titles in 1946 and 1947 (hitting .316 and .306, respectively), and held the all-time AAGPBL batting average record (.292). At first base she was renowned for her spectacular leaps, and as a base runner she was fearless; in 1946 the skirt-clad Kamenshek stole 109 bases. The exploits of Kamenshek and her teammates inspired the 1992 film A League of Their Own. Kermode, Sir (John) Frank, British critic and educator (b. Nov. 29, 1919, Douglas, Isle of Man, Eng.—d. Aug. 17, 2010, Cambridge, Eng.), bridged the divide between literary criticism and reading for pleasure through more than 50 books and scores of essays. His numerous articles for such publications as The London Review of Books, which he cofounded in 1979, were aimed at more leisurely readers, but as the editor of works ranging from The Oxford Anthology of English Literature (1973) to the Modern Masters series, he promoted both traditional literature and modern theory. Kermode was knighted in 1991. Keynes, Richard Darwin, British physiologist (b. Aug. 14, 1919, London, Eng.—d. June 12, 2010, Cambridge, Eng.), was among the first in Britain to trace the movements of sodium and potassium during the transmission of a nerve impulse by using radioactive sodium and potassium. He also conducted research on English naturalist Charles Darwin (his maternal greatgrandfather) and on economist John Maynard Keynes (his paternal uncle), editing The Beagle Record: Selections from the Original Pictorial Records and Written Accounts of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1979) and Charles Darwin’s Zoology Notes and Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle (2000), as well as Lydia and Maynard: Letters Between Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes (1989). After having earned degrees in natural science (B.A., 1946; Ph.D., 1949) at Trinity College, Cambridge, Keynes joined the Cambridge faculty as a fellow at Trinity (1948–60) and Peter-

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house (1952–60; honorary fellow, 1989–2010). He left to become head of the physiology department of the Agricultural Research Council’s Institute of Animal Physiology at Babraham (1960–64) and subsequently director of the institute (1965–73). He then returned to Cambridge to teach physiology (1973–87). He co-wrote the textbook Nerve and Muscle (1981; 3rd ed. 2001). He was elected in 1959 to the Royal Society and was created CBE in 1984. Kimche, David, British-born Israeli spy and diplomat (b. 1928, London, Eng.—d. March 8, 2010, Ramat Hasharon, Israel), held leading positions in Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, and in the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was deeply involved in many of Israel’s foreign intrigues. He joined Mossad in 1953 and spent many years cultivating relationships in Africa. He rose to become the agency’s deputy director. Kimche played a leading role in the operations that destroyed the Palestinian militants who killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, and he helped nurture secret Israeli ties with Christian Phalangists in Lebanon. In 1980 Kimche resigned from Mossad and became director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He championed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and was the country’s chief negotiator at talks ending that war. In 1985 Kimche persuaded the U.S. government to arrange for Israel to supply antitank weapons to Iran—in violation of an international arms embargo against that country—in an effort to smooth the way for the release of American hostages captured and held in Lebanon. This was the beginning of the Iran-Contra Affair in the U.S. Kimche left the ministry in 1987. He was a cofounder (1997) of the International Alliance for Arab-Israeli Peace and served as president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations. Kirchner, Néstor Carlos, Argentine politician and lawyer (b. Feb. 25, 1950, Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Arg.—d. Oct. 27, 2010, El Calafate, Arg.), served (2003–07) as the popular president of Argentina and, together with his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who succeeded him as president in 2007, became a potent political force in the country. Kirchner was relatively unknown outside his home province of Santa Cruz, where he and his wife had

Obituaries Torsten Leukert—Vario Images GmbH & Co.KG/Alamy

cated to regional integration. He died following a heart attack.

Argentine politician Néstor Kirchner a successful law practice and where he served three consecutive four-year terms as governor, before deciding to run for the presidency. In 2003 he earned the endorsement of outgoing Argentine Pres. Eduardo Duhalde, a key figure in the Peronist party, and, though Kirchner placed second to former president Carlos Menem in the first round of voting, he became president when Menem withdrew his candidacy after opinion polls showed that Kirchner had a commanding lead going into the runoff. As president, Kirchner earned popular support by forcing top military officials to retire, annulling legislation prohibiting the extradition of military officers accused of committing human rights abuses (dating to the 1976–83 military dictatorship), and attacking unpopular institutions, such as the Supreme Court and the privately run utility companies. Despite Kirchner’s popularity and his success in reviving Argentina’s economy, during his last year in office his administration was tainted by corruption scandals, an energy crisis, and high inflation. He chose not to seek a second presidential term and announced his support for his wife, Fernández de Kirchner, as the Peronist party presidential candidate. From April 2008 to June 2009 he served as leader of the Peronist party, and in December 2009 he was sworn in for a four-year term in the Chamber of Deputies. In May 2010 Kirchner was elected secretary-general of UNASUR, a South American organization dedi-

Koirala, Girija Prasad, Indian-born Nepalese politician (b. 1925, Bihar state, British India—d. March 20, 2010, Kathmandu, Nepal), served four times as prime minister of Nepal (1991–94, 1998–99, 2000–01, 2006–08), but his administrations were plagued by persistent problems. These included factional disputes between Koirala and his rivals within the ruling Nepali Congress Party (NCP), the murder in 2001 of King Birendra and subsequent clashes with his autocratic successor, King Gyanendra, and a bloody uprising (1996–2006) of Maoist insurgents. Koirala was a member of the most prominent political family in Nepal. Two of his older brothers served as prime minister: Matrika Prasad Koirala in 1951–52 and 1953–55 and Bisheshwar Prasad Koirala from May 1959 until December 1960, when King Mahendra dismissed the government. Koirala and Bisheshwar Prasad were subsequently imprisoned. After Koirala was released in 1967, he went into exile with other leaders of the NCP and did not return to Nepal until 1979. In 1990 he was a leader of the People’s Movement (Jana Andolan), which achieved a restoration of democracy in Nepal. In 1991 he was elected to the parliament and was sworn in as prime minister for the first time. Koirala eventually directed talks with the Maoists that culminated in a comprehensive peace agreement in November 2006 and, in April 2007, an interim government cabinet that included former insurgents. After the Maoists won a majority of seats in the April 2008 general elections, Koirala was succeeded by Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda.

alliance between Dacko, the country’s first president (1960–66), and JeanBédel Bokassa, who ousted Dacko in January 1966 and declared himself emperor (1976) until another coup (1979) briefly restored Dacko to power. Kolingba survived a coup attempt (1982), established a one-party state, and became president in 1986. After failing in his bid for reelection in 1992, he had the results annulled, but he lost again to Patassé in 1993. Kolingba challenged Patassé in the 1999 ballot and then fled to Uganda after an unsuccessful coup attempt in 2001. He was allowed to return to the Central African Republic when François Bozizé seized power in 2003. Kouyaté, Sotigui, Malian-born actor and playwright (b. July 19, 1936, Bamako, French Sudan [now Mali]—d. April 17, 2010, Paris, France), was one of West Africa’s most respected actors, but to Western audiences he was best known for his roles as Bhisma the sage in Peter Brook’s television miniseries The Mahabharata (1989) and as a French Muslim father in London River (2009), which earned him the Silver Bear for best actor at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. His other films include Keita! L’Héritage du griot (1994), directed by his son Dani Kouyaté, and Little Senegal (2001). From 1984 Kouyaté lived mainly in Paris, but in 1997 Award-winning actor and playwright Sotigui Kouyaté

Kolingba, André-Dieudonné, Central African Republic army commander and politician (b. Aug. 12, 1936, Bangui, Ubangi-Shari, French Equatorial Africa [now Bangui, C.A.R.]—d. Feb. 7, 2010, Paris, France), held dictatorial rule over his country for 12 years, from Sept. 1, 1981, when he overthrew Pres. David Dacko, until he reluctantly stepped down on Oct. 22, 1993, after having lost a presidential election to Ange-Félix Patassé. Kolingba joined the French army as a young man but transferred to the forces of the new Central African Republic when it gained independence in 1960. Kolingba rose through the army, carefully shifting his Rainer Jensen—dpa/Landov

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he founded Bamako’s Mandeko Theatre, where he staged several of his own plays. Lally, Mick (MICHAEL LALLY), Irish actor (b. November 1945, Tourmakeady, County Mayo, Ire.—d. Aug. 31, 2010, Dublin, Ire.), was a well-regarded stage actor who cofounded (1975) the respected Druid Theatre Co. in Galway but was most familiar for his portrayal Craig Lassig/AP

Stage and TV actor Mick Lally of the farmer Miley Byrne in the longrunning (1983–2001) Irish TV drama Glenroe. He also appeared in 2001 in several episodes of the BBC television show Ballykissangel. Lally also acted in a number of films, among them the Gaelic-language Poitin (1978) and The Secret of Roan Inish (1994). Law, Phillip Garth, Australian polar explorer (b. April 21, 1912, Tallangatta, Vic., Australia—d. Feb. 28, 2010, Melbourne, Australia), earned the nickname “Mr. Antarctica” for his devotion to the scientific study of that continent, which he visited 28 times, and to the expansion of the Australian Antarctic Territory there. As director (1949–66) of the Australian Antarctic Division and leader of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE), Law mapped more than 140

5,000 km (3,100 mi) of Antarctic coastline and established three permanent research stations—Mawson (1954), Davis (1957), and Casey, which was opened in 1969 to replace the Wilkes Station after Law negotiated (1959) the transfer of Wilkes from American to Australian control. In 1987 a summer base in Antarctica’s Larsemann Hills was named Law Base in his honour. He also served as chairman (1966–80) of the Australian National Committee for Antarctic Research and vice president (1966–77) of the Victoria Institute of Colleges, which he revamped and expanded. He visited Davis Station in 1998, more than four decades after he first opened the station. Law was made CBE in 1961; he was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1975 and advanced to Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1995. Levine, Jack, American artist (b. Jan. 3, 1915, Boston, Mass.—d. Nov. 8, 2010, New York, N.Y.), was a prominent painter in the American Social Realist school of the 1930s. From 1935 to 1940 he was intermittently part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project, and during this period he set up a studio in the slums of Boston, where he depicted the poor and created satiric portrayals of corrupt politicians. Levine gained attention through paintings such as Brain Trust, exhibited in 1936, and The Feast of Pure Reason, shown the following year. In the latter work a police officer, a politician, and a wealthy man huddle together, presumably striking a deal; this theme of corruption would continue to appear in much of his work. Levine’s first oneman show was held in 1939 in New York City. In works such as The Trial (1953–54), Gangster Funeral (1952–53), The Patriarch of Moscow on a Visit to Jerusalem (1975), and a diptych, Panethnikon (1978), that depicts an imaginary meeting of the UN Security Council, he continued in the vein of biting social satire. Levine’s satiric tendencies drew sharp criticism from Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower when he saw some of Levine’s works in a 1959 State Department exhibit in Moscow. In 1978 New York’s Jewish Museum held a retrospective exhibit in honour of Levine. He was married to the painter Ruth Gikow, and their daughter Susanna also became an artist. Liang Congjie, Chinese environmentalist (b. Aug. 4, 1932, Beijing, China— d. Oct. 28, 2010, Beijing), cofounded

China’s first government-approved conservation group, the Friends of Nature, in 1994, and established the country’s environmental movement. Unlike some international groups that favoured extreme methods of advocacy, Liang employed a gentler approach to preserving nature in order to avoid antagonizing members of the conservative Chinese government. His methods included urging officials to use existing laws to deal with ecological issues, launching the country’s first bird-watching group, and instituting environmental education in primary schools. Liang’s group helped to publicize illegal logging in virgin forests, which led to a government ban (1999) of the practice. He also waged successful campaigns against inadequately inspected factories and environmentally damaging dams, as well as crusades for saving endangered species, such as the snub-nosed monkey and the Tibetan antelope. Liang served (1978–88) as an editor at the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House in Beijing, cofounded (1979) the periodical Encyclopedic Knowledge, and became chief editor of Intellectuals magazine. He also contributed (1980–86) to the work of the editorial review board of the Chinese-language Concise Encyclopædia Britannica. MARIE Lincoln, Abbey (ANNA WOOLDRIDGE; GABY LEE; AMINATA; MOSEKA), American vocalist, songwriter, and actress (b. Aug. 6, 1930, Chicago, Ill.—d. Aug. 14, 2010, New York, N.Y.), wrote songs about black culture and civil rights and sang them in a dramatic, evocative style. She grew up in southern Michigan and was first noted as the glamorous singer Gaby Lee (1952–53) in Hawaii, but after moving to California she changed her name to Abbey Lincoln and appeared in the film The Girl Can’t Help It (1956). Influenced by the great jazz drummer Max Roach, she explored black identity in her song lyrics, and her fiercely urgent singing lent power to his albums We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (1960) and Percussion Bitter Sweet (1961). While married to Roach (1962–70) she starred in the films For Love of Ivy (1968), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Nothing but a Man (1964); she went on to act in such television series as Mission Impossible and All in the Family. During a 1972 tour of Africa she was honoured with the names of Aminata and Moseka by officials in Guinea and Zaire, respectively. Beginning with The

Obituaries

World Is Falling Down (1990), her songwriting became more philosophical, and her singing career reached new heights, especially with the release of a series of nine CDs in which she was joined by top jazz artists such as Jackie McLean, Stan Getz, and Charlie Haden. Her last album, Abbey Sings Abbey, was released in 2007. Linkletter, Art (GORDON ARTHUR KELLY; ARTHUR GORDON LINKLETTER), Canadian-born American broadcasting host (b. July 17, 1912, Moose Jaw, Sask.—d. May 26, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), charmed radio and television audiences for more than 20 years with his amiable ad-libs and his ability to put those he interviewed—particularly, young children—at ease. Linkletter was adopted as a baby by an itinerant evangelical minister and his wife, who settled in San Diego. He obtained (1934) a teaching degree at San Diego State Teachers College (later San Diego State University) but chose instead to pursue a career in radio. In 1944 Linkletter became emcee for the variety show House Party, which involved the audience in spontaneous contests and activities; he created the show’s popular segment “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” A TV adaptation of the program aired from 1952 to 1969; the radio show ended in 1967. He hosted another audience-participation show, People Are Funny, on radio (1942–59) and TV (1954–61). AfEngaging radio and TV host Art Linkletter

ter one of his children committed suicide, he became an anti-drug-abuse campaigner and an adviser on drug policy to Pres. Richard Nixon. Linkletter wrote more than 20 books, including the best-selling Kids Say the Darndest Things! (1957), I Wish I’d Said That (1968), Old Age Is Not for Sissies (1988), and two volumes of autobiography. He was granted a lifetime achievement Emmy Award in 2003. López Arellano, Oswaldo Enrique, Honduran military and political leader (b. June 30, 1921, Danlí, Hond.—d. May 16, 2010, Tegucigalpa, Hond.), toppled two civilian governments and held power as a military strongman from 1963 to 1971 and again from 1972 to 1975. As the longtime head of the Honduran military, he first assumed presidential power after leading a coup in 1963 against Pres. José Ramón Villeda Morales. López Arellano stepped down from office in June 1971, but in December 1972 he staged another coup, against Pres. Ramón Ernesto Cruz. Although he announced that he would serve out the remainder of Ernesto Cruz’s six-year term, López Arellano himself was overthrown in 1975 following the so-called Bananagate scandal, in which he was accused of having accepted a $2.5 million bribe from the United Brands Co. (formerly United Fruit Co.) in exchange for lowering the tax on banana exports. López Arellano later became president of the Honduran national airline. MacArthur, James Gordon, American actor (b. Dec. 8, 1937, Los Angeles, Calif.—d. Oct. 28, 2010, Jacksonville, Fla.), was especially remembered for his role (1968–79) as the idealistic detective Danny (“Danno”) Williams on the television series Hawaii Five-O, about an elite police squad in Honolulu, and for the four Disney films in which he appeared: Third Man on the Mountain (1958), The Light in the Forest (1958), Kidnapped (1960), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960). Though MacArthur appeared in dozens of TV programs, it was his Hawaii Five-O character that became immortalized with the popular catchphrase “Book ‘em, Danno.” Mackerras, Sir Charles (ALAN CHARLES MACLAURIN MACKERRAS), Australian conductor (b. Nov. 17, 1925, Schenectady, N.Y.—d. July 14, 2010, London, Eng.), brought intensity to a range of works, championed Czech

composer Leos Janacek in the West, and was among the first conductors to perform pieces in their original style. Mackerras’s 1959 recording of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks featured the original wind scoring and more than 20 oboists, and his 1965 production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at Sadler’s Wells Opera (now the English National Opera) used 18th-century vocal techniques. In 1980 he was the first non-British conductor for the BBC’s broadcast Last Night of the Proms. Mackerras was knighted in 1979, earned a Czech Republic Medal of Merit in 1996, was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1997, and was made a Companion of Honour in 2003. Majid, Ali Hassan al- (“CHEMICAL ALI”), Iraqi official (b. 1941, Tikrit, Iraq—d. Jan. 25, 2010, Baghdad, Iraq), as a loyal henchman to former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, earned his nickname for his leadership of a campaign in the late 1980s against Iraq’s Kurdish population in which mass executions, starvation, and chemical weapons laid waste to many Kurdish villages and killed an estimated 120,000 Kurds; the single-most-horrific incident in the campaign was the use of poison gas in an attack against the village of Halabja in March 1988 in which 5,000 people were killed. Majid was captured about five months after Saddam’s overthrow by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and he was executed after having been tried for and found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for those and other atrocities. Mandelbrot, Benoit B., Polish mathematician (b. Nov. 20, 1924, Warsaw, Pol.—d. Oct. 14, 2010, Cambridge, Mass.), was universally known as the father of fractals (a term he coined), a class of complex geometric shapes that commonly have a “fractal dimension.” Mandelbrot proposed (1980) that a certain set governs the behaviour of some iterative processes in mathematics that are easy to define but have remarkably subtle properties. The set, now called the Mandelbrot set, has the characteristic properties of a fractal, and small regions in the set look like smallerscale copies of the whole set (a property called self-similarity). Others later used fractals to describe diverse behaviour in economics, finance, the stock market, astronomy, and computer science. Mandelbrot’s main ideas were presented in many articles and

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books, notably The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982). He was awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics in 1993 and shared the Japan Prize in 2003. Mankiller, Wilma Pearl, Native American leader and activist (b. Nov. 18, 1945, Tahlequah, Okla.—d. April 6, 2010, Adair county, Okla.), became principal Cherokee chief in 1985, the first woman chief of a major tribe. Her Buddy Mays/Alamy

Tribal leader Wilma Mankiller administration focused on lowering the high unemployment rate and increasing educational opportunities, improving community health care, and developing the economy of northeastern Oklahoma. She also established the Institute for Cherokee Literacy. In 1983 Mankiller won election as deputy principal Cherokee chief, and when the principal chief became head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1985, Mankiller succeeded him. Two years later she was elected chief in her own right. Mankiller was reelected in 1991, but she did not run in 1995. She was inducted (1993) into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 1998 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Buenos Aires, Arg.), was a leading Latin American author who wrote two Spanish classics about the glamorous Eva Perón and her husband, Argentine Pres. Juan Domingo Perón—La novelo de Perón (1985; The Perón Novel, 1988) and Santa Evita (1995; Eng. trans., 1996). Both works blended fiction and nonfiction, and the latter was translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 10 million copies. He published his first novel, Sagrado (1969), the same year he took a job as a reporter in Paris. From 1970 to 1972 he was the director of the magazine Panorama. Threats by a right-wing paramilitary group following the publication of his articles about the massacre of political prisoners in the Patagonian city of Trelew (collected in the book La pasión según Trelew [1973]) forced Martínez to seek exile (1975–83) in Venezuela, where he founded the newspaper El Diario de Caracas. In Guadalajara, Mex., he founded Siglo 21, another newspaper. Other works include essays, notably Los testigos de afuera (1978) and Retrato del artista enmascarado (1982); the short-story collection Lugar común la muerte (1979); and 10 screenplays. In 2002 Martínez was awarded the Alfaguara Prize for El vuelo de la reina, a semiautobiographical story about a May-December relationship. In 2008 Martínez published Purgatorio, his last novel. Marzieh (A SHRAF AL-SADAT MORTEZA!I), Iranian singer (b. 1924, Tehran, Iran—d. Oct. 13, 2010, Paris, France), was an acclaimed interpreter of traditional Persian and modern music in Iran from the 1940s until the Islamic Revolution (1978–79); later, in self-imposed exile from 1994, she became an Iranian singer Marzieh

Massera, (Eduardo) Emilio, Argentine dictator (b. 1925, Buenos Aires, Arg.—d. Nov. 8, 2010, Buenos Aires), was the enforcer in a brutal military regime (1976–83) that was responsible for overseeing the “Dirty War,” an infamous campaign waged against suspected left-wing political opponents. An estimated 10,000–30,000 citizens were tortured and then killed; many of them were “disappeared”—seized by the authorities and never heard from again. The three-man junta (that included Admiral Massera, Gen. Orlando Ramón Agosti, and Gen. Jorge Rafaél Videla, serving as president) came to power by ousting Isabel Perón, the widow of Juan Domingo Perón. During his bloody regime Massera, who also headed the navy, was responsible for turning the Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires into a notorious concentration camp for dissidents. After the regime collapsed in 1983, Massera was convicted in 1985 of having committed crimes against humanity. He served five years of a life sentence before Pres. Carlos Menem granted him and other coup leaders amnesty. Though a 2005 Supreme Court ruling voided the amnesty, Massera was judged too ill to return to prison or to be extradited. McCarthy, Kevin, American actor (b. Feb. 15, 1914, Seattle, Wash.—d. Sept. 11, 2010, Hyannis, Mass.), appeared in numerous supporting parts during his seven-decade-long career, but he became best known for his only starring film role—as a small-town doctor who feverishly tries to keep humans from being turned into “pod people” in the classic science-fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). The square-jawed actor had an impressive résumé on Broadway, and he wowed the critics in London with his portrayal

Martínez, Tomás Eloy, Argentine writer and journalist (b. July 16, 1934, Tucumán, Arg.—d. Jan. 31, 2010, Kevin Rivoli/AP

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icon of Iranian opposition to the theocratic government, and her songs were frequently political in theme. Marzieh, a lyrical mezzo-soprano, began her career in the early 1940s on Tehran Radio and performed in 1942 in the Persian operetta Shirin and Farhad. After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979, Marzieh was forbidden to sing in public. She defected to France in 1994 and ultimately became involved with the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Her first major concert thereafter was at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1995; her final performance took place in 2006 in Paris.

Obituaries AP

of Biff, the troubled elder son of Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949). McCarthy earned an Academy Award nomination and the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer when he reprised the role in 1951 for the big screen. McClanahan, Rue (EDDI-RUE MCCLANAHAN), American actress (b. Feb. 21, 1934, Healdton, Okla.—d. June 3, 2010, New York, N.Y.), portrayed the liberated sensual Southern belle Blanche Devereaux on the television sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–92), a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 1987. Blanche’s talk of her sexual exploits provided her three housemates—two middle-aged women (Betty White and Bea Arthur) and the latter’s screen mother (Estelle Getty)— fodder for such comic zingers as “Your life’s an open blouse.” Prior to The Golden Girls, McClanahan starred in a series of Off-Broadway productions and captured an Obie Award in 1970 for her role as the “other woman” in Who’s Happy Now? McGarrigle, Kate (CATHERINE FRANCES MCGARRIGLE), Canadian folk musician (b. Feb. 6, 1946, Montreal, Que.—d. Jan. 18, 2010, Montreal), won critical acclaim for her luminous and

Folk musician Kate McGarrigle

haunting vocal harmonies, most often with her sister Anna McGarrigle, as well as for evocative and idiosyncratic songwriting. The McGarrigle sisters established themselves as folk musicians in Montreal’s coffeehouses in the 1960s and for several years were part of the Mountain City Four, a group that performed traditional and new folk music in both English and French. By the early 1970s songs written by both sisters had come to the attention of other artists; their songs were recorded by Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur, among others. The first of their 10 albums, Kate & Anna McGarrigle (1975), was perhaps the most widely known; French Record (1980) won accolades especially in Canada. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 1994. McGuire, Dick (RICHARD JOSEPH MCGUIRE; “TRICKY DICK”), American basketball player and coach (b. Jan. 26, 1926, New York, N.Y.—d. Feb. 3, 2010, Huntington, N.Y.), enjoyed a morethan-50-year career with the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons professional National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. He served as the Knicks’ precision passing guard and superb ball handler (1949–57), head coach (1965–67), and then chief scout and assistant coach; for the Pistons he was a player (1957–60; player-coach for final season) and then head coach until 1963. His most lasting legacy, however, was his ability to meticulously thread his bounce passes to his teammates; in his rookie year he was credited with a then-record 386 assists. He and his younger brother Al (also a Knicks player and a college coach) were the only two brothers to gain entrance to the Hall of Fame. McLaren, Malcolm Robert Andrew, British rock impresario and musician (b. Jan. 22, 1946, London, Eng.—d. April 8, 2010, Switzerland), helped birth punk culture in his role as the colourfully provocative manager of the punk band the Sex Pistols. While attending art school in England, McLaren was drawn to the subversive Marxist-rooted philosophy of the Parisbased Situationist International movement. In 1965 he became involved with fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, with whom he opened (1971) an avant-garde clothing boutique, but he soon became more interested in rock music as a means to enact his radical

Musician and band manager Malcolm McLaren aesthetic ideas. After a brief stint managing and costuming the American glam rock band the New York Dolls, in 1975 he began working with a band he dubbed the Sex Pistols in a cross-marketing ploy with the clothes shop, which had been rebranded as Sex. By the following year the raucous punk group had become a cause célèbre in the U.K., and McLaren eagerly fueled the controversy with stunts such as having the band play its antiauthoritarian anthem “God Save the Queen” aboard a boat outside the British Houses of Parliament. Following the Sex Pistols’ collapse in 1978, McLaren guided the image and career of new-wave band Adam and the Ants and formed a spin-off act, Bow Wow Wow. In 1983 he released the first of several solo albums, Duck Rock, an eclectic fusion of hip-hop and world music that spawned two British top 10 hits: “Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch.” McQueen, (Lee) Alexander, British fashion designer (b. March 17, 1969, London, Eng.—found dead Feb. 11, 2010, London), was known for his precise tailoring, shocking catwalk fashion shows, and groundbreaking clothes, including what he called “bumster” trousers (1992)—pants cut so low that they revealed the cleavage of the back-

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side. In London, McQueen enrolled (1990–92) at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where he staged a fashion show for his master’s thesis. The show caught the eye of fashion editor and stylist Isabella Blow, who bought his entire first collection and promoted his work. Despite his “enfant terrible” image, McQueen was named British Designer of the Year in 1996 (an honour he received three more times), and later that year he took over as the head designer of the French couture house Givenchy while maintaining his own eponymous design label in London. McQueen opened his first boutique in 1999; he sold a controlling interest in his signature brand in 2000 to the Gucci Group, although he retained creative control. The following year he left Givenchy and began to diversify his brand to include fragrances (2003), a menswear collection (2004), and McQ (2006), a more affordable ready-to-wear line. He was made CBE in 2003. McQueen was an apparent suicide.

cued his home audience with superimposed lyrics highlighted by a bouncing ball. He also developed a set of singalong albums, 19 of which made the Top 40 list during 1958–62. After having graduated (1932) from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, Miller joined CBS Radio and spent the next 11 years as an oboist with the CBS Symphony Orchestra. He boosted Mercury Records’s success with hits by Frankie Laine and Patti Page when he directed Mercury’s popular music division in the late 1940s, and in 1950 he became Columbia’s head of artists and repertoire, producing Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Johnnie Ray, and Johnny Mathis, among others. Miller often produced upbeat tunes, including such novelty songs as “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and Rosemary Clooney’s “Come on-a My House,” as well as traditional songs, notably “The Yellow Rose NBCU Photo Bank/AP of Texas,” recorded in 1955 by his own group, Mitch Miller and His Gang.

Milgrom, Jacob, American-born Israeli rabbi and biblical scholar (b. Feb. 1, 1923, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. June 6, 2010, Jerusalem, Israel), was credited with having written the definitive commentary on the biblical book of Leviticus. After graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City, Milgrom spent most of his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was professor of biblical studies and chair of the department of Near Eastern studies. His three-volume Anchor Bible translation and commentary on Leviticus (1991, 2000, 2001) raised controversy by stating, among other things, that the Hebrew Bible prohibits homosexual behaviour only between Jewish men in the Holy Land. In 1994 Milgrom retired from Berkeley and immigrated with his wife to Israel.

Meredith, Don (JOSEPH DONALD MEREDITH), American football player, sportscaster, and actor (b. April 10, 1938, Mount Vernon, Texas—d. Dec. 5, 2010, Santa Fe, N.M.), brought his Texas charm to the huddle as a spunky quarterback (1960–68) for the Dallas Cowboys professional football team and to the announcer’s booth (1971–73 and 1977–85) as the lively colour analyst with commentator Howard Cosell and play-by-play announcer Keith Jackson (later Frank Gifford) on ABC television’s Monday Night Football. That program became hugely popular, largely because of the antics taking place between “Dandy Don” and “The Mouth” (Cosell). Meredith played college football at Southern Methodist Maestro Mitch Miller with the Sing Along Kids University in Dallas, where he was twice named an All-American. He was inducted into the College Miller, Mitch (MITCHELL WILLIAM Football Hall of Fame in 1982. He led MILLER), American conductor and muthe Cowboys to three consecutive di- sic producer (b. July 4, 1911, Rochester, vision titles and to NFL championship N.Y.—d. July 31, 2010, New York, N.Y.), games in 1966 and 1967 (losing both, set the pace for popular music in the however, to the Green Bay Packers). U.S. after World War II and before the He was named to the Pro Bowl three dominance of rock and roll in the midtimes and in 1966 was crowned the 1960s, initially as a top producer for NFL’s MVP. He later took up acting Columbia Records. As the goatee-sportand appeared on a number of televi- ing conductor of the hit television show Sing Along with Mitch (1961–66), Miller sion series. 144

Milner, Robin (ARTHUR JOHN ROBIN GORELL MILNER), British computer scientist (b. Jan. 13, 1934, Yealmpton, Devon, Eng.— d. March 20, 2010, Cambridge, Eng.), won the A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, in 1991 for his work with automatic theorem provers, the ML (“metalanguage”) computer programming language, and a general theory of concurrency. Milner attended Eton College and won a scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, in 1952, but he had to postpone his course work for two years while he served at the Suez Canal with the Royal Engineers of the British army. Milner entered Cambridge in 1954 and graduated in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. In the summer of 1956 he took a short course in programming in which he used the school’s EDSAC computer. He held various jobs in London before he became a computer programmer and developed compilers at Ferranti Ltd., the firm that produced the first commercial computer, the Ferranti Mark I, in 1951. Milner left Ferranti in 1963 for a series of academic and research positions. At the University of Edinburgh (1973–95), he helped design ML, a computer programming language developed for implementing an automatic theorem solver.

Obituaries

Monicelli, Mario, Italian filmmaker (b. May 15, 1915, Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy—d. Nov. 29, 2010, Rome, Italy), was a pioneer of commedia all’italiana, or Italian-style screen comedy, a genre in which comic situations take place against a background of dramatic— even tragic—circumstances. Among the more than 60 movies that Monicelli directed, three received Academy Award nominations as best foreign language film: I soliti ignoti (1958; Big Deal on Madonna Street), La grande guerra (1959; The Great War), and La ragazza con la pistola (1968; The Girl with the Pistol). Monicelli also wrote Oscar-nominated screenplays, notably for I compagni (1963; The Organizer) and Casanova 70 (1965), and contributed to many screenplays that he did not direct. Monicelli won three Silver Bears for best director at the Berlin International Film Festival, for Padri e figli (1957; A Tailor’s Maid), Caro Michele (1976), and Il marchese del Grillo (1981). His last major film was Le rose del deserto (2006; The Roses of the Desert). Monicelli was awarded a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 1991 Venice Film Festival and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Milan International Film Festival in 2007. Mono Jojoy (VÍCTOR JULIO SUÁREZ ROJAS; JORGE BRICEÑO), Colombian guerrilla leader (b. Feb. 5, 1953, Cabrera, Colom.—d. Sept. 22, 2010, Meta departamento, Colom.), served as the Rebel leader Mono Jojoy

ruthless, formidable military commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Mono Jojoy joined FARC at a young age and, as he rose through the ranks, became close to the group’s founder, Manuel Marulanda, acting as a confidante and eventually as Marulanda’s chief bodyguard. By the early 1990s Mono Jojoy had taken charge of the Eastern Bloc, FARC’s most powerful military faction, and he was subsequently appointed to the General Secretariat as overall military commander. Though Mono Jojoy was unexpectedly passed over to succeed Marulanda as FARC’s leader upon the latter’s death in 2008, he maintained his reputation as a loyal soldier and effective strategist. His death in a massive government air strike on a FARC stronghold was widely seen to have dealt a major blow to the guerrilla organization. Moody, James, American jazz musician (b. March 26, 1925, Savannah, Ga.—d. Dec. 9, 2010, San Diego, Calif.), joked with audiences and introduced unlikely themes, including “Beer Barrel Polka,” but then played tenor saxophone with a fierce, passionate devotion to melodic romanticism. One of the earliest bebop musicians, he appeared with Dizzy Gillespie’s pioneering big band (1946–48) and lived (1949–51) in Europe, where he recorded an alto saxophone solo that, with lyrics added, became singer King Pleasure’s 1954 hit “Moody’s Mood for Love.” After leading 1950s groups, Moody played flute and saxophones with Gillespie’s combos (1963–69) and then performed for seven years in Las Vegas show bands. Returning to jazz in 1979, Moody reached his peak of popularity as he led groups, sang novelty songs, reunited occasionally with Gillespie, and continued to play intense tenor saxophone and flute solos. Morgan, Edwin George, Scottish poet and professor (b. April 27, 1920, Glasgow, Scot.—d. Aug. 19, 2010, Glasgow), was already serving (1999–2005) as poet laureate of Glasgow when he was declared (2004) Scotland’s first official national poet, with the title Scots Makar. Morgan was cherished for his vibrant, imaginative, and widely varied poetry, which ranged from a 1952 verse translation of Beowulf to sound poems (“The Loch Ness Monster’s Song”), concrete poems (“Message Clear”), and, especially, lyrical love poems (“Strawberries”). (It was not until

his 70th birthday that Morgan publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, which had been a criminal offense in Scotland until 1980). After having served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II, Morgan earned an English degree at Glasgow University, where he remained on the faculty (1947–80) until his retirement. His first volume of poetry was The Vision of Cathkin Braes (1952), but it was The Second Life (1968) that brought him critical notice and the 1968 Cholmondeley Award for poetry. Subsequent works include Glasgow Sonnets (1972), From Glasgow to Saturn (1973), Poems of Thirty Years (1982), and Collected Poems (1990). Morgan was made OBE in 1982 and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. Muzorewa, Abel Tendekayi, Rhodesian-born cleric and politician (b. April 14, 1925, Old Umtali, Southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]—d. April 8, 2010, Harare, Zimb.), served as prime minister of his homeland from May 29 to Dec. 11, 1979, during the transitional period from white-ruled Southern Rhodesia to black-ruled Zimbabwe. Muzorewa was educated at local Methodist schools and from 1958 to 1963 studied in the U.S. at the Central Methodist College, Fayette, Mo., and at Scarritt College for Christian Workers, Nashville. After returning home he worked as a teacher, lay preacher, youth work organizer, and pastor, and in 1968 he became a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Muzorewa emerged as a political figure in the 1970s when all of Southern Rhodesia’s major black politicians were in prison or in exile. He mobilized opposition to Britain’s proposals for a settlement of the conflict between whites and blacks. Although he appeared as a spokesman for Joshua Nkomo, after Nkomo’s release from detention Muzorewa chose to lead his own party, the African National Council, founded in 1971 and renamed the United African National Council (UANC) in 1977. He was a member of the Transitional Executive Council set up to prepare the transfer to majority black rule in 1978–79, and when his party won a commanding 51 seats in the interim parliamentary elections of 1979, he became prime minister of “Zimbabwe Rhodesia.” After the country briefly reverted to British control in December of that year, Muzorewa’s government voted itself out of office.

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Nahyan, Sheikh Ahmad ibn Zayid Al, Emirati businessman and financier (b. 1969, Al-!Ayn, Abu Dhabi emirate, U.A.E.—d. March 26, 2010, near Rabat, Mor.), was managing director (from 1997) of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, with assets believed to be in excess of $500 billion. Sheikh Ahmad, a younger half brother of U.A.E. Pres. Sheikh Khalifah ibn Zayid Al Nahyan, was actively involved in several of the ADIA’s major financial deals, notably a high-profile $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup in November 2007. That deal left the ADIA with a 4.9% stake in the American financial firm early in the banking crisis that culminated in an international recession (2007–09). He was also undersecretary of the U.A.E. Ministry of Finance, a member of the Supreme Petroleum Council, and chairman of the Zayed Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation. In 2009 Sheikh Ahmad was number 27 on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful people. He died when his small glider aircraft crashed in Morocco.

married Cooper. In the early 1950s Neal appeared in mostly mediocre films, with the exception of Robert Wise’s science-fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). She returned to the stage for a few years but made an impression on the big screen in 1957 when she starred opposite Andy Griffith in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), she is spurned by the young lover she supports financially. During the filming of director John Ford’s final picture, Seven Women (1966), the pregnant Neal suffered a series of severe strokes. Her husband from 1953, British author Roald Dahl, played a major role in her recovery. (The couple divorced in 1983.) Her comeback film, The Subject Was Roses (1968), garnered her an Oscar nomination. Neame, Ronald, British filmmaker (b. April 23, 1911, London, Eng.—d. June 16, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), was one of Britain’s most admired cinematographers in the 1930s and ’40s, notably on a series of acclaimed films with director David Lean. Neame himself later directed such hits as the drama The Prime of Mrs. Jean Brodie (1969) and the disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (1972). After Neame worked with Lean, then a film editor, on Major Barbara (1941) and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), for which Neame earned an Academy Award nomination (1943) for best effects, the two formed the Cineguild production company with producer Anthony Havelock-Allan. The trio successfully collaborated on Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946), both nominated for

Neal, Patricia (PATSY LOUISE NEAL), American actress (b. Jan. 20, 1926, Packard, Ky.—d. Aug. 8, 2010, Edgartown, Mass.), delivered deeply intelligent performances, usually as a toughminded independent woman. Neal reached the pinnacle with her Academy Award-winning best actress performance as the shy housekeeper who resists the advances of Paul Newman in Hud (1963). This strength of character was reflected in her personal life as she was able to make a triumphant return to films following a series of strokes in 1965 that had left her semiparalyzed and unable to Filmmaker Ronald Neame speak. After undertaking theatre studies at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., Neal moved to New York City and soon began performing as an understudy on Broadway. For her starring role in Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest (1946), Neal won a Tony Award. She signed with Warner Brothers in 1948 and appeared in director King Vidor’s adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (1949). That film introduced Neal to leading man Gary Cooper, with whom she also costarred in Bright Leaf (1950). In her autobiography, As I Am (1988), Neal revealed details about her affair with the

Oscars for best screenplay, but Lean and Neame parted ways in 1949. Neame was made CBE in 1996. Newman, Edwin Harold, American broadcast journalist (b. Jan. 25, 1919, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 13, 2010, Oxford, Eng.), was known for his cultured intellect and his droll sense of humour during a 32-year career at NBC News. In 1952 he became the London bureau chief for NBC News, and he performed the same role in Paris and Rome before returning in 1961 to the United States. As a frequent presence on the Today morning TV show and general correspondent for NBC, Newman became a familiar face to millions of Americans. Nielsen, Leslie William, Canadianborn actor (b. Feb. 11, 1926, Regina, Sask.—d. Nov. 28, 2010, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), showcased his comedic gifts, beginning with his portrayal of a bewildered doctor in Airplane! (1980) and then as bumbling detective Frank Drebin in the spoof The Naked Gun (1988) and its sequels (1991 and 1994), following a career in which he had been cast in mostly dramatic roles, notably as the captain of a capsized ocean liner in The Poseidon Adventure (1972). After high school Nielsen joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and then served as a disc jockey in Calgary, Alta., before turning to an acting career in New York City. Other notable film credits include Forbidden Planet (1956), Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), Mr. Magoo (1997), 2001: A Space Travesty (2000), Scary Movie 3 (2003), and Scary Movie 4 (2006). In 2002 he was awarded the Order of Canada.

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Nirenberg, Marshall Warren, American biochemist (b. April 10, 1927, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Jan. 15, 2010, New York, N.Y.), was corecipient, with Robert William Holley and Har Gobind Khorana, of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Nirenberg was cited for his role in deciphering the genetic code. He demonstrated that with the exception of “nonsense codons,” each possible triplet (called a codon) of four different kinds of nitrogen-containing bases found in DNA and, in some viruses, in RNA ultimately causes the incorporation of a specific amino acid into a cell protein. Nirenberg’s work and that of Holley and Khorana helped to show

Obituaries

how genetic instructions in the cell nucleus control the composition of proteins. His research earned him the National Medal of Science in 1965. In 1968 Nirenberg and Khorana were recognized with an Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry. In the late 1960s Nirenberg began investigating neuroblastomas—tumours involving masses of neurons that are known as ganglia— and eventually developed a neuroblastoma model that served as the basis for a broad range of neurobiological research. Njawé, Pius Noumeni, Cameroonian journalist (b. March 4, 1957, Babouantou, French Cameroun—d. July 12, 2010, near Norfolk, Va.), championed a free press as the founder (1979) and editor of the first independent newspaper in Cameroon, Le Messager, in which he criticized the government despite being subjected to persistent persecution. Njawé was arrested more than 100 times under the regime of Cameroon Pres. Paul Biya. News reports on the bloody repression of a riot led to the seizure of Njawé’s paper in 1990; in 1992 the publication was banned, and he went into exile for a year. He was imprisoned at least three times, notably in 1996 on charges of having insulted the president and members of the National Assembly. Njawé was a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which works to collaborate on international news stories, and the head of Free Media Group, which published Le Messager. In 1991 he was honoured with the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in 2000 he was listed by the International Press Institute as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes. Nkosi, Lewis, South African author, critic, journalist, and broadcaster (b. Dec. 5, 1936, Durban, Natal, S.Af.—d. Sept. 5, 2010, Johannesburg, S.Af.), was a respected journalist and producer (1962–65) of the BBC radio series Africa Abroad, but his first novel, Mating Birds (1983), brought him to the attention of a wider audience for its subtle examination of an interracial affair. After attending a technical college in Durban for a year, Nkosi worked for the Zulu-English weekly newspaper Ilanga lase Natal (1955) and then (1956–60) for the Drum magazine and

as chief reporter for its Sunday newspaper, the Golden City Post. He was exiled from South Africa in 1961 after having accepted a fellowship to study journalism at Harvard University. Thereafter Nkosi wrote for American, British, and African periodicals, including The New Yorker magazine and The New African, of which he was literary editor (1965–68). Many of his critical essays were published in Home and Exile (1965), which became a standard source for students of African literature. Nkosi’s other works include The Rhythm of Violence (1964), a drama set in Johannesburg in the early 1960s, and the essay collections The Transplanted Heart (1975), Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature (1981), and Home and Exile and Other Selections (1983).

D.C., and at Bennington (Vt.) College (1968). Noland’s work was exhibited internationally, and permanent collections of his paintings are housed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Tate Collection in London, and the Zürich Kunsthaus. Nordheim, Arne, Norwegian composer (b. June 20, 1931, Larvik, Nor.— d. June 5, 2010, Oslo, Nor.), introduced modern compositional styles to postWorld War II Norway with works that often comprised (or included) pretaped Lisbeth Risnes/mic.no

Nolan, David Fraser, American politician (b. Nov. 23, 1943, Washington, D.C.—d. Nov. 21, 2010, Tucson, Ariz.), was one of the founding members in 1971 of the Libertarian Party. Spurred by U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon’s removal of the U.S. from the gold standard and temporary imposition of a wage and price freeze, Nolan and a group of friends created the Libertarian Party, which emphasized free markets and limited government power. Nolan ran unsuccessfully for a number of political offices, and in 2010 he failed in his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona held by John McCain. Noland, Kenneth Clifton, American painter (b. April 10, 1924, Asheville, N.C.—d. Jan. 5, 2010, Port Clyde, Maine), was a disciple of the Abstract Expressionist school and was one of the first to use the technique of staining the canvas with thinned paints and of deploying his colours in concentric rings and parallels, shaped and proportioned in relation to the shape of the canvas. He and Morris Louis, influenced by the work of Helen Frankenthaler, worked together on the technique of staining with thinned paints. This method presented pure saturated colour as an integral part of the canvas. Noland arrived at his characteristic style in the late 1950s. He attended Black Mountain College, Asheville, and studied (1948–49) under French sculptor Ossip Zadkine in Paris. Noland presented his first one-man show there in 1949. He taught at the Institute of Contemporary Art (1949–51) and at Catholic University (1951–60), both located in Washington,

Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim electronic elements. His sound structure for the 1970 Osaka World Exposition played six musical loops that were designed not to re-create their original relationship for 102 years. Nordheim attended (1948–52) the Oslo Conservatory, but he left to study the works of Bela Bartok in Copenhagen as well as musique concrète and electronic music in Paris. In the late 1950s he composed his first significant work, the song cycle Aftonland. Later works include Epitaffio (1963) for orchestra and tape, Colorazione (1968) for organ, percussion, electronic equipment, and tape, the cello concerto Tenebrae (1982), and the music drama Draumkvædet (1994), which he adapted from a Norwegian folk tale for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. He also championed other modern compositions as music critic (1960–68) for the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet. From 1982 Nordheim and 147

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his wife lived in the Grotten, the honorary residence reserved for Norway’s current leading artistic figure. Ohno, Kazuo, Japanese performance artist (b. Oct. 27, 1906, Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan—d. June 1, 2010, Yokohama, Japan), was a leading exponent of buto (Butoh), a Japanese dance-theatre movement in which formal technique is eschewed and primal sexuality and the grotesque are explored. Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata are credited with having founded this “dance of darkness” in the 1950s. The two collaborated (1959–66) in works that were inspired by the writings of French playwright Jean Genet, French poet comte de Lautréamont, and Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima. Performing usually in the guise of a woman, Ohno interpreted his grisly experiences during his nine years (1938–46) of service in the Japanese army, including time spent as a prisoner of war. Ohno’s Jellyfish Dance (1950s) explored his wartime experience of seeing jellyfish swimming where combatants had been buried at sea. In 1980 he began an international career, whose major works included Admiring La Argentina and My Mother as well as Water Lilies and The Road in Heaven, the Road in Earth, which he performed with his son Yoshito. Ohno continued to perform past his 100th birthday; though his ailing body limited his movement, he often performed by using only his hands or crawling on all fours. Olsen, Merlin Jay, American football player, sports announcer, and actor (b. Sept. 15, 1940, Logan, Utah—d. March 11, 2010, Duarte, Calif.), was the strapping 1.9-m (6-ft 5-in)-tall left tackle (1962–76) for the National Football League’s (NFL’s) Los Angeles Rams and a mighty force for the team, making up a crucial part of the formidable line that was heralded as the “Fearsome Foursome.” Besides Olsen, the quartet that included left end Deacon Jones, right end Lamar Lundy, and right tackle Roosevelt (Rosey) Grier were not only aggressive blockers (with an estimated average weight of 125 kg [275 lb]) but also agile play stoppers. Though the Rams won only one game in the 1962–63 season, Olsen was named the NFL Rookie of the Year. In 1973 he was voted the National Football Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year. For every year but his final one with the Rams, Olsen was voted to 148

the Pro Bowl, and at the time of his death, his record still stood as the Rams’ all-time leader in tackles, with a career 915. Before joining the Rams, Olsen was an All-American at Utah State University. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982. After leaving the Rams, Olsen served as an NFL commentator, television spokesperson, and TV actor, best known for his recurring role as Jonathan Garvey (1977–81) on Little House on the Prairie and as the star of Father Murphy (1981–83). Osman, (Muhammad) Fathi, Egyptian religious scholar and author (b. March 17, 1928, Minya, Egypt—d. Sept. 11, 2010, Montrose, Calif.), advocated for a broad-minded interpretation of Islam and sought to bridge understanding between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. As a young man Osman joined the Muslim Brotherhood, a hard-line fundamentalist organization, and worked on its weekly newspaper, but he left the group in the 1950s. After the publication of Al-Fikr al-Islami wa-al-tatawwur (1960; “Islamic Thought and Change”), which set out a more moderate approach to Islam, Osman completed a master’s degree (1962) in Islamic-Byzantine relations at Cairo University. Beginning in the 1960s—while continuing to publish works in Arabic—he taught at universities in Egypt, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia, and in 1976 he earned a Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University. Osman moved to Los Angeles in 1987, becoming a scholar in residence at the Islamic Center of Southern California and later founding the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World. Osman found particular acclaim for the book Concepts of the Quran: A Topical Reading (1997), a comprehensive explication of central tenets and ideas found in the Islamic holy book. Oyono, Ferdinand Léopold, Cameroonian statesman and novelist (b. Sept. 14, 1929, Ngoulémakong, French Cameroun—d. June 10, 2010, Yaoundé, Cameroon), perfected an ironic tone that conveyed the full tragedy and pain of the lives of the common people, usually illiterate peasant farmers, who naively accepted the doctrines of French colonialism. In mocking the foibles of the self-deluded colonial masters as well as the simple villagers in his three novels, Oyono often painted

hilarious portraits. Une Vie de boy (1956; Houseboy, 1966), written in the form of a diary, depicts honestly but with humour the often brutal life of a houseboy in the service of a French commandant. During the 1950s Oyono worked in Paris as an actor while he was studying law and diplomacy and writing his first two novels. He returned to newly independent Cameroon in 1960 and entered the diplomatic corps. Palevsky, Max, American computer pioneer (b. July 24, 1924, Chicago, Ill.— d. May 5, 2010, Beverly Hills, Calif.), cofounded (1968) Intel Corp., the world’s leading manufacturer of semiconductor computer circuits; the comD. Gorton—The New York Times/Redux

Computer guru Max Palevksy pany produced (1971) the first microprocessor, which paved the way for personal computers and handheld calculators. In 1957 he joined the electronics company Packard Bell. Palevsky and a group of colleagues established (1961) Scientific Data Systems (SDS), which filled a market niche by building small and medium-sized business computers. SDS, an astounding success, was purchased (1969) by Xerox Corp. for nearly $1 billion. Raimon (RAIMUNDO Panikkar, PANIKKAR ALEMANY), Spanish Roman Catholic theologian (b. Nov. 3, 1918, Barcelona, Spain—d. Aug. 26, 2010, Tavertet, Spain), was a Jesuit priest and an advocate of interreligious dialogue.

Obituaries

Panikkar was the son of an Indian Hindu father and a Catalan Catholic mother. He became an expert in both Christian and Indian thought, and his work sought to inculcate within Christians an appreciation for the insights of non-Western traditions. He divided his time between research in India and teaching duties at various institutions. In 1987, however, he moved near Barcelona, where he established the Raimon Panikkar Vivarium Foundation, which was devoted to intercultural studies. Park, Ruth (ROSINA RUTH LUCIA PARK), New Zealand-born Australian author (b. Aug. 24, 1917, Auckland, N.Z.—d. Dec. 14, 2010, Sydney, Australia), created a scandal in Australia with her first novel, The Harp in the South (1948), in which she exposed the lives of impoverished families struggling to survive in the slums of Sydney, but she went on to be heralded as one of Australia’s most popular writers. During her 65-year career, Park penned nine novels and dozens of books for children and young adults, as well as newspaper articles, radio scripts, two autobiographies, and a guide to Sydney. She immigrated in 1942 to Australia, where she met and married a fellow journalist, D’Arcy Niland. Park’s other novels include the Harp sequel, Poor Man’s Orange (1949); The Witch’s Thorn (1951); and Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977), which won the Miles Franklin Award. Her best-known books written for children include the Muddle-Headed Wombat series (1962–82), Playing Beatie Bow Actor

heroic Crockett triggered a craze among American children, a hit record of the theme song (“The Ballad of Davy Crockett”), and soaring sales of coonskin caps and replicas of Crockett’s legendary long rifle. After a brief change of pace as an idealist politician in the TV series Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1962–63), Parker returned to the frontier in Daniel Boone (1964–70), several episodes of which he produced and directed. His movie appearances included supporting roles in such films as the western Thunder over the Plains (1953), the science-fiction cult hit Them! (1954), the war films Battle Cry (1955) and Hell Is for Heroes (1962), and the poignant family drama Old Yeller (1957). Parker retired from acting in the early 1970s and became a successful California real-estate developer. Parker, Robert Brown, American author (b. Sept. 17, 1932, Springfield, Mass.—d. Jan. 18, 2010, Cambridge, Mass.), created two well-known detective series—one featuring Spenser, a hard-boiled, wise-cracking Bostonbased private eye (his first name is not revealed) who also exhibits a sensitive side as he solves crimes and ruminates on human nature, and the other featuring Jesse Stone, a divorced alcoholic who serves as the chief of police in a Massachusetts town. Parker’s first book, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), readers’ introduction to Spenser, was followed by God Save the Child (1974) and more than 30 other works in the Fess Parker as Daniel Boone

(1980; filmed 1986), and Callie’s Castle (1974). Park was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987, and in 2006 The Bulletin magazine included her on its list of the 100 most influential Australians. Parker, Fess (FESS ELISHA PARKER, JR.), American actor (b. Aug. 16, 1924, Fort Worth, Texas—d. March 18, 2010, Santa Ynez Valley, California), brought a folksy charm and imposing 1.98-m (6-ft 6-in) physique to the television roles of the iconic American frontiersmen Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. Although he played the former character in only a few episodes during 1954–56 as part of the Walt Disney series Disneyland, Parker’s earnest portrayal of the

series. Night Passage (1997) introduced the Jesse Stone series, and Family Honor (1999) was the first in the Sunny Randall detective series, which featured a female protagonist. Parker and his wife also collaborated on a number of television scripts, notably some for the Spenser for Hire TV series. Parker was the recipient in 2002 of the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Patz, Arnall, American ophthalmologist (b. June 14, 1920, Elberton, Ga.— d. March 11, 2010, Pikesville, Md.), discovered the leading cause of blindness in premature infants in the 1950s and later helped develop one of the first argon laser treatments for diabetic retinopathy and other eye conditions characterized by overgrowth and leaking of blood vessels in the retina. Patz was a corecipient with Kinsey of the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award in 1956 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. Pekar, Harvey Lawrence, American comic book writer (b. Oct. 8, 1939, Cleveland, Ohio—d. July 12, 2010, Cleveland Heights, Ohio), chronicled the minutiae of his life in Cleveland— the tedium of his job as a file clerk (1965–2001) for a veterans hospital, his relationship woes, and his health issues in the long-running autobiographical series American Splendor. The series’ elevation of the mundane to art drew comparisons to the works of Anton Chekhov and Henry Miller, and its critical success served to enhance the literary credibility of the graphic novel as a medium. As one of the last white children in a racially changing neighborhood in Cleveland, he was frequently subjected to harassment and physical abuse by his peers, which Pekar believed contributed to his lifelong inferiority complex. While working as a file clerk, Pekar maintained an interest in writing, particularly about jazz, and he was a regular contributor to magazines in the U.S. and England. In 1962 a shared interest in jazz led to a friendship with the artist R. Crumb, who encouraged Pekar to explore comics as a storytelling medium. Over the next decade, Pekar, whose artistic skills were somewhat limited, sketched a series of stories. Crumb illustrated one for an is-

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lothario image, most notably with his trademark “ladies only” concerts. He scored hits with the singles “I Don’t Love You Anymore” and “Love T.K.O.” After an automobile accident in 1982 left him paralyzed from the waist down, his recording future appeared to be in doubt. Following a year of rehabilitation, he recorded a new album that ultimately went gold. He returned to the stage in 1985. He retired from recording in 2006.

Confessional comic book writer Harvey Pekar sue of his The People’s Comics magazine in 1972, and soon other artists were recruited to draw Pekar’s tales “from off the streets of Cleveland.” The first volume of American Splendor was published in 1976, and it gained a robust following in the alternative comics scene. Pekar achieved minor celebrity as a guest on television talk shows and later with the film adaptation of American Splendor (2003), which included documentary footage of Pekar himself. Pendergrass, Teddy (THEODORE DEREESE PENDERGRASS), American singer (b. March 26, 1950, Kingstree, S.C.—d. Jan. 13, 2010, Bryn Mawr, Pa.), embodied the smooth Philly soul sound of the 1970s as lead rhythm-and-blues vocalist for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes before embarking on a successful solo career. Pendergrass began as a gospel singer in Philadelphia churches, taught himself to play drums, and in 1969 joined the Blue Notes. In 1971 the group signed with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at Philadelphia International Records, and a string of hits followed. The group’s 1972 eponymous debut album for Philadelphia International produced the singles “I Miss You” and Grammy-nominated “If You Don’t Know Me by Now,” and Pendergrass joined the ranks of R&B’s elite male vocalists as he brought an unbridled masculinity to his stage presence. Embarking on a solo career in 1976, Pendergrass capitalized on his baritone 150

Penn, Arthur Hiller, American motion-picture and theatre director (b. Sept. 27, 1922, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. Sept. 28, 2010, New York, N.Y.), depicted the darker undercurrents of American society and the role of the outsider, especially in such films as Mickey One (1965), The Chase (1966), and Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which used graphic violence as a mode of social criticism, made an indelible mark on the evolution of the film industry, and earned him an Academy Award nomination for best director. His Broadway productions included Two for the Seesaw (1958); The Miracle Worker (1959), a successful adaptation of a play that he had originally directed for television; Toys in the Attic (1960); All the Way Home (1960); and An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May (1960–61). In 1962 Penn directed the screen version of The Miracle Worker, a commercial and artistic success that brought him the first of his three Oscar nominations. Other credits include his final Oscar-nominated film, Alice’s Restaurant (1969), and the revisionist western Little Big Man (1970). In the 1990s Penn directed only sporadically. He then returned to the theatre, directing the Broadway plays Fortune’s Fool (2002) and Sly Fox (2004). Pérez Rodríguez, Carlos Andrés, Venezuelan politician (b. Oct. 27, 1922, Rubio, Venez.—d. Dec. 25, 2010, Miami, Fla.), served one term (1974–79) as president of Venezuela during a period marked by great oil wealth and an expanding profile for the country, but his second term of office (1989–93) was marked by violence and disgrace. Pérez was a member of Rómulo Betancourt’s Democratic Action party and held several posts during Betancourt’s presidencies. With Betancourt’s support, Pérez easily won the 1973 presidential election. Venezuela was then awash in revenue from skyrocketing oil prices, and Pérez nationalized the oil industry (1976) and undertook a number of

large development projects. As a former president he was barred by law from seeking reelection until the 1988 ballot, which he won with 54.6% of the vote. At that time the country’s economy was in much worse shape, however, and he quickly put in place free-market reforms and an austerity program in order to secure an IMF loan. This led to rioting, and in February 1989 security forces killed hundreds of people while trying to quell the protests. Pérez survived two coup attempts in 1992. The next year Pérez was suspended from office by the Supreme Court; he was later charged with corruption and spent two years under house arrest (1994–96) before leaving the country in 1999. Pettigrew, Antonio, American athlete (b. Nov. 3, 1967, Macon, Ga.—found dead Aug. 10, 2010, Chatham county, N.C.), was a top 400-m runner for the U.S. in the 1990s, but he shocked sports fans when in 2008 he admitted to having used performance-enhancing drugs. Pettigrew first came to prominence while running for St. Augustine’s College, Raleigh, N.C. (B.A., 1993), and at the 1991 world championships, where he took the 400-m gold medal. In July 1998 he helped set a world record (2 min 54.2 sec) in the 4 × 400m relay. His relay teams won at the 1997, 1999, and 2001 world championships and captured the gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. When Pettigrew testified under subpoena in the trial of coach Trevor Graham, however, he admitted to having taken human growth hormone and other drugs, although he had never tested positive for such drugs. He and his relay teammates were subsequently stripped of all medals earned and records set during 1997–2003. Polke, Sigmar, German artist (b. Feb. 13, 1941, Öls, Ger. [now Olesnica, Pol.]—d. June 10, 2010, Cologne, Ger.), rendered complex, layered paintings that played an important role in the resurgence of modern German art. In the 1980s he and other German artists—including Jörg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, A.R. Penck, and Gerhard Richter—were part of a movement known as Neo-Expressionism. Polke emigrated with his family from East Germany to West Germany in 1953 and settled in Düsseldorf, where he studied (1961–67) at the Staatliche Kunstakademie. Polke later taught (1977–91) at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. Polke’s

Obituaries Fredrik Von Erichsen—dpa/Landov

German artist Sigmar Polke with an untitled work early paintings of the 1960s, done in a style known as Capitalist Realism, both mimicked and challenged American Pop art, using recognizable imagery often derived from photography and advertising to invite a more critical social and economic analysis of American capitalism and its ramifications. His use of paint to replicate the halftone process of newspaper photographic reproduction gave some of his paintings a deliberately blurred and dreary quality. He began to layer images one atop another, and his interest in pattern led him to use commercially prepared decorative fabrics in the construction of his mixed-media canvases. While Polke’s interests, including photography and experimentation with diverse painting materials, led him to eschew a signature style, many of his works— such as Raised Chair with Geese (1987–88), with its interwoven pictorial references—offer strange and compelling juxtapositions that are both allusive and ambiguous. Porter, Peter Neville Frederick, Australian-born British poet (b. Feb. 16, 1929, Brisbane, Australia—d. April 23, 2010, London, Eng.), crafted verse characterized by a formal style and rueful, epigrammatic wit. Porter was educated in Australia and worked as a journalist before settling in 1951 in London, where he worked as a clerk, a bookshop assistant, an advertising copywriter, and a critic. His first volumes of poetry, beginning with Once Bitten, Twice Bitten (1961), reflect a satiric approach to modern society and to his own experiences. His other works include Poems Ancient & Modern

(1964), The Last of England (1970), Preaching to the Converted (1972), The Cost of Seriousness (1978), The Automatic Oracle (1987), Millennial Fables (1994), Max Is Missing (2001), Afterburner (2004), and Better than God (2009). Porter received many honours, notably the Duff Cooper Prize (1983), the Whitbread (now Costa) Poetry Award (1988), the Gold Medal for Australian Literature (1990), and the Queen’s Gold Medal (2002), and in 2007 he was made a Companion of the Royal Society of Literature. Probert, Bob, Canadian ice hockey player (b. June 5, 1965, Windsor, Ont.—d. July 5, 2010, Windsor), was a powerful and imposing 1.9-m (6-ft 3in)-tall left winger who, while playing in the National Hockey League, gained a reputation for his punishing brawls while skating for the Detroit Red Wings (1985–94) and the Chicago Blackhawks (1995–2002), but his career was marred by bouts of drug and alcohol abuse. During his tenure with the Red Wings, Probert and fellow winger Joe Kocur earned the moniker “the Bruise Brothers” for the manner in which they forcefully patrolled the ice. Probert often skated on the same line as future Hall of Fame centre Steve Yzerman. Besides his aggressiveness (he accrued 3,300 penalty minutes in 935 games), Probert was credited with 163 goals and 221 assists. After retiring in 2002 as a player, he enjoyed a brief stint as a Blackhawks radio analyst, but he suffered a substanceabuse relapse and entered a treatment program in 2003. His death was attributed to a heart attack.

Quaife, Pete (P ETER ALEXANDER GREENLAW QUAIFE), British musician (b. Dec. 31, 1943, Tavistock, Devonshire, Eng.—d. June 23, 2010, Herlev, Den.), was a founding member of the British Invasion rock band the Kinks and played bass guitar during their 1960s rise to fame. Quaife attended school with brothers Ray and Dave Davies, and in 1961 the three formed a band; by 1964 they had solidified as the Kinks with drummer Mick Avory. Their first hit song, “You Really Got Me” (1964), reached number one on the charts in Britain and number seven in the U.S. During Quaife’s time with the Kinks, the band had 11 more Top 10 songs in Britain, among them “All Day and All of the Night” (1964), “A Well Respected Man” (1965), “Tired of Waiting for You” (1965), “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (1966), “Sunny Afternoon” (1966), and “Waterloo Sunset” (1967). He quit in 1969, complaining of constant fighting and little artistic control, and then briefly played with the band Mapleoak. Quaife was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Kinks in 1990. Redgrave, Corin William, British actor (b. July 16, 1939, London, Eng.— d. April 6, 2010, London), was a veteran character actor and ardent left-wing political activist. To many people, however, he was best known as the “prince” of the renowned Redgrave family acting dynasty—he was the son of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, the grandson of silent-film actor Roy Redgrave, and the brother of actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave (q.v). Corin Redgrave began acting at a young age and continued while attending King’s College, Cambridge. After graduating with a first in classics, he made his professional theatrical debut in 1962 in Tony Richardson’s Royal Court Theatre production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Perhaps his best role was as the brutal prison warden, Boss Whalen, in Tennessee Williams’s Not About Nightingales (1998), which earned Redgrave a Laurence Olivier Award and, after the play moved to Broadway in 1999, a Tony nomination for best actor. He also excelled in Chips with Everything (1962), with which he made his Broadway debut in 1963; Noël Coward’s A Song at Twilight (1999); Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land (2001); Shakespeare’s King Lear for the Royal Shakespeare Company (2004); and Tynan (2004), a one-man show about the 151

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influential theatre critic Kenneth Tynan. Redgrave’s films include A Man for All Seasons (1966), Excalibur (1981), In the Name of the Father (1993), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Redgrave, along with his sister Vanessa, was for many years an active member of the Trotskyist Workers’ Revolutionary Party. Redgrave, Lynn Rachel, British-born actress (b. March 8, 1943, London, Eng.—d. May 2, 2010, Kent, Conn.), was a member of the renowned Redgrave family acting dynasty; she was CBS/Landov

Actress Lynn Redgrave

the younger sister of Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave (q.v.), the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, and the granddaughter of silent-film actor Roy Redgrave. Lynn Redgrave made her professional debut as Helena in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1962. Her screen debut came in Tom Jones in 1963, the same year she was chosen as a founding member of the National Theatre (later the Royal National Theatre) under Sir Laurence Olivier. Redgrave gained international recognition—as well as a New York Film Critics Circle Award and the first of her two Academy Award nominations—for her star turn in the romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966). Her later films include The Happy Hooker (1975); Shine (1996); Gods and Monsters (1998), for which 152

she earned her second Oscar nomination; The White Countess (2005); and the animated My Dog Tulip (2009). Redgrave performed often onstage in Britain and in the U.S., where she made her Broadway debut in 1967 in Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. Among other notable stage roles were Vicky in Charles Lawrence’s My Fat Friend (1974) and Masha in an acclaimed 1990 production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters opposite her own sister, Vanessa, and her niece Jemma Redgrave. In 1993 she was nominated for a Tony Award for Shakespeare for My Father, a one-woman show she wrote and performed often over the years; she also received Tony nominations for George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1976) and W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife (2006). Redgrave wrote two other solo plays, Nightingale (in which she imagined the life of her maternal grandmother) and Rachel and Juliet (a tribute to her actress mother). After settling in the U.S., she starred in several television series, notably House Calls (1979–81) and Rude Awakening (1998–2001); she eventually became a U.S. citizen. Redgrave was made OBE in 2002, the same year she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Roberts, H(enry) Edward (ED), American computer pioneer and physician (b. Sept. 13, 1941, Miami, Fla.—d. April 1, 2010, Macon, Ga.), helped usher in the personal computer (PC) by inventing the Altair 8800, which debuted in the mid-1970s after Bill Gates, then a college student, and Paul Allen (the founders of software company Microsoft) converted BASIC, a popular mainframe computer programming language, for use on the Altair PC. Two years after Roberts’s general-purpose microcomputer appeared on the January 1975 cover of Popular Electronics magazine, he sold his company, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, for more than $6 million. Roberts, Pernell Elvin, Jr., American actor (b. May 18, 1928, Waycross, Ga.— d. Jan. 24, 2010, Malibu, Calif.), was best remembered for his television portrayals of two characters: the brainy and debonair Adam Cartwright (the eldest of three grown sons) on the longrunning western Bonanza (1959–73; he appeared until 1965) and the eponymous compassionate chief of surgery at a San Francisco hospital on Trapper John, M.D. (1979–86).

Roberts, Robin Evan, American baseball player (b. Sept. 30, 1926, near Springfield, Ill.—d. May 6, 2010, Temple Terrace, Fla.), was a phenomenal right-handed pitcher (1948–61) for the major league Philadelphia Phillies; as one of the famed “Whiz Kids,” he led the team to the 1950 National League pennant, the franchise’s first in 35 years. With his rising fastball, the intense Roberts compiled an amazing record, leading the league in victories (1952–55), innings pitched (1951–55), and complete games (1952–56). He also won at least 20 games every season from 1950 to 1955. Though he was sold in 1961 to the New York Yankees, Roberts did not appear in a single game with that team before his release the following year. He then pitched for the Baltimore Orioles (1962–65), the Houston Astros (1965–66), and the Chicago Cubs (1966), with whom he ended his major league career. His career winloss record was 286–245, and his earned run average was 3.41. Roberts was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976. Rodgers, Carolyn Marie, American poet and publisher (b. Dec. 14, 1940, Chicago, Ill.—d. April 2, 2010, Chicago), was known for a body of work that deepened and extended beyond the Black Arts movement in which she found her voice. While working as a social worker in Chicago, Rodgers participated in writing workshops that introduced her to the burgeoning Black Arts movement, and in 1967 she cofounded Third World Press, an outlet for African American literary works. The following year she released her first volume of poetry, Paper Soul; the work was noted for its frequent use of black vernacular and even obscenities as part of a vivid illustration of black female identity during a time of revolutionary social upheaval. Rodgers later received a National Book Award nomination for how i got ovah: New and Selected Poems (1975), in which she offered mature reflections on love, family, and religion. Other notable collections include Songs of a Black Bird (1969) and The Heart as Ever Green: Poems (1978). Rohmer, Eric (JEAN-MARIE MAURICE SCHÉRER), French motion-picture director and writer (b. April 4, 1920, Tulle, France—d. Jan. 11, 2010, Paris, France), was admired for his sensitively observed studies of romantic passion and longing. Rohmer was perhaps best

Obituaries

known for his six contes moraux, or moral tales, notably the last three in the series: Ma Nuit chez Maud (1968; My Night at Maud’s), which earned an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film and one for Rohmer for best original screenplay, Le Genou de Claire (1970; Claire’s Knee), and L’Amour l’après-midi (1972; Chloe in the Afternoon). The six scripts were later published as Six Moral Tales (1977). Rohmer earned an advanced degree in history and taught school for a short time before beginning his writing career in the mid-1940s. After making a series of short films, Rohmer directed his first full-length feature, Le Signe du lion (1959). The contes moraux began with the unsuccessful short films La Boulangère de Monceau (1962) and La Carrière de Suzanne (1963), but the third in the series, the feature-length film La Collectionneuse (1966), achieved some critical esteem. Rohmer’s later films include Die Marquise von O (1976; The Marquise of O), which won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Festival, and two more multifilm series known as Comédies et proverbes and Contes des quatre saisons. His last film was Les Amours d’Astrée et de Céladon (2007; Romance of Astrea and Celadon). Rosen, Moishe (MARTIN MEYER ROSEN), American religious leader (b. April 12, 1932, Kansas City, Mo.—d. May 19, 2010, San Francisco, Calif.), founded (1973) the evangelical Christian organization Jews for Jesus, which he led until his retirement as executive director in 1996. Rosen was born to Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who attended an Orthodox synagogue, but in 1953, shortly after his marriage to a Jewish woman, he followed his wife in converting to Christianity. He then graduated from Northeastern Bible College, Essex Fells, N.J., and was ordained (1957) a Baptist minister, after which he served with the American Board of Missions to the Jews. After founding Jews for Jesus in San Francisco, he employed the theatrical and pamphleteering tactics of groups protesting the Vietnam War in a controversial open ministry toward Jews. Rosen claimed that Jewishness and Christian faith were complementary, and he and his followers observed many Jewish customs. Salinger, J.D. (JEROME DAVID SALINAmerican writer (b. Jan. 1, 1919, New York, N.Y.—d. Jan. 27, 2010, CorGER),

nish, N.H.), won critical acclaim and devoted admirers for his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), which uses humour and colourful language to portray the sensitive, rebellious adolescent Holden Caulfield, who views his life with an added dimension of precocious self-consciousness. The 16-year-old Caulfield relates in authentic teenage idiom his flight from the “phony” adult world, his search for innocence and truth, and his collapse on a psychiatrist’s couch. At the time of his death, Salinger’s entire corpus of published works consisted of that one novel and a number of short stories, only 13 of which were issued in collected book form during his lifetime. Salinger, like the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, grew up in New York City, attending public and private schools and a military academy. His stories began to appear in periodicals in 1940. After his return from service (1942–46) in the U.S. Army, Salinger’s name and writing style became increasingly associated with The New Yorker magazine, which published almost all of his later stories. His wartime experiences were featured in “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” (1950), which describes a U.S. soldier’s poignant encounter with two British children, and “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948), which concerns the suicide of the sensitive, despairing veteran Seymour Glass. Nine Stories (1953), a selection of Salinger’s best work, added to his reputation. Franny and Zooey (1961) brought together two earlier New Yorker stories; both deal with the fictional Glass family, as do the two stories in Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). After “Hapworth 26, 1924” (1965), his last story and final Glass family installment, was published, Salinger became a semirecluse. Samaranch, Juan Antonio, marqués de Samaranch, Spanish businessman and public official (b. July 17, 1920, Barcelona, Spain—d. April 21, 2010, Barcelona), served (1980–2001) as the seventh president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Although he was sometimes criticized for being autocratic and arrogant, Samaranch had numerous accomplishments, including the development of brand-licensing schemes to enhance the IOC’s revenue sources, the addition of professional athletes to some Olympic sports, the implementation of a compromise that permitted both China and Taiwan to enter teams, and the opening (1993) of

the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switz. After allegations surfaced in 1998 of widespread corruption among IOC members, he succeeded in passing a 50-point reform package that addressed the conduct of the bidding process and attempted to eliminate gifts to IOC members. Samaranch joined the Spanish Olympic Committee in 1954, the same year that he was elected to the Barcelona city council. In 1973 he became president of the Catalan regional council, and he served as Spain’s ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1977–80. He was elected to the IOC in 1966 and held several posts before being elected president in 1980. In 1992 King Juan Carlos made him marqués de Samaranch. Samaranch was replaced as IOC president by Belgian Jacques Rogge in 2001 but was elected honorary president for life. Sánchez Junco, Eduardo, Spanish magazine publisher (b. April 26, 1943, Palencia, Spain—d. July 14, 2010, Madrid, Spain), spawned a new style of British celebrity magazine with the launch in 1988 of Hello!, which offered a sugar-coated, scandal-free view into the lives of stars, royals, and other luminaries. After studying agronomy at the Complutense University of Madrid, Sánchez Junco began working for his parents’ celebrity magazine ¡Hola!, whose positive coverage of the opulent lives of Spanish aristocrats was in keeping with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s agenda and proved to be a hit with the public. Sánchez Junco took over the publication in 1984 following his father’s death, and four years later he founded Hello!, using the same style to cover British celebrities, particularly Diana, princess of Wales. The magazine’s reverent approach, flattering photographs, and large paychecks earned interviews with many stars, and by 1992 weekly circulation had reached 1.3 million copies. In later years other publications, notably OK!, mirrored Sánchez Junco’s model, but his publications reached worldwide circulation of more than 10 million copies a week, appearing in 14 countries and spanning 10 languages. Sandage, Allan Rex, American astronomer (b. June 18, 1926, Iowa City, Iowa—d. Nov. 13, 2010, San Gabriel, Calif.), led an extensive effort to determine Hubble’s constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding. He also discovered the first quasi-stellar radio source (quasar), a starlike object 153

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that is a strong emitter of radio waves. Sandage received a bachelor’s degree (1948) in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a doctorate (1953) in astronomy from Caltech. While in graduate school he was the observing assistant (1949–53) for American astronomer Edwin Hubble until the latter’s death. Sandage also became a member of the staff of the Hale Observatories (now the Observatories of the Carnegie Institute of Washington) in California and carried out most of his investigations there. Pursuing the theoretical work of several astronomers on the evolution of stars, Sandage, with Harold L. Johnson, demonstrated in the early 1950s that the observed characteristics of the light and colour of the brightest stars in various globular clusters indicate that the clusters can be arranged in order according to their age. Beginning in 1956, the main focus of Sandage’s research was on the determination of Hubble’s constant. Sandage was the recipient of numerous honours, including the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1991). Sanguineti, Edoardo, Italian poet and playwright (b. Dec. 9, 1930, Genoa, Italy—d. May 18, 2010, Genoa), was a Italian poet and playwright Edoardo Sanguineti

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self-proclaimed Marxist intellectual and founding member (1963) of the avant-garde Gruppo 63, Italian intellectuals who sought a radical break with conformity and looked to the deconstruction of literary language. Sanguineti wrote two experimental novels, Capriccio italiano (1963) and Il giuoco dell’oca (1967), and published numerous volumes of poetry, beginning with Laborintus (1956), distinguished by the musicality, playfulness, and chaotic feel of his verse. He also wrote several plays and screenplays; translated authors such as Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, and James Joyce; developed opera librettos incorporating quotes from Marx, the Bible, and Dante; and produced critical essays, many of which explore the political responsibilities of intellectuals. Saramago, José, Portuguese novelist and man of letters (b. Nov. 16, 1922, Azinhaga, Port.—d. June 18, 2010, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain), was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 for his “parables sustained by imagination, compassion, and irony.” In many of his novels Saramago sets these whimsical parables against realistic historical backgrounds in order to comment ironically on human foibles. The son of rural labourers, Saramago grew up in great poverty in Lisbon. After holding a series of jobs as a mechanic and metalworker, he began working in a Lisbon publishing firm and eventually became a journalist and translator. He joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969, published several volumes of poems, and served as editor (1974–75) of a Lisbon newspaper during the cultural thaw that followed the overthrow of the dictatorship of António Salazar. An anticommunist backlash followed in which Saramago lost his position, and in his 50s he began writing novels, beginning with Manual de pintura e caligrafia (1976; Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, 1994). In Memorial do convento (1982; Baltasar and Blimunda, 1998), Saramago alternates allegorical fantasy with grimly realistic descriptions of 18th-century Portugal during the Inquisition, while A jangada de pedra (1986; The Stone Raft, 1994; filmed 2002) explores the situation that ensues when the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from Europe and becomes an island. Other works include the companion novels Ensaio sobre a cegueira (1995; Blindness, 1997; filmed 2008) and Ensaio sobre a lucidez (2004; Seeing, 2006).

Schorr, Daniel Louis, American journalist (b. Aug. 31, 1916, New York, N.Y.—d. July 23, 2010, Washington, D.C.), was an uncompromising and sometimes combative newsman who had an illustrious career (1946–2010) as a foreign correspondent, a CBS television news reporter rewarded with three Emmy Awards (1972, 1973, and 1974) for his coverage of the Watergate Scandal, a pioneering broadcast journalist for the cable news network CNN, and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR). His dogged efforts often antagonized political leaders, and in the early 1970s he found himself on U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.” Following service in World War II, he launched his career in Europe as a foreign correspondent reporting on postwar reconstruction for The Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times. He joined (1953) CBS as one of “Murrow’s boys,” the crack news team assembled by esteemed journalist Edward R. Murrow. In 1955 Schorr reopened CBS’s shuttered Moscow bureau (closed by Stalin in 1947), and in 1957 he secured an exclusive broadcast interview with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Later that year, however, the KGB expelled Schorr from the U.S.S.R. for defying Soviet censors. As CBS bureau chief in Germany and Western Europe, he covered the building of the Berlin Wall and aired a compelling story about East German citizens living under communist rule. He was reassigned in 1966 to Washington, D.C., where he investigated major stories, including the preparation of a secret report that alleged that the CIA and the FBI had been involved in questionable activities. Schorr leaked a copy of the report to the Village Voice newspaper and narrowly escaped being cited for contempt of Congress when he refused to identify his source. After serving (1980–85) as the senior Washington correspondent at CNN, he finished his career with NPR (1985–2010). Schorr’s honours included induction (1991) into the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists, the 1992 George Foster Peabody Award for lifetime achievement, and the 1996 Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Golden Baton for lifetime work. Segal, Erich Wolf, American educator, author, and screenwriter (b. June 16, 1937, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Jan. 17, 2010, London, Eng.), was serving as a pro-

Obituaries

fessor of classics and comparative lit- the romantic spirit. He was best known erature (1968–72) at Yale University for his plays Tak pobedim! (1982; That’s when he published the best-selling How We’ll Win!), for which he won the novel Love Story (1970), a sentimental State Prize of the U.S.S.R. in 1983, Diktearjerker about the courtship of Har- tatura sovesti (1986; Dictatorship of vard students who marry despite the Conscience), and Dalshe . . . dalshe . . . strident objections of the groom’s dalshe! (1988; Onward . . . Onward . . . wealthy family to the bride’s working- Onward!), which openly connects class background. Segal also wrote the Stalin to the death of Communist Party screenplay for the blockbuster film, leader Sergey Kirov. Though Shatrov’s starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, plays were performed successfully in which grossed nearly $200 million and the late Soviet era, it was not until reportedly saved the struggling Para- Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost era that mount Pictures. Despite the popular Shatrov’s plays were staged to their success of his works, critical praise was greatest potential. often elusive. Other novels include Oliver’s Story (1977), Man, © RIA/Novosti—Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Woman, and Child (1980), The Class (1985), and Only Love (1997). Scholarly works edited by Segal include Euripides: A Collection of Critical Essays (1968) and Oxford Readings in Menander, Plautus, and Terence (2001). Semyonova, Marina Timofeyevna, Russian ballerina and teacher (b. May 30 [June 12, New Style], 1908, St. Petersburg, Russia—d. June 9, 2010, Moscow, Russia), was credited with having renewed classical ballet in the Soviet Union through her radical reinterpretations and expressionism just when Stalinist modernism was threatening the tradition’s survival. She shocked and inspired audiences with her new, emboldened Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, majestic Nikia in La Bayadère, and down-to-earth title character in Giselle. After having trained in Agrippina Vaganova’s method at the Petrograd State Ballet School and in the Mariinsky Ballet, Semyonova Ballerina Marina Semyonova rose quickly to prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where she danced for more than Sheppard, Bob (ROBERT LEO SHEP20 years. She retired from the stage in PARD), American sports announcer (b. 1952 but stayed on at the Bolshoi to Oct. 20, 1910, Queens, N.Y.—d. July 11, teach. In 1975 Semyonova was 2010, Baldwin, N.Y.), earned the nickawarded the title of People’s Artist of name “the voice of God” for his unmistakably sonorous, precise, and digthe U.S.S.R. nified speech as the longtime public Shatrov, Mikhail (MIKHAIL FILIPP- address announcer at Major League OVICH MARSHAK), Soviet playwright (b. Baseball’s Yankee Stadium. Sheppard April 3, 1932, Moscow, Russia, began announcing for the New York U.S.S.R.—d. May 23, 2010, Moscow, Yankees on April 17, 1951, which also Russia), inaugurated an age of new marked player Mickey Mantle’s debut artistic freedom with his self-pro- with the team and the start of Joe claimed “dramas of fact.” Shatrov’s DiMaggio’s final season. In 2000 the works delicately integrate social, polit- Yankees honoured Sheppard with a ical, and human issues with a touch of plaque in their stadium’s Monument

Park. His last game was on Sept. 5, 2007, when he retired owing to illness. He also announced for football teams, including the All-America Football Conference’s Brooklyn Dodgers (1947) and New York Yankees (1948–51) and the National Football League’s New York Giants (1956–2005). Sibanda, Gibson Jama, Zimbabwean politician (b. 1944, Filabusi, Southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]—d. Aug. 23/24, 2010, Bulawayo, Zimb.), challenged Pres. Robert Mugabe’s one-party rule as a powerful trade union leader and then as a cofounder (1999) and vice president (1999–2005) of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the 1970s Sibanda was an active member of Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU); as such, he was detained without trial by the white Rhodesian government in 1976–79, a period during which he was ZAPU’s welfare secretary. Sibanda’s greatest influence, however, was as a trade union leader. He served as president of the Railway Association of Enginemen (1982–84) and of the Zimbabwe Amalgamated Railwaymen’s Union (1987–89), as well as vice president (1988) and president (1989–99) of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), working with MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai. Sibanda represented the MDC as an MP (2000–08) in Zimbabwe’s parliament. In 2005 intraparty disagreements resulted in an MDC party schism, and Sibanda became vice president of the faction led by Arthur Mutambara. After Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government formed in 2009, Mutambara became deputy prime minister, with Sibanda as his minister of state. Siepi, Cesare, Italian opera singer (b. Feb. 10, 1923, Milan, Italy—d. July 5, 2010, Atlanta, Ga.), won international acclaim with his warm, resonant bass voice and seductive stage presence, notably as the title character in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which became his signature role. Siepi, who opposed Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, fled to Switzerland during World War II, but his career advanced quickly in postwar Italy, where he garnered notice at Milan’s La Scala opera house in Verdi’s 155

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Nabucco and Aida. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1950 as King Philip II in Verdi’s Don Carlos, and over the next quarter century he sang more than 300 performances in some 17 roles at the Met. Sillitoe, Alan, British writer (b. March 4, 1928, Nottingham, Eng.—d. April 25, 2010, London, Eng.), was one of the socalled Angry Young Men, whose brash and acrimonious accounts of workingclass life injected new vigour into postWorld War II British fiction. The son of a labourer, Sillitoe worked in factories from the age of 14. In 1946 he joined the air force, and for two years he served as a radio operator in Malaya. After his return to England, X-rays revealed that he had contracted tuberculosis, and he spent several months in a hospital. Between 1952 and 1958 he lived in France and Spain. In Majorca he met the poet Robert Graves, who suggested that he write about Nottingham, and Sillitoe began work on his first published novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958; filmed 1960). It was an immediate success, telling the story of a rude and amoral young labourer for whom drink and sex on Saturday night provide the only relief from the oppression of the working life. From his short-story collection The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1959), Sillitoe helped adapt the title story into a film (1962). Later novels include The Death of William Posters (1965), The Widower’s Son (1976), and Birthday (2001), a much-anticipated sequel to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Thomas’s Mignon drew international attention. Simionato was also closely associated with the Lyric Theatre of Chicago (later the Lyric Opera of Chicago), where she debuted in November 1954, singing Adalgisa opposite Maria Callas’s title role in Bellini’s Norma, the Lyric’s inaugural opera. Simionato retired in 1966. Simmons, Jean Merilyn, British-born American actress (b. Jan. 31, 1929, London, Eng.—d. Jan. 22, 2010, Santa Monica, Calif.), was known for her cool elegance, especially opposite strong leading men, in such films as The Robe (1953), Guys and Dolls (1955), Elmer Gantry (1960), and Spartacus (1960). At age 14, soon after she entered the Aida Foster dancing school, Simmons was chosen by director Val Guest for a role in what would be her screen debut, Give Us the Moon (1943). Over the next several years she had roles in more than a dozen British films, notably as Estella in Great Expectations (1946), as a native girl among nuns in Black Narcissus (1947), and as Ophelia in Laurence Olivier’s production of Hamlet (1948), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. In 1950, the same year she married actor Stewart Granger, Simmons moved to Hollywood; six years later she became a U.S. citizen. After her divorce (1960) from Granger, she married the director and writer Richard

Elegant actress Jean Simmons

Slabbert, Frederik van Zyl, South African politician and academic (b. March 2, 1940, Pretoria, S.Af.—d. May 14, 2010, Johannesburg, S.Af.), was a leading Afrikaner in the white opposition to South African apartheid and an MP for the antiapartheid Progressive Party (later renamed the Progressive Federal Party [PFP]) for 12 years (1974–86), the last 7 of which he was leader of the parliamentary opposition. In 1974 he was elected to Parliament, where he was one of several newly elected progressives to join Helen Suzman in the fight against racial discrimination. Slabbert unexpectedly resigned from Parliament (and leadership of the PFP) in February 1986, having decided that it had become irrelevant. That July he cofounded the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa, which formed alliances with the African National Congress and other black organizations. Smith, Carl M., American country music singer (b. March 15, 1927, Maynardville, Tenn.—d. Jan. 16, 2010, Franklin, Tenn.), was one of the most popular country music recording stars of the 1950s and ’60s as well as a regular fixture on television, which showcased his polished and handsome appearance, his refined ballad-style voice, and his infusion of upbeat rockand-roll music—a departure from the style of other country singers who embraced the honky-tonk sound. While in high school Smith began performing on WROL radio station in Knoxville, Tenn. After serving (1945–47) in the U.S. Navy, he returned to radio, appearing as a singer, guitarist, and bass player with the Brewster Brothers band at WROL, as well as at stations in Asheville, N.C., and Augusta, Ga. In 1950 he joined the Grand Ole Opry and signed a recording contract with Columbia Records. During the 1950s

Simionato, Giulietta, Italian mezzo soprano (b. May 12, 1910, Forlì, Italy— d. May 5, 2010, Rome, Italy), excelled at bel canto and lighter operas by Rossini and Mozart, which perfectly suited her wide vocal range and warm, expressive lyricism, though she later expanded her repertoire to include such dramatic roles as Amneris in Verdi’s Aida and the title character in Bizet’s Carmen. Simionato received a convent education and did not begin music lessons until she was in her late teens. She made her operatic debut in Montagnana in 1932 as Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, and the next year she won a major bel canto competition in Florence. She signed a contract with Milan’s La Scala in 1936 but performed mainly small roles there and elsewhere throughout Europe until her triumphant 1947 appearance in Ambroise AP

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Brooks; the couple divorced in 1977. Simmons earned a second Oscar nomination, for best actress, for her powerful portrait of an alcoholic in The Happy Ending (1969), written and directed by Brooks. Her other films include The Actress (1953), The Big Country (1958), and All the Way Home (1963). In later years Simmons appeared often on television, notably in The Thorn Birds (1983), for which she won an Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress in a limited series or special, and in a return to Great Expectations (1989).

Obituaries Abbie Rowe—EPA/Landov

he charted 30 Top 10 singles and 58 consecutive Top 40 hits on the Billboard country music chart. His string of number one hits includes “Are You Teasing Me” (1952), “Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way” (1952), “Hey Joe!” (1953), and “Loose Talk” (1955). Smith was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003. Smith, Elinor (ELINOR REGINA PATRICIA WARD; ELINOR SMITH SULLIVAN), American aviator (b. Aug. 17, 1911, Long Island, N.Y.—d. March 19, 2010, Palo Alto, Calif.), set several flying records and captured the country’s imagination with stunt flying in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Smith created a sensation in October 1928 when, on a dare, she flew a Waco 10 biplane under all four East River suspension bridges in New York City. She set a women’s solo endurance record of nearly 13.5 hours in January 1929 and surpassed it in April of the same year with a flight of nearly 26.5 hours. In 1930 Smith shattered the women’s altitude record when she flew a six-seat Bellanca up to 8,357 m (27,419 ft). The following year she took the plane up to 9,929 m (32,576 ft), high enough to make the fuel line freeze and to cause her to lose consciousness when she accidentally cut off her oxygen. In 1930 the licensed pilots of the U.S. voted her Best Woman Pilot in America. Smith, Nico (NICOLAAS JACOBUS SMITH), South African minister and activist (b. April 11, 1929, Kroonstad, Orange Free State [now Free State], S.Af.—d. June 19, 2010, Pretoria, S.Af.), challenged apartheid as the first white man to be allowed to live (1985–89) in a black community, in defiance of the Group Areas Act, when he moved to the black township of Mamelodi. Smith grew up among elite Afrikaners and attended theological school at the University of Pretoria. In 1981 he broke with the dominant apartheid policies and resigned from his position teaching at the University of Stellenbosch, from the Dutch Reformed Church, and from the racist Afrikaner fellowship Broederbond. Smith began preaching in 1982 for the breakaway Dutch Reformed Church in Africa in Mamelodi, where he became an antiapartheid activist, inquiring into the deaths of other activists and organizing (1988) a racial reconciliation event in which some 170 whites stayed in Mamelodi and blacks spent a few days in white suburban homes. After

apartheid was dismantled, Smith helped to form a multiracial congregation in Pretoria. Smyslov, Vasily Vasilyevich, Russian chess master (b. March 24, 1921, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. March 27, 2010, Moscow, Russia), won the world championship from fellow Soviet player Mikhail Botvinnik in 1957 and lost it to Botvinnik in a return match in 1958. Smyslov was taught chess by his father at the age of six, and in 1938 he won the Soviet youth championship. He achieved grandmaster status in 1941. He won the candidates qualification tournament in 1953 for the right to challenge Botvinnik, but a final 12–12 draw allowed Botvinnik to retain the world title until Smyslov returned to defeat him in 1957. After losing to Botvinnik in the rematch exactly one year later, Smyslov continued high-level play. He lost his last major event at age 63, falling in the final match of the 1984 candidates tournament to Garry Kasparov, who went on to take the world title. Sorensen, Ted (THEODORE CHAIKIN SORENSEN), American lawyer and presidential speechwriter (b. May 8, 1928, Lincoln, Neb.—d. Oct. 31, 2010, New York, N.Y.), had a profound role in the administration of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy (1961–63), serving as an influential inner-circle adviser, special counsel, and speechwriter who was credited with helping to draft some of Kennedy’s most inspiring and memorable addresses to the country. After Sorensen earned a B.S. (1949) and an LL.B. (1951) from the University of Nebraska, he worked as an assistant (1953–61) to Kennedy, who was serving as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts. It was during this time that Kennedy won the 1957 Pultizer Prize for the nonfiction work Profiles in Courage (1956). It later became an open secret that Sorensen had contributed substantially to the writing. Sorensen defined his proudest moment, however, as his role in defusing the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. He and the president’s brother Robert Kennedy, who was then U.S. attorney general, had carefully crafted a letter that was sent to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and the missive helped to avert a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets, who had installed nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. Sorensen and President Kennedy had forged a tight bond during the run-up to the

JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen 1960 presidential election; they visited all 50 states together. While Sorensen polished his writing skills, Kennedy improved his oratorical skills, and Kennedy’s inaugural address, in which he urged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” was considered the modern benchmark for oratory. After President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Sorensen briefly remained in Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration before returning to private life in 1964. He ran in 1970 for the Senate seat in New York left vacant following the assassination of Robert Kennedy, but he lost his bid to carry on the Kennedy legacy. Sorensen published his memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, in 2008. Soyer, David, American musician (b. Feb. 24, 1923, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. Feb. 25, 2010, New York, N.Y.), cofounded (1964) the world-renowned Guarneri String Quartet, for which he served as cellist until his retirement in 2001. The Guarneri, which also consisted of violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley and violist Michael Tree, achieved the distinction of being the longest continually performing quartet in the world, maintaining all 157

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original members for 37 years. Though not from a musical family, Soyer began playing the cello at age 11 and debuted in a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1942. During World War II, Soyer played both the euphonium and the cello with the U.S. Navy Band; after the war he occasionally served as cellist with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He was a dominant presence at the Marlboro (Vt.) Music Festival every year since 1961 and was a faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and the Manhattan School of Music. In 2009 he returned to perform a final time with the Guarneri at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, before the group disbanded. Spohr, Arnold Theodore, Canadian dancer, choreographer, and artistic director (b. Dec. 26, 1923, Rhein, Sask.— d. April 12, 2010, Winnipeg, Man.), in his role as the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s (RWB’s) enterprising artistic director (1958–88), was responsible for transforming the struggling company from a small regional one into an internationally renowned troupe. Spohr, who trained in New York City, Hollywood, and London, joined the ballet company as a dancer in 1945, prior to its royal charter in 1953. A fire destroyed the RWB premises in 1954, and the group suspended activities for two years. As interim director (1957) and artistic director, Spohr not only produced Canadian-themed ballets—notably Brian Macdonald’s The Shining People of Leonard Cohen (1970) and Norbert Vesak’s The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (1971)— but also invited American choreographers, including Agnes de Mille and John Neumeier, to produce works for the RWB, which undertook numerous international tours to showcase its repertoire. Spohr’s awards include the Dance Magazine Award (1982; the first Canadian to be so honoured), the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1998), the inaugural Order of Manitoba (2000), and the Companion of the Order of Canada (2004). Starkey, Greville Michael Wilson, British jockey (b. Dec. 21, 1939, Lichfield, Staffordshire, Eng.—d. April 14, 2010, Kennett, near Newmarket, Suffolk, Eng.), rode some 2,000 winners (1,989 in Britain) in a Thoroughbred racing career that spanned more than three decades. In his best year, 1978, Starkey won 107 races, including a rare “double-double” when he captured 158

both the Epsom Derby and the Irish Derby aboard Shirley Heights (later voted Horse of the Year) as well as both the Epsom Oaks and Irish Oaks on Fair Salinia. Many observers considered his greatest individual achievement to have been the 1975 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris when he won aboard the 118–1 long shot Star Appeal. A loss in 1986, however, cast a shadow over Starkey’s entire career: after having taken Dancing Brave to victory in the Two Thousand Guineas, he narrowly failed to capture the Derby when he held the colt, the overwhelming favourite, back until too late in the race. Starkey retired in November 1989. Stein, Joseph, American librettist (b. May 30, 1912, Bronx, N.Y.—d. Oct. 24, 2010, New York, N.Y.), wrote the books for the Broadway musical greats Fiddler on the Roof (1964), for which he earned a Tony Award, and Zorba (1968); he also wrote the 1971 screenplay for Fiddler. Stein was working as a social worker when he met actor Zero Mostel, who paid him to create some comedic material for radio. Stein soon made his Broadway writing debut, crafting a sketch (with Will Glickman) for Lend an Ear (1948). During the 1950s Stein joined the comedy writing staff of Sid Caesar’s television series Your Show of Shows. Other Stein Broadway credits include Plain and Fancy (1955, with Glickman), Take Me Along (1959, with Robert Russell), Enter Laughing (1963), and his last, Rags (1986), for which he earned a Tony Award nomination. He continued to work well into his 90s, producing books for regional theatre. Steinbrenner, George Michael, III (“THE BOSS”), American businessman and sports executive (b. July 4, 1930, Rocky River, Ohio—d. July 13, 2010, Tampa, Fla.), was the principal owner (1973–2010) of the New York Yankees professional baseball team. Though his exacting methods and often bellicose manner established him as one of the most controversial personalities in Major League Baseball (MLB), under his ownership the Yankees became one of the most dominant teams in baseball (winning 7 World Series titles [1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009] and 11 pennants) and one of the most valuable franchises in sports (valued at about $1.6 billion in 2010). In 1957 he joined his family’s shipping company, and by 1967 he had ac-

quired the American Ship Building Company, which he soon merged with the family business. The shipbuilding company made him a fortune. In 1973 Steinbrenner and a group of investors purchased the Yankees franchise for a net price of $8.7 million. Though he had vowed to distance himself from the quotidian activities of the team, the autocratic tendencies for which he would become infamous—and that would earn him the nickname “the Boss”—emerged during the season opener when he demanded that several players cut their long hair. In 1974 Steinbrenner was indicted for obstruction of justice and for conspiring to make illegal contributions to U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. Steinbrenner was convicted and, as a result, suspended from MLB until 1976. He was barred again (1990–93) for mounting a smear campaign against a player. In 2002 he expanded the Yankees empire with the creation of the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, a regional broadcasting network devoted chiefly to coverage of the team. Steinbrenner frequently indulged in highly publicized spats with members of his team and staff. (He fired manager Billy Martin four separate times and accepted Martin’s resignation once.) In addition, his practice of paying skyhigh sums to star players (Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, and Derek Jeter, among others) was widely blamed for escalating salaries in the major leagues. In 2008 Steinbrenner turned over control of the team to his sons, Hank and Hal. Stevens, Ted (T HEODORE FULTON STEVENS), American politician (b. Nov. 18, 1923, Indianapolis, Ind.—found dead Aug. 10, 2010, near Dillingham, Alaska), was the longest-serving (1968– 2009) Republican in the U.S. Senate and was well known for his ability, particularly as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee (1997–2001 and 2003–05), to funnel to the state of Alaska billions of dollars in federal funding for highways, military bases, and most famously the “bridge to nowhere.” (The latter $452 million project to link two tiny islands to the mainland was later dropped.) Stevens moved (1953) to Fairbanks, Alaska, to practice law and then worked (1956–61) for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., where he championed statehood for Alaska (achieved in 1959). Stevens was twice

Obituaries © Metropolitan Opera Archives/Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library

defeated (1962, 1968) in bids for the U.S. Senate. He was elected in 1964 to the Alaska State House of Representatives and became majority leader in 1966. On Dec. 24, 1968, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. E.L. Bartlett. Stevens earned a reputation as a powerful advocate for Alaskan industry. In 1971 he helped to draft the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which compensated indigenous communities for millions of hectares of land needed for the construction of the TransAlaska Pipeline (completed 1977). Despite concerns voiced by environmentalists, in the early 1980s he brokered legislation that opened the Tongass National Forest to logging and mandated millions of dollars in federal payments to Alaska for prohibiting development in other large wilderness areas. Opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland (The federal government cut the earmark in 2009.) Though Stevens was a fierce advocate of allowing oil drilling in the Arctic Na- cenzo Bellini’s Norma and Gaetano tional Wildlife Refuge, his efforts to Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, win approval for this were unsuccess- which became her signature role. She ful. In 2008 Stevens was convicted in a made her singing debut in Sydney in federal corruption trial and lost his bid 1947 as Dido in a concert performance for reelection; in 2009 a federal judge of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and overruled the conviction, citing prose- her operatic debut in 1951 in the title cutorial misconduct. Stevens perished role of Sir Eugene Goossens’s Judith. Cash prizes from several vocal compein a private airplane crash. titions made it possible for her to Stuart, Gloria Frances, American ac- study at the Royal College of Music, tress (b. July 4, 1910, Santa Monica, London. In 1952 she was accepted into Calif.—d. Sept. 26, 2010, Los Angeles, the company of the Royal Opera, Calif.), appeared in many Hollywood Covent Garden, and made her first apmotion pictures of the 1930s and ’40s, pearance there as the First Lady in but she was best known for her role as Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Although her Old Rose in the blockbuster movie Ti- training was as a dramatic Wagnerian tanic (1997), which garnered her a soprano, Sutherland began to develop nomination for the Academy Award for her higher range in the florid colbest supporting actress; she was the oratura repertoire with the help and oldest performer ever nominated for an encouragement of her Australian acOscar. As a young actress, Stuart had companist and vocal coach, Richard starring roles in the horror pictures The Bonynge, whom she married in 1954. Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisi- (He later became a much-lauded conble Man (1933) as well as parts in Gold ductor.) In 1959 Covent Garden reDiggers of 1935 (1935) and Rebecca of vived Lucia di Lammermoor for her, and in 1961 she made her New York Sunnybrook Farm (1938). City debut in the same role at the MetSutherland, Dame Joan Alston (“LA ropolitan Opera. Her later successes STUPENDA”), Australian soprano (b. included Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Nov. 7, 1926, Sydney, Australia—d. Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of HoffOct. 10, 2010, Les Avants, Switz.), was mann, and Donizetti’s La Fille du régiinternationally recognized as the lead- ment. She also had an impressive coning coloratura of the 20th century, no- cert career and appeared on many tably in bel canto operas such as Vin- highly acclaimed recordings. She re-

tired from performing in 1990. Sutherland was made DBE in 1978 and granted the Order of Merit in 1991. Sutzkever, Avrom (ABRAHAM SUTZKEVER; AVRAHAM SUTSKEVER), Russian-born Yiddish-language poet (b. July 15, 1913, Smorgon, White Russia, Russian Empire [now Smarhon, Belarus]—d. Jan. 20, 2010, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel), became a major figure in Yiddish letters as he celebrated nature, beauty, and language in his poetry and chronicled his childhood in Siberia, his life in the World War II ghetto in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lith.), and his escape to join the Jewish partisans. In 1915 Sutzkever and his family fled to Siberia to escape World War I; they returned home in 1921 and settled near Vilna, where Sutzkever later studied literary criticism at the University of Vilna. Although he began writing poetry in Hebrew around 1927, he came under the influence of intellectual thought at the Yiddish Scientific Institute (later the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research) and became associated with Yung Vilne, a group of aspiring Yiddish artists and writers living in Vilna. Early in his career Sutzkever contributed to the American Modernist poetry journal In zikh (“In Oneself” or “Introspection”). His first published collection, Lider (1937; “Songs”), was praised for its innovative imagery, language, and form. During World War II, Sutzkever was a central cultural figure in the Vilna ghetto and was one of the Jewish intellectuals chosen to select books and other Jewish cultural artifacts to be sent to the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, founded by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg; the remainder was sold for pulp. Sutzkever led the effort to save whatever could be rescued, first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets; thousands of volumes and documents survived and were eventually reclaimed by the YIVO Institute. In 1946 he testified at the Nürnberg (Ger.) trials, and in 1947 he settled in Palestine (later Israel), where he founded and edited (1949–95) the Yiddish literary journal Di goldene keyt (“The Golden Chain”). A. Sutzkever: Selected Poetry and Prose (1991) and Beneath the Trees (2003) are collections of his work in English translation. 159

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Takamine, Hideko (HIDEKO HIRAYAMA), Japanese actress (b. March 27, 1924, Hakodate, Japan—d. Dec. 28, 2010, Tokyo, Japan), was considered by critics to be one of the great actresses of the classical Japanese cinema. During a career that spanned 50 years (1929–79), Takamine was most noted for her roles as strong-willed women from lower economic backgrounds who rose to success and independence despite the unsupportive men in their lives. She was also among the first Japanese film stars to break free of studio contracts and took command of her own career in 1950. At age five Takamine debuted in the film Haha (1929; “Mother”), and she performed in lighthearted musicals and comedies throughout the 1930s. She began to make the transition from child star to more mature roles in such films as Uma (1941; “Horse”). A few years later she broke with imperial tradition by playing a progressive free-minded woman in the American-style film Ginza kankan musume (1949; “Cancan Dancer of the Ginza”). Takamine worked often with director Mikio Naruse, notably in Ukigumo (1955; Floating Clouds) and Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (1960; When a Woman Ascends the Stairs), and with Keisuke Kinoshita, for whom she starred in the first Japanese colour film, Karumen kokyo ni kaeru (1951; Carmen Comes Home), among others. She made her final screen appearance in Shodo satsujin: musuko yo (1979; My Son! My Son!). She received a lifetime achievement award from the Japanese Academy in 1996. Classical actress Hideko Takamine

Tantawi, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid, Egyptian Muslim cleric (b. Oct. 28, 1928, Salim al-Sharqiyyah, Sawhaj govAmr Nabil/AP

Moderate Muslim cleric Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi ernorate, Egypt—d. March 10, 2010, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), was a moderate Sunni scholar who was grand mufti of Egypt (1986–96) and then served (1996–2010) as grand imam of al-Azhar mosque and grand sheikh of al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he had been educated. Many of his declarations offended traditionalists, and hard-line Muslims vehemently opposed him. In 1989 he ruled that some forms of financial interest, including those on bank loans and on savings accounts, were permissible, although in Islam all forms of interest were traditionally viewed as forbidden. Tantawi spoke out against suicide bombings and in particular condemned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He asserted that women held rights in Islam, including the right to hold important government offices. In 2009 he declared that he opposed women’s wearing the niqab, or veil covering the face, and he ruled that Muslim women and girls could follow the law in France that forbade them to attend school while wearing the hijab, the traditional head covering. Tantawi also promoted dialogue between faiths. Tatum, Jack (JOHN DAVID American football player (b. 1948, Cherryville, N.C.—d. 2010, Oakland, Calif.), earned

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TATUM), Nov. 18, July 27, the nick-

name “the Assassin” with his exceptionally hard tackles, one of which paralyzed New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 NFL preseason game. Tatum spent nine seasons (1971–79) with the NFL Oakland Raiders, where his brutal hits, 30 interceptions, and quality play at safety contributed to the team’s tough reputation and 1977 Super Bowl championship. Tatum began playing football in high school and in 1968 went to Ohio State University (OSU) as a running back before switching to defense. While attending OSU he contributed to the team’s 1968 national championship, was designated the country’s best college defensive player (1970), and was twice named an All-American. In the NFL Tatum was selected to the Pro Bowl three times (1973–75), and he retired in 1980 after a final season with the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans). Taylor, Billy (WILLIAM EDWARD TAYLOR, JR.), American jazz pianist, educator, and broadcaster (b. July 24, 1921, Greenville, N.C.—d. Dec. 28, 2010, New York, N.Y.), became the most prominent spokesman for the virtues of jazz, beginning with The Subject Is Jazz, a 1958 television series for which he was musical director. After hosting (1966) his own New York City TV show, he led the band on David Frost’s 1969–72 TV series and fronted a jazz show on the Bravo network. In addition, he was an arts correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning. On radio he was a New York City disc jockey (1959–69) and later hosted the Jazz Alive and Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center publicbroadcasting series. Taylor was a brightly melodic pianist who accompanied swing and bebop stars, including Charlie Parker, Artie Shaw, and Dizzy Gillespie, and beginning in 1951 he led trios in American jazz clubs and concert halls. Taylor was especially proud of his doctorate (1975) in music education from the University of Massachusetts. In 1964 he founded the muchacclaimed Jazzmobile to present leading jazz artists in free concerts and school programs around New York City and elsewhere. Teena Marie (MARY CHRISTINE BROCKERT ), American rhythm-andblues musician (b. March 5, 1956, Santa Monica, Calif.—d. Dec. 26, 2010, Pasadena, Calif.), was known for her robust voice and soulful delivery in a series of hit singles in the late 1970s

Obituaries

and early ’80s. Teena Marie was signed in the mid-1970s by the recording company Motown, which usually limited itself to African American artists. Rick James, a funk musician with the label, became her mentor, writing and producing her 1979 debut album, Wild and Peaceful. The album produced a hit duet with James, “I’m Just a Sucker for Your Love.” Teena Marie included some of her own songs on Lady T (1980) and wrote and produced almost all of her subsequent releases. Her notable singles for Motown included “I Need Your Lovin’ ” (1980) and “Square Biz” (1981). After signing (1983) with the Epic label, she released such top hits as “Lovergirl” (1984) and “Ooo La La La” (1988). Teena Marie was significant for her successful lawsuit against Motown, which in 1982 established the legal principle that a label may not keep an artist under contract while refusing to release that artist’s recordings. Terre’Blanche, Eugène Ney, South African farmer and Afrikaner nationalist (b. Jan. 31, 1941, Ventersdorp, Transvaal province, S.Af. [now in North West province]—d. April 3, 2010, near Ventersdorp), cofounded (1970) the pro-apartheid Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB, Afrikaner Resistance Movement), through which he fought against majority rule in South Apartheid advocate Eugène Terre’Blanche

Africa and campaigned for a separate whites-only homeland. Terre’Blanche was of French Huguenot ancestry and originally trained as a police officer, serving for a time as a presidential bodyguard. He became well known as a fiery public speaker with a penchant for wearing paramilitary uniforms and sporting neo-Nazi symbols, though his influence waned in later years. The AWB was accused of several acts of white-supremacist terrorism, including a 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre near Johannesburg and a bomb campaign in 1994, and Terre’Blanche himself was arrested several times and served three years (2001–04) in prison for attempted murder. He was found beaten and slashed to death in his home, reportedly after a dispute with two young farm workers over unpaid wages. Terzieff, Laurent (LAURENT DIDIER ALEX TCHEMERZINE), French actor and director (b. June 27, 1935, Toulouse, France—d. July 2, 2010, Paris, France), established his on-screen persona in his first major film role as a cynical existentialist in director Marcel Carné’s Les Tricheurs (1958), and throughout the next five decades, his leading-man good looks often belied performances marked by an aura of torment or disaffection. Terzieff’s other notable roles include a conscientious objector in Claude Autant-Lara’s Tu ne tueras point (1961), Brigitte Bardot’s lover in Serge Bourguignon’s À coeur joie (1967), a literary-minded investigator in Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective (1985), and an anarchist in Claude Berri’s Germinal (1993). Terzieff began his stage career in avantgarde writer Arthur Adamov’s Tous contre tous (1953) and later proved equally adept at performing in classic and contemporary plays. Working with the theatre company bearing his name, which he founded in 1961, Terzieff earned numerous Molière Awards, notably for best director with Ce que voit fox (1988) and Temps contre temps (1993) and for best actor in 2010 for both L’Habilleur, portraying an actor in existential crisis, and Sophocles’ Philoctetes, as the bitter Greek warrior. Terzieff was made an Officer of the National Order of Merit and a Commander of Arts and Letters. Thigpen, Ed (EDMUND LEONARD THIGPEN), American jazz musician (b. Dec. 28, 1930, Chicago, Ill.—d. Jan. 13, 2010, Copenhagen, Den.), played drums with intense swing yet with a discretion and sensitivity that made

him a favourite accompanist of singers and member of small groups. Thigpen, the son of veteran big-band drummer Ben Thigpen, played in bop and swingstyled combos in the 1950s, including pianist Billy Taylor’s trio (1956–59), and recorded with singer Blossom Dearie, pianist Mal Waldron, saxophonists John Coltrane and Paul Quinichette, and others. He became most noted as a member (1959–65) of the popular Oscar Peterson Trio and as the drummer for singer Ella Fitzgerald through most of 1966–72. Though Thigpen moved to Copenhagen in 1972 and drummed for touring American and European jazz artists, he also frequently returned to perform and teach in the U.S. Toye, Wendy (BERYL MAY JESSIE TOYE), British dancer, choreographer, and director (b. May 1, 1917, London, Eng.—d. Feb. 27, 2010, Hillingdon, London), forged a successful path into the male-dominated profession of film directing in the 1950s during an illustrious and diverse career that spanned some eight decades. A child prodigy, Toye made her first stage appearance at the age of four at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and by age nine she had choreographed a ballet at the London Palladium. She made her professional stage debut at age 12 as a fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Old Vic theatre in London and then toured with professional theatre and dance companies, including the British Ballet, during her teenage years. Toye began choreographing professional dance productions in the 1930s and advanced to directing during the 1940s. She also gained experience in motion pictures as an actress, dancer, and director of dance sequences, and in 1952 she directed her first film, The Stranger Left No Card, which won an award for best short at the Cannes film festival. Toye was actively working in theatre and dance well into her 70s. She was appointed CBE in 1992. Tretyakov, Sergey Olegovich, Russian intelligence officer (b. Oct. 5, 1956, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. June 13, 2010, Osprey, Fla.), left his position as a colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)—a successor agency of the Soviet KGB—in 2000 to defect to the U.S., where he gave the FBI and the CIA an estimated 5,000 secret cables and additional information about Russian intelligence operations and agents. Tretyakov studied at the

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Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow and rose through the ranks of the KGB and, later, the SVR. By 1995 he was responsible for covert operations abroad while nominally serving the Russian government as a senior aide at the UN in New York City. He reportedly began supplying the U.S. with information in 1997, before leaving the SVR to live in hiding; American intelligence agencies allegedly rewarded his defection with a settlement of some $2 million. After the publication of Pete Earley’s authorized biography Comrade J.: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War (2007), Tretyakov lived openly under his real name. Udall, Stewart Lee, American conservationist (b. Jan. 31, 1920, St. Johns, Ariz.—d. March 20, 2010, Santa Fe, N.M.), preserved millions of hectares of wilderness while serving as interior secretary under U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was elected to Congress in 1954 and was nominated (1961) as interior secretary by President Kennedy. In this post Udall was instrumental in acquiring more than 1.5 million ha (nearly 4 million ac) of land that included Canyonlands (Utah), Guadalupe Mountains (Texas), North Cascades (Washington), and Redwood (California) national parks, 6 national monuments, 8 national seashores, notably Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and Point Reyes (California), 9 national recreation areas, 20 historical sites, and 50 wildlife refuges. Because of his interest in historical structures, Udall helped to spare New York City’s Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball. He also assisted in the creation of several pieces of legislation, including the Wilderness Act (1964), which saved more than 40 million ha (100 million ac), and the Endangered Species Act (1973). An advocate for Native Americans, Udall filed a lawsuit against the government on behalf of Navajo miners who developed cancer after being exposed to uranium. He was the brother of longtime representative Morris (Mo) Udall.

ing several centimetres of armour. The portable rocket launcher consisted of a smooth-bore steel tube, originally about 1.5 m (5 ft) long, open at both ends, and equipped with a hand grip, a shoulder rest, a trigger mechanism, and sights. The shoulder-fired device, which was designed to prevent soldiers from suffering powder burns on their faces, was called the bazooka because it was similar to a tube-shaped musical instrument of that name. After the war, Uhl worked for Glenn L. Martin Co., where he led efforts to develop guided missiles; for Ryan Aeronautical Co., where he served as vice president (1959–61); and for Fairchild Industries, which he converted from an airplane producer to an aerospace powerhouse during his tenures as president and chief executive (1961–76) and chairman (1976–85). Under his expert guidance, Fairchild developed the A-10 Thunderbolt II close combat aircraft (“the Warthog”), which demolished a sizable number of Iraqi tanks during the Persian Gulf War.

world champion in two weight divisions and won all 27 of his professional career fights by knockout; he gained a huge following among boxing fans in his native Venezuela and around the world with his explosive punching power and relentless style. Valero made his professional debut in 2002 and established a record when he scored a first-round knockout in each of his first 18 professional bouts. He won the World Boxing Association super featherweight title in 2006 and, after defending the title four times, moved up in weight and captured the World Boxing Council lightweight title in 2009. As his boxing fame grew, his life outside the ring became increasingly troubled, however. He reportedly battled drug and alcohol addictions and in March 2010 was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his wife. The following month, after his wife was found stabbed to death in a hotel, Valero was detained again and was to be charged with her murder. His death while in custody was an apparent suicide.

Valero, Edwin, Venezuelan boxer (b. Dec. 3, 1981, Bolero Alto, Venez.—d. April 19, 2010, Caracas, Venez.), was a

Verrett, Shirley, American opera singer (b. May 31, 1931, New Orleans, La.—d. Nov. 5, 2010, Ann Arbor, Mich.), was a mezzo-soprano who had a regal onstage presence and a colourful vocal range; she was best known in the U.S. and Europe for her roles as Georges Bizet’s fiery Carmen, as both Dido and Cassandra in Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens, and as Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore. Verrett studied (1955) singing in Los Angeles before continuing her education at the Juilliard School, New York City. She made her operatic debut in Ohio in 1957 in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Two years later she made her European bow in Cologne, Ger., where she portrayed the gypsy in Nicolas Nabokov’s Rasputin’s End. Her first appearance at La Scala, in Milan, came in 1966, and she continued to perform there until 1984. Italians dubbed her La Nera Callas (“The Black Callas”). By the late 1980s, however, her vocal quality was becoming inconsistent. From 1996 to 2010 Verrett taught at the University of Michigan School of Music. Her autobiography, I Never Walked Alone (written with Christopher Brooks), was published in 2003.

Powerful pugilist Edwin Valero

Uhl, Edward George, American engineer and aerospace executive (b. March 24, 1918, Elizabeth, N.J.—d. May 9, 2010, Easton, Md.), was serving in the U.S. Army during World War II when he helped develop (1942) a weapon, nicknamed the bazooka, that fired an explosive that was capable of penetrat-

Voznesensky, Andrey Andreyevich, Russian poet (b. May 12, 1933, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. June 1, 2010, Moscow, Russia), was one of the Caribe Focus—Archivolatino/Redux

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most prominent of the generation of writers that emerged in the Soviet Union after the Stalinist era. In 1941, while his father assisted in the evacuation of Leningrad, Voznesensky moved with his mother and sister from the city of Vladimir to Kurgan, in the Ural Mountains. The profound effects of the war on his developing psyche later found vivid expression in Voznesensky’s poetry, notably in perhaps his bestknown poem, “Goya” (1960), in which he uses a series of powerful metaphors to express the horrors of war. After the war the family returned to Moscow. While a student at Moscow Architectural Institute, from which he graduated in 1957, Voznesensky sent some of his own verses to the author Boris Pasternak, who became his role model and tutor for the next three years. Voznesensky’s first published poems, which appeared in 1958, are experimental works marked by changing metres and rhythms, a distinctive use of assonance and sound associations, and a passionate but intellectually subtle moral fervour. During the late 1950s and early ’60s, he participated in a creative renaissance in the Soviet Union and became a star attraction at huge public poetry readings. The readings came to a sudden halt in 1963, however, when Soviet artists and writers working in “excessively experimental” styles were subjected to an official campaign of condemnation. Despite frequent criticism of his work, Voznesensky retained his position as an “official” writer (he received the State Prize in 1978). He was therefore able to act in ways otherwise dangerous for a Soviet author: he wrote letters that condemned the occupation of Czechoslovakia and defended the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and he collaborated on the underground magazine Metropol. Wagner, Wolfgang Manfred Martin, German opera director and impresario (b. Aug. 30, 1919, Bayreuth, Ger.—d. March 21, 2010, Bayreuth), devoted more than 50 years of his life to the legacy of composer Richard Wagner (his grandfather) and to the annual Bayreuth Festival, the family-run summer event founded in 1876 as a venue for his grandfather’s operas. After a post-World War II hiatus, the annual festival resumed in 1951 with Wolfgang as co-director in charge of finance and his older brother, Wieland, as the artistic director. After Wieland’s death in 1966, Wolfgang remained as sole director (1966–2008). An autocratic leader

munist Poland. Walentynowicz died in a plane crash that also killed Pres. Lech Kaczynski (q.v.), his wife, and some 90 others.

who excluded most other members of the family from Bayreuth, Wolfgang was credited with revitalizing the festival by putting it on a more secure financial footing and, after Wieland’s death, by hiring new directors to mount more innovative productions of the operas. During the last years of his tenure, however, he was at the centre of a power struggle between Eva Wagner-Pasquier, his estranged daughter from his first marriage; Katharina Wagner, his much-younger daughter from a later second marriage and his favoured successor; and Wieland’s daughter, Nike Wagner. When Wolfgang was compelled to step down in 2008 because of failing health, Eva and Katharina were named co-directors.

Walker, Albertina (TINA), American gospel singer (b. Aug. 28, 1929, Chicago, Ill.—d. Oct. 8, 2010, Chicago), inspired audiences with her powerful contralto voice while performing with the Chicago-based Caravans, a gospel group she founded in 1951, and later as a church soloist, with her signature song, “Lord, Keep Me Day by Day.” Walker began singing as a child in church choirs and went on to become a protégé of gospel great Mahalia Jackson. She briefly toured with the Willie Webb Singers and recorded her first song, “He’ll Be There,” before joining Robert Anderson and His Gospel Caravan. When Anderson retired, she formed the Caravans, which featured at various times some of the most talented gospel artists, including Shirley Caesar, Inez Andrews, Delores Washington, Cassietta George, Dorothy Norwood, and Bessie Griffin. Walker, who was dubbed a “star maker,” was known for turning the spotlight from herself to other Caravan featured singers. The group’s hits include such songs as “Mary Don’t You Weep,” “I Won’t Be Back,” “(I Know) The Lord Will Provide,” and “Tell Him What You Want.” Walker released more than 50 albums, one of which, Songs of the Church: Live in Memphis (1994) won a Grammy Award. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001, and in 2002 Pres. George W. Bush honoured her at the White House for her contributions to gospel music.

Walentynowicz, Anna, Polish labour leader and political activist (b. Aug. 13, 1929, Rowne, Pol.—d. April 10, 2010, Smolensk, Russia), was working as a crane operator at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk when she was fired in August 1980, allegedly in response to illegal trade-union and antigovernment activities. Her dismissal helped to trigger a massive strike at the shipyard and additional strikes throughout the country, which ultimately led to the founding of the independent trade union Solidarity under Lech Walesa. After her shipyard job was restored amid the protests, Walentynowicz stayed active in Solidarity, but she had a falling out with Walesa after he was elected president of Poland in 1990. Despite this division, she remained a revered figure in postcom-

Warren, David Ronald, Australian scientist (b. March 20, 1925, Groote Eylandt, N.Terr., Australia—d. July 19, 2010, Melbourne, Australia), invented (1957) the first flight data recorder (FDR), or Black Box, a device (in a red or orange crash-proof case) that can collect and store data about the performance and condition of an airplane in flight and then make that information available to investigators seeking to determine the cause of a crash. After his father died in 1934 in one of Australia’s first airplane disasters, Warren developed his early interest in electronics and chemistry. He matriculated at the University of Sydney (B.Sc.) and Imperial College London (Ph.D.) and taught chemistry before moving to Melbourne in 1952 to become principal re-

German opera director Wolfgang Wagner

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search scientist at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (now part of the Australian Department of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation); he retired in 1983. In 1967 Australia became the first country to make the FDR mandatory equipment on all aircraft. In 2002 Warren was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. Wayburn, Edgar, American conservationist (b. Sept. 17, 1906, Macon, Ga.— d. March 5, 2010, San Francisco, Calif.), was awarded (1999) the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his leading role in helping to preserve more than 40 million ha (100 million ac) of North American wilderness. He joined the Sierra Club in 1939 and was thereafter elected to the executive board of the local chapter, for which he formed the first conservation committee. Using a quiet, low-key method of writing letters, raising funds, attending public hearings, and lobbying public officials, Wayburn succeeded in conserving millions of wild hectares in Alaska (through the passage of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) and California, all while maintaining his full-time status as a physician. He was instrumental in establishing and expanding numerous public lands in California, most notably the Redwood National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Mt. Tamalpais State Park, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Wayburn served five terms as president of the Sierra Club and published the memoir Your Land and Mine: Evolution of a Conservationist (2004). In recognition of his selfless devotion to the environment, Wayburn was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1995. Weiss, George David, American songwriter (b. April 9, 1921, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 23, 2010, Oldwick, N.J.), composed some of the greatest pop hits of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, notably “What a Wonderful World” (1967; with Bob Thiele), which was recorded by Louis Armstrong and featured in the film Good Morning, Vietnam (1987). Weiss studied music theory at the Juilliard School, New York City, and served as a bandmaster in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war the multi-instrumentalist (piano, violin, saxophone, and clarinet) embarked on a songwriting career and collaborated with composer Bennie Benjamin to write three number one hit songs in 1946: “Surrender,” “Rumors Are Fly164

ing,” and “Oh, What It Seemed to Be,” sung by Frank Sinatra. He achieved his crowning success, however, when he co-wrote “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (1961), which became a top hit and later was featured in the 1994 Disney film The Lion King, and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (1961), made popular by Elvis Presley in the film Blue Hawaii (1961). Weiss also collaborated on the Broadway musicals Mr. Wonderful (1956), First Impressions (1959), and Maggie Flynn (1968) and wrote numerous movie scores. In his role as president (1982–2000) of the Songwriters Guild of America, Weiss advocated on behalf of composers for more stringent copyright protection. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

July 17, 1962, he flew an X-15 to an altitude of 95.9 km (59.6 mi). As a result of this feat, he became the first pilot of an airplane to earn the winged badge of an astronaut and played an important role in the development of manned spaceflight.

Weyand, Frederick Carlton, general (ret.), U.S. Army (b. Sept. 15, 1916, Arbuckle, Calif.—d. Feb. 10, 2010, Honolulu, Hawaii), served (1972–73) as the final commander of all United States military forces in Vietnam during the last year of the war. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree (1939) in criminology, Weyand, who had served in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, was called up in 1940 by the army for active duty. During World War II he was an intelligence officer in India, China, and Burma (now Myanmar), and he commanded an infantry battalion during the Korean War. Weyand became commander of the 25th Infantry Division in 1964 and went with it to Vietnam several months later. Known for his candid approach, he remarked in 1967 (referring to Gen. William C. Westmoreland) that “Westy just doesn’t get it. The war is unwinnable. We’ve reached a stalemate, and we should find a dignified way out.” Weyand became army chief of staff in 1974 and retired in 1976. His military awards include the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medals, the Silver Star, Legions of Merit, and the Bronze Star.

Wild, Earl, American pianist, composer, and teacher (b. Nov. 26, 1915, Pittsburgh, Pa.—d. Jan. 23, 2010, Palm Springs, Calif.), built an impressive career as one of the most technically accomplished pianists of any era. He was best known for his mastery of 19thcentury Romantic showpieces and for playing his own virtuoso interpretations of works by composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky. Wild began studying piano at age 4. At age 15 he performed Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the visiting Minneapolis Symphony. After graduating (1937) from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), he worked (1937–44) in New York City as staff pianist for the NBC radio and television network. In 1939 Wild performed the first televised piano recital, and in 1997 he became the first pianist to perform live on the Internet. Wild came to national attention when he played (1942) George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony in a radio broadcast. During World War II, Wild served (1942–44) as a musician in the U.S. Navy. As the ABC television network’s staff pianist, conductor, and composer (1944–68), he wrote comic music for Sid Caesar (1954–57) and composed serious music for the network (Easter Oratorio and Revelations, both in 1962). From 1939 Wild recorded frequently; his discography includes more than 700 solo piano works, 35 concertos, and 26 recordings of chamber music. His album Earl Wild: The Romantic Master won a Grammy Award in 1997; he performed his last public concert at age 92. In 1986 the Hungarian government awarded Wild the Liszt Medal.

White, Robert Michael, major general (ret.), U.S. Air Force (b. July 6, 1924, New York, N.Y.—d. March 17, 2010, Orlando, Fla.), was a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force when he became the first American to fly an airplane into outer space. In a series of flights, he took the rocket-powered X-15 to new aircraft speed records of Mach 4, Mach 5, and Mach 6 (four, five, and six times the speed of sound, respectively), and on

Wilkes, Sir Maurice Vincent, British computer scientist (b. June 26, 1913, Dudley, Worcestershire, Eng.—d. Nov. 29, 2010, Cambridge, Eng.), was a primary figure in early computer science, notably through his work to develop and build the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) (1949), the first full-size stored-program computer. He also received credit for inventing microprogramming (1951), co-

Obituaries John Robertson/Alamy

picture franchise as a daily comic strip (1981–84) in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, as a Marvel Comics series (1979), and as a graphic novel, Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). He also drew (1967–80) the newspaper strip Secret Agent Corrigan (previously called Secret Agent X-9), and in the 1990s he was the inker on such series as SpiderMan 2099, Blade Runner, and Daredevil. Williamson was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Industry Hall of Fame in 2000.

Computer scientist Sir Maurice Wilkes wrote the first book on computer programming (1951), produced the first paper on cache memories (1965), and pioneered client-server architecture computing (1980). Wilkes won the A.M. Turing Award in 1967 and a Kyoto Prize in 1992 and was knighted in 2000. Williams, George Christopher, American evolutionary biologist (b. May 12, 1926, Charlotte, N.C.—d. Sept. 8, 2010, Long Island, N.Y.), was known for his theory that natural selection acts on individuals and genes rather than whole populations. In Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought (1966), Williams introduced his gene-centred theory of natural selection, which ran counter to the then widely held notion that adaptation occurs through broadly acting processes, such as group selection. Williamson, Al(fonso), American comic artist (b. March 21, 1931, New York, N.Y.—d. June 12, 2010, New York state), illustrated comic books and strips with a richly detailed, almost cinematic style. He was particularly noted for his work on Flash Gordon in the 1960s, ’80s, and ’90s, as well as the adaptations of the Star Wars motion

Wilson, Charlie (CHARLES NESBITT WILSON), American politician (b. June 1, 1933, Trinity, Texas—d. Feb. 10, 2010, Lufkin, Texas), as a 12-term (1973–96) Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas, engineered the covert supplying of billions of dollars in funding and weaponry to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, an effort that was instrumental in forcing the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Wilson earned the nickname “Good-Time Charlie” as a dedicated and flamboyant womanizer with a fondness for wild parties. He spent 12 years in the Texas state legislature before his election to Congress, where he served on the Appropriations Committee. His exploits were dramatized in the 2007 movie Charlie Wilson’s War, based on the 2003 book of the same name by George Crile. Wilson, Georges, French actor and director (b. Oct. 16, 1921, Champignysur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, France—d. Feb. 3, 2010, Rambouillet, Yvelines, France), was a respected character actor for more than six decades on the stage and in more than 100 motion pictures and television programs; in 1963 he succeeded Jean Vilar as director of the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP). Wilson began acting in amateur productions, and in 1952 Vilar invited him to join the TNP, where his roles included Ubu in Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi, the title character in Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Vladimir in Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot. Perhaps his best-known film role was Captain Haddock in Tintin et le mystère de la toison d’or (1961); his other films include Une aussi longue absence (1961), The Three Musketeers (1973), Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé (2005), and L’Ennemi public no 1 (2008). As director of the TNP (1963–72) and later of the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre (1978–95), Wilson staged productions of Shakespeare, Molière,

and Corneille, as well as modern playwrights such as Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Tom Stoppard. Wittenberg, Henry, American wrestler (b. Sept. 18, 1918, Jersey City, N.J.—d. March 9, 2010, Somers, N.Y.), had an illustrious amateur wrestling career that included winning a gold medal in the light heavyweight division (191.5 lb) freestyle at the 1948 Olympic Games in London and a silver medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, both while working as a New York City police officer. Though Wittenberg did not take up wrestling until he was a sophomore at the City College of New York (CCNY), he remained undefeated in more than 300 matches from 1939 to 1951. Included in that streak were seven of his eight Amateur Athletic Union championships (between 1940 and 1952). He later left the police force to start a career in the printing industry but returned to wrestling in 1959 to coach the first American team to compete in the Soviet Union. He then coached at Yeshiva University (1959–67), New York City, and CCNY (1967–79). Wittenberg served in 1968 as head coach of the U.S. Greco-Roman team. In 1977 he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Wolfe, Billy (WILLIAM CUTHBERTSON WOLFE), Scottish political leader (b. Feb. 22, 1924, Bathgate, West Lothian, Scot.—d. March 18, 2010, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scot.), was an ardent Scottish nationalist who as the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader (1969–79) helped to transform the hitherto marginalized party into a political force. In the general election of October 1974, Wolfe guided the SNP to win an unexpected 30% of the vote in Scotland and 11 of the 71 Scottish seats in the British Parliament, though Wolfe failed to win a seat of his own. The SNP’s success boosted its claims to be a mainstream party and triggered negotiations that eventually led to the devolution of Scotland and the founding of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Wolfe, who trained as a chartered accountant, joined the SNP in 1959. After stepping down as chairman in 1979, he was party president (1980–82) and remained an active member until 2008. Wolken, (Abraham) Jonathan, American dancer, choreographer, and artistic director (b. July 12, 1949, Pittsburgh, Pa.—d. June 13, 2010, New York, N.Y.), defied dance categories and traditions 165

Obituaries Sara Krulwich—The New York Times/Redux

Pilobolus Dance Theatre cofounder Jonathan Wolken with his troupe as a cofounder of the innovative Pilobolus Dance Theatre, which was distinguished by its dancers’ intricate acrobatics and sometimes astonishing contortions of intertwined bodies. Wolken graduated (1971) with a degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., where he was inspired by a modern dance class. With no other dance experience, Wolken—with Moses Pendleton (who left in the early 1980s to form the Momix dance company), Robby Barnett, and Lee Harris (later replaced by Michael Tracy)—founded the experimental Pilobolus Dance Theatre, which Wolken named for a genus of phototropic fungus. The company’s first performance (1971) in New York City was well received by audiences and critics alike, who were astonished by its inventive and bold style and humour. In 1997 a televised performance of Pilobolus at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., won an Emmy Award for cultural programming. Wolken, who created 46 works for Pilobolus, danced in the group until his mid-30s and thereafter remained until his death as a choreographer, fund-raiser, and one of the three artistic directors (with Barnett and Tracy). Wolper, David Lloyd, American movie and television producer (b. Jan. 11, 1928, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 10, 2010, Beverly Hills, Calif.), popularized the TV miniseries format with his 166

African American epic Roots (1977), which set viewing records and earned nine Emmy Awards, and later with the Emmy Award-winning Roots: The Next Generations (1979), The Thorn Birds (1983), and North and South (1985). Wolper began as a documentary filmmaker; The Race for Space (1959), for which he used inexpensively purchased Russian space footage, was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary. Other documentaries include the Emmy-winning The Making of the President, 1960 (1963) and the Oscarwinning The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971). Wolper also produced feature films, including The Bridge at Remagen (1969), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), and L.A. Confidential (1997). He was presented with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1985 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1989. Wooden, John Robert (“WIZARD OF WESTWOOD”), American basketball coach (b. Oct. 14, 1910, Hall, Ind.—d. June 4, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.), directed teams of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships in 12 seasons (1964–65, 1967–73, 1975). As a student at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., Wooden, a guard, gained AllAmerica honours as a basketball player for three seasons (1930–32) and won a Western Conference (Big Ten)

medal for athletic and scholastic excellence. He coached high school basketball in Kentucky and Indiana before entering (1943) the U.S. Navy. After World War II, in which he served as a physical education instructor, he was head basketball coach and athletic director (1946–48) at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University). He was appointed head coach at UCLA in 1948 and retired in 1975, with a record of 620 wins and 147 losses, for an .808 percentage. His overall 40-year record was 885 wins and 203 losses, a percentage of .813. Among Wooden’s most notable accomplishments at UCLA were two record winning streaks: 88 consecutive games (over four seasons, 1971–74) and 38 consecutive NCAA tournament games. He was named the NCAA’s College Basketball Coach of the Year six times (1964, 1967, 1969–70, 1972–73) and was the first person to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player (1961) and a coach (1973). The John R. Wooden Award, established in 1976, annually honours the nation’s outstanding player as chosen by a media poll. Wooden was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Wu Guanzhong, Chinese painter (b. July 5, 1919, Yixing, Jiangsu province, China—d. June 25, 2010, Beijing, China), blended his training in both Chinese ink and brushwork and Western oil-painting styles into a unique form of modern art epitomized by his acclaimed landscapes, many of which verged on abstraction. Wu graduated (1942) from the National Academy of Art (now the China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou and studied (1947–50) at the École Nationale Supérieure des BeauxArts in Paris, where he was influenced by European painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Maurice Utrillo, and Amedeo Modigliani. Wu returned to China in 1950, but the government condemned his figure paintings, notably his many nudes, and during the early years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), he was sent to the country as a labourer. He was allowed to return to painting in the early 1970s, and by 1978 his works were being featured in the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. Wu taught at many schools, including the CAFA and Tsinghua University, Beijing, and he participated in exhibitions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, the U.S., and Britain, notably at

Obituaries Imaginechina/AP

the State Committee for the State of Emergency. Yanayev grew up in Gorky oblast (now Nizhegorod), where he studied agriculture and law. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in his 20s and worked with the Komsomol youth organization before becoming head of the Central Council of Trade Unions. He later was named Politburo secretary in charge of foreign policy, and in December 1990 he unexpectedly received Gorbachev’s support as a compromise choice for the new post of vice president. Yanayev was one of those arrested after the abortive three-day coup failed and convicted of high treason. He was granted amnesty, however, by the Russian legislature in 1994 and released from prison.

Painter Wu Guanzhong the British Museum, where in 1992 he was the first living Chinese artist to be exhibited. Yamaguchi, Tsutomu, Japanese engineer, translator, and educator (b. March 16, 1916, Nagasaki, Japan—d. Jan. 4, 2010, Nagasaki), was the only officially documented survivor of both the Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945) atomic bombings during World War II. Yamaguchi was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the U.S. dropped the first bomb, and he had returned home when the second blast occurred. Although some 100 people were known to have been affected by both bombings, he was the only one the government of Japan recognized as such. In 2006 Yamaguchi addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in support of nuclear disarmament. Yanayev, Gennady Ivanovich, Soviet bureaucrat (b. Aug. 26, 1937, Perevoz, Russia, U.S.S.R.—d. Sept. 24, 2010, Moscow, Russia), was one of eight hard-line coup leaders, or “putschists,” who in August 1991 tried to oust Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and take over the government with Yanayev, then vice president, as president at the head of

Yar’Adua, Umaru Musa, Nigerian politician (b. Aug. 16, 1951, Katsina, Nigeria—d. May 5, 2010, Abuja, Nigeria), served (2007–10) as president of Nigeria; his inauguration on May 29, 2007, marked the first time in the country’s history that an elected civilian head of state had transferred power to another. Yar’Adua was born to an elite Fulani family that was prominent in both traditional and modern politics. He received a university education at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and taught (1975–83) at various colleges and a polytechnic school before becoming a businessman and then entering politics. He lost in his first bid (1991) for governor of Katsina state but won election in 1999 and reelection in 2003. As governor, Yar’Adua, a Muslim, introduced the Shari!ah (Muslim law); he also focused on the socioeconomic development of his state (with particular attention to the educational and health sectors) and was known for being financially prudent. To the surprise of many, in 2006 Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo chose Yar’Adua to be his party’s candidate in the April 2007 presidential election. Although Yar’Adua ran against several well-known and popular military leaders and politicians, he secured a landslide victory with 70% of the vote in an election marred by widespread violence, voter intimidation, and reports of vote rigging. Despite a ruling by a Nigerian court on Jan. 29, 2010, that the ailing Yar’Adua was not obligated to hand over power to Vice Pres. Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s National Assembly on February 9 voted to have Jonathan assume full power as acting president.

Zinn, Howard, American historian and social activist (b. Aug. 24, 1922, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Jan. 27, 2010, Santa Monica, Calif.), created in his best-known book, A People’s History of the United States (1980), a left-wing narrative that provided the then-unusual perspectives of the working poor, of people of colour, and of the dispossessed. In A People’s History and his many other works, Zinn explored how changes have come more from grassroots movements than from the actions of the conventional historical heroes and espoused his belief that ordinary people must stand up to injustice and fight to bring about a righteous society. Zinn worked as a pipe fitter before joining the Army Air Corps in 1943, becoming a bombardier; he opposed subsequent wars, in particular the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. Zinn earned a master’s degree and a doctorate at Columbia University in New York City. In 1956 he became chairman of the history department of Spelman College, a historically black women’s institution in Atlanta. He beMichael Dwyer/AP

Historian and activist Howard Zinn came a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee fighting for the civil rights of African Americans and encouraged his students to join the movement. This stance was at odds with the views of the school’s administration, and Zinn was fired in 1963. The following year he began teaching at Boston College, where he remained until he retired (1988). Zinn’s memoir, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, appeared in 1994. 167

A sea lamprey (above), an invasive fishlike parasite that devastated some commercial-fish populations in the Great Lakes in the 20th century, extends the specially designed sucker mouth that it uses to latch onto its prey. A member of Yemen’s antiterrorist forces (left) trains in the Sarif area outside Sanaa, the country’s capital. Pedestrians (below left) survey a building in Concepción, Chile, that was badly damaged in the earthquake that struck the country in February. Worried specialists (below right) at the New York Stock Exchange monitor their computer screens as U.S. stock markets plunge on June 4. Photos: (counterclockwise) Anjanette Bowen/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; AP; Martin Bernetti—AFP/Getty Images; David Karp/AP

2010 Special Reports

Photos: (counterclockwise) J. Scott Applewhite/AP; Herbert Lehmann—Bon Appetit/Alamy; Sunday Alamba/AP; (background) John J. Mosesso/life.nbii.gov

Supporters (below) of the American Tea Party movement gather at a rally in Washington, D.C., to protest against federal government spending. The science of molecular gastronomy (bottom left) led to culinary inspirations such as this layered concoction of egg, nettle spinach, and celery puree with a toast point for dipping. Soldiers (bottom right) march in formation during the festivities commemorating Nigeria’s 50th anniversary as an independent country. Background photo of invasive kudzu vines.

SPECIAL REPORT

The Persistent

Economic Slump

by Joel Havemann

I

n 2010, two years after the financial meltdown of 2008, the Great Recession continued to reverberate throughout the world. One by one, many European Union countries faced possible bankruptcy. There were indications that a currency war might have begun, with the U.S. and China the key combatants. Americans learned that the price of keeping the international financial system afloat was $3.3 trillion in loans and other forms of credit from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) to such firms as General Electric and Toyota and a passel of foreign banks. The U.S. Sputters from Recession. For all of its international dimensions, the Great Recession wore a “Made in Amer1/28/2010 U.S. Senate confirms Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term in office.

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ica” label. A huge run-up in U.S. housing prices in the early 2000s, abetted by mortgage lenders and investment banks willing to take big risks to make big profits, set the stage for the monumental collapse in the real-estate sector that began in 2007 and then spread with speed and intensity to the financial sector. Lenders, afraid that even their most reliable borrowers could not pay them back, hunkered down. That in turn imperiled the lending that enables business to conduct business, not only in the U.S. but also in other free-market countries in the global economy. For many Americans it came as a surprise to learn that their economy was not officially in recession in 2010. In September the National Bureau of Eco-

1/29/2010 In the last quarter of 2009, GDP grew at an annual rate of 5.7%, but the U.S. economy shrank for the year; at year’s end unemployment was 10%.

3/24/2010 Japan’s legislature approves a record ¥92.3 trillion (about $1 trillion) budget intended to stimulate the economy.

People who lost their jobs in the recession queue up outside a government job centre in Madrid on June 2. The number of Spaniards seeking unemployment benefits in mid-2010 rose by 12.3% year-on-year to more than four million.

nomic Research (a group of private economists who act as the arbiters of such matters) determined that the U.S. economy, which had plunged into reverse in December 2007, had reached a trough and officially emerged from recession in June 2009. Even if the economy did not fall into a much-feared double-dip slump, the 18 months already on the books made the so-called Great Re3/24/2010

As a result of the recession, in 2010 the Social Security system will pay more in benefits than it takes in in payroll taxes.

5/7/2010 Leaders of the countries of the euro zone approve a financial rescue package for Greece.

Victor R. Caivano/AP

cession the longest such period of decline since the end of World War II. In its impact on American workers, this recession was also one of the deepest. Although the unemployment rate never came close to its peak of 25% in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the rate hit double digits in October 2009 for only the second time in the postwar period and reached at least a temporary peak in November 2010 of 9.8%. Of the 15.1 million job-seeking unemployed, some 6.3 million had been out of work for at least six months, easily eclipsing the previous postwar high. Another 1.3 million Americans were considered “discouraged” because they had ceased looking for employment. Many, particularly at the older end of the workforce spectrum, had no hope of ever working again. The U.S. Congress had repeatedly extended unemployment compensation to out-of-work Americans and in late 2010 agreed to extend it yet again as part of a larger tax bill. A terrible year for labour, however, turned out to be a good one for capital. Companies that had scored large savings by cutting their workforces during the recession maintained those savings and converted them into productivity gains—2.5% in the third quarter, year on year—by simply leaving their payrolls lean and mean instead of hiring. American corporate profits reached a record high of nearly $1.7 trillion on an annual basis in the July–September quarter of 2010. Stock markets, which had plunged by more than half during the worst of the financial crisis, in March 2009 began an overall rise that had recovered more than three-quarters of their losses by the end of 2010. The Global Impact. Just how global was the global financial crisis? The answer became clearer in 2010, and it emerged that the term was something of a misnomer. Generally, the crisis stung most sharply in developed economies that were most intimately linked to the global economy. More precisely, the recession’s bite was most acute in countries whose financial systems and trade patterns depended on ties with the U.S. Thus, during the period 2008–09, most members of the Organisation for Economic Co5/12/2010 Spain announces a series of austerity measures to reduce the country’s deficit.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

On September 16, women stock up on bread at a community centre food bank in San Jose, Calif. That same day the U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2009 the national poverty rate reached a 15-year high, with 14.3% of the country, or roughly one in seven Americans, living in poverty. operation and Development (OECD) suffered recessions of varying degrees of severity. Hardest hit were countries that had adopted banking policies most closely echoing those of the U.S. Europe provided multiple case studies. In tiny Iceland a financial bubble proportionately much larger than the one in the U.S. developed and burst; the fallout impoverished much of the country and brought down the government. Latvia saw its economic output fall by one-quarter as Germany and other major trading partners, in recession themselves, reduced Latvian imports. Greece and Ireland, on the brink of bankruptcy, accepted massive bailouts from the EU, although they were plagued less by the financial crisis than by their own government deficits and their use of the euro. (See Sidebar on page 353.) Most of Asia, except Japan, escaped the brunt of the financial crisis. Japan was bruised because its financial system was linked to that of the world’s other richest countries. Its economy shrank in 2008 and 2009—by an annualized 12.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone. The economies of Malaysia and Thailand rebounded smartly in 2010 from minor contractions in 2009. Asia’s other major economies, notably China and India, kept growing as if nothing was amiss in the Western world. China’s growth was

6/7/2010 Germany introduces an austerity package to reduce the budget deficit.

6/22/2010 The U.K. unveils an austerity budget of deep spending cuts and tax increases.

slowed almost imperceptibly by the recessions in the U.S. and other major export markets; growth in the range of 10–15% before the financial crisis fell back to 9–10% annually for the period 2008–10. India slid back to 6.7% growth in 2008–09 before rebounding to a more familiar 7.4% in 2009–10, according to IMF estimates. Indonesia, which had registered growth above 6% in 2007 and 2008, prospered in the shadow of the two Asian giants and showed a gritty resilience during the financial crisis. The Paris-based OECD reported that in 2009 Indonesia’s economic growth slipped to 4.6%, but the OECD estimated that growth would rebound to 6% in 2010 and 2011, especially if, as promised, the government canceled fuel subsidies that disproportionately benefited the rich and distorted energy consumption. If the Asian giants suggested that geographic proximity to the U.S. was not necessary for economic success, the experience of some U.S. neighbours made such proximity seem downright harmful. Economic output in 2009 fell by about 2% in Canada and 6% in Mexico, according to the IMF. Both suffered a decline in exports to their huge North American neighbour as it battled recession. Meanwhile, in South America output gained a bit in Argentina and fell slightly in Brazil. 6/23/2010

Sales of new homes in the U.S. fell 32.7% in May to the lowest level since reporting began in 1963.

7/2/2010 Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closes at 9686.48, its lowest closing for the year.

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To deal with the financial crisis, countries with emerging economies demanded—and got—a larger role on the world stage. For 35 years the Group of Seven (G7) had provided the leaders of the seven largest industrial democracies—the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the four largest European economies (Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K.)— with a cozy opportunity to discuss economic concerns. In the wake of the Great Recession, however, the G7 was largely supplanted by the Group of 20 (G20), which comprised the G7 members plus the EU and 12 emerging economies: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey. The G20 members that were not in the G7 could make a strong case that they represented the economic powers of the future. In 2009, with the financial crisis still going strong, all seven of the G7 countries had shrinking economies. Of the dozen G20 countries not in the G7, the economies of half grew despite the crisis. The IMF estimated that in 2010 every G20 newcomer would outpace every G7 member except Germany and Canada, which were expected to grow slightly faster than Australia and South Africa. When the G20 leaders met in Toronto in June and again in Seoul in November 2010 to discuss the global economy, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama was rebuffed on his three chief proposals. In Toronto the president asked his colleagues to follow the U.S. lead and put in place further government spending programs to stimulate their economies. Other G20 leaders, notably German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejected such a step as potentially inflationary. Germany was also among the countries that dismissed Obama’s later calls to reduce their trade surpluses. Obama’s other target was China, which for years had been accused of artificially holding down the value of its currency, the renminbi (yuan). A weak renminbi had the effect of making Chinese goods cheaper on world markets. Chinese officials gave conciliatory speeches in Seoul about letting the renminbi find 7/15/2010 Congress passes a bill to increase U.S. government oversight of financial companies and markets; Pres. Barack Obama signs the bill on July 21.

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Police escort an 84-year-old protester, who had lost her home, away from a demonstration outside a Chase Bank branch in Los Angeles on December 16. Angry Americans objected that many banks and Wall Street investment firms that benefited from U.S. government bailouts in 2009 recorded huge profits in 2010 while struggling homeowners faced high rates of foreclosure. its own level, but in practice little changed. The Severity of the Downturn. It was clear that the global Great Recession would never be confused with a gardenvariety downturn in the business cycle. How did the world economy come to such a sorry pass? Fingers everywhere pointed to the U.S.—or, more precisely, mortgage lenders in the U.S. and Wall Street investment bankers. Investment houses had discovered that great profits could flow from the practice of buying hundreds or even thousands of mortgages and bundling them into securities that would provide a steady stream of income from individual mortgage payments. So great was the lure of mortgage-backed securities—and the demand for more mortgages to bundle—that lenders offered “subprime” mortgages to some home buyers who could not be expected to meet their monthly payments. Exotic mortgages designed to hide their real costs proliferated. As more families were enticed into the real-estate market, the price of housing soared. Finally, inevitably, the real-estate bubble burst. Many mortgage holders— particularly those who held subprime mortgages—failed to make their payments. The value of thousands and thousands of properties plunged to less

7/23/2010 All but 7 of the 91 European banks subjected to stress tests are reported to have passed.

8/16/2010 In the second quarter China surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest economy.

than the occupants owed on the mortgage. Some homeowners, among them even ones who could afford to make their mortgage payments, simply walked away from their homes. RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, reported about 1.7 million foreclosure filings in the first half of 2010, an 8% increase over the same period a year earlier. One in 78 homes in the U.S. had been the object of some kind of foreclosure action during January–June 2010. Banks and other mortgage holders made matters worse by foreclosing on properties without completing the proper procedures, often wrongly designating properties for foreclosure. Fire sales of foreclosed homes and short sales of homes that had barely escaped foreclosure as owners sold their property for less than the outstanding mortgage continued to depress the realestate market. In 20 major cities, average home prices roughly doubled between 2000 and 2007 and then gave back half their gains in two years before stabilizing at their 2003 level. Mortgage lenders who had made the bulk of the subprime mortgages found themselves stuck with mounds of worthless contracts. The buyers of mortgage-backed securities, including the federally chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, did likewise many times 9/20/2010

NBER declares that the recession in the U.S. ended in June 2009, making it, at 18 months, the longest since the end of World War II.

10/29/2010 The U.S. economy grew in the third quarter by 2%.

Reed Saxon/AP

over. American International Group (AIG), the giant insurance company that had insured mortgage-backed securities against loss, could not make good on its policies. Car sales plunged as buyers could not get loans. Investment houses that had pioneered mortgage-backed securities and held many of them suddenly went from positive to negative net worth. The U.S. government, terrified that the economic engine would freeze up, rescued major players by lending them money or buying their stock, thus partially nationalizing some companies. Among the largest of those that accepted government bailouts were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, General Motors, Chrysler, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Goldman Sachs. Investment house Lehman Brothers, a pioneer in mortgage-backed securities, was allowed to fail in 2008 as the government sought to show that irresponsible behaviour was not always rewarded by federal aid. That lesson may have been learned, but so was another: that lending was risky. Consequently, the credit markets locked up. The U.S. Department of the Treasury carried out the congressionally mandated Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which made $700 billion available for support for financial institutions saddled with worthless mortgagebacked securities. The Fed, acting on its own authority, played a much larger role, manufacturing a great variety of novel ways to lend money to teetering businesses whether domestic or foreign, financial or nonfinancial. Thus, TARP enabled controversial government moves to make General Motors a $6.7 billion loan and buy 60.8% of its stock. GM later regained control of the company and repaid the loan (although with a different pot of TARP money). The Treasury estimated that TARP’s ledgers would ultimately show a $29 billion loss, a fraction of the funds put at risk. The Fed meanwhile quietly channeled $3.3 trillion in credit to a host of other businesses, including such American companies as motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson and telecommunications firm Verizon, as well as European11/21/2010 Ireland applies for an EU financial rescue package; EU leaders approve the release of the bailout funds on November 28.

and Asian-owned banks. The Fed did not lose money on any of its lending programs, and it made a profit on some. Jump-Starting the Economy. The Great Recession could hardly have come at a worse time. Traditionally, a government has two weapons—fiscal policy and monetary policy—to combat recessions. Both involve getting more money into people’s hands so that they have more to spend. On the fiscal side, the government can use its budget to cut taxes or increase spending. On the monetary side, it can use its unique power to print money. Both were already going flat out in the U.S., however, when the financial crisis plunged the economy into recession. On the fiscal side, 2009 and 2010 produced the two biggest annual deficits relative to the size of the economy since the end of World War II: almost 10% of total GDP. In dollar terms 2009 was the record holder, at $1.4 trillion, with 2010 in second place. By the end of 2010, the government was spending nearly $10 billion a day, including nearly $4 billion that it had to borrow, and increasingly members of the public were saying that enough was enough. Making the budget outlook still more bleak, the aging baby-boom generation, which was just beginning to reach full retirement age, figured to put enormous pressure on the government’s two biggest entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare. On the monetary side the outlook was just as unfriendly. The Fed, which controls short-term interest rates directly by dictating the Federal Funds Rate (the interest rate that banks may charge each other for overnight loans), slashed the rate from 4.25% in early 2008 to 0.0–0.25% at year’s end—just about as low as it could go. This did nothing, however, for longer-term rates. In 2008 and 2009 the Fed bought $1.7 trillion in longer-term Treasury securities, which had the effect of taking the securities out of circulation and injecting cash. When that failed to bring longerterm interest rates down sufficiently to boost economic activity, the Fed announced another $600 billion infusion in November 2010. This evoked pre-

11/30/2010 Unemployment in the 16 euro-zone countries rose to 10.1% in October, its highest since 1998; the EU as a whole remained at 9.6%.

12/3/2010 U.S. unemployment in November jumped from 9.6% to 9.8%; only 39,000 nonfarm private-sector jobs were created that month.

dictable criticism from China, which complained that the U.S. was trying to bring down the value of the dollar to boost its exports. Other major American trading partners, including Brazil and Germany, joined the chorus. The German finance minister suggested that the U.S. was engaging in currency manipulation and exhorted the U.S. to shore up its industrial base instead. At home, inflation hawks also warned that the Fed’s easy-money, low-interestrate policy would ultimately trigger another round of uncontrolled price increases. Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed and one of the country’s preeminent Great Depression scholars, promised that the Fed was on the lookout daily for signs of inflation. The Fed, by virtue of its independence even from the president, could continue to try to manipulate interest rates and the money supply in the face of congressional opposition. The deficit was another story. Given the astronomical deficits of 2009 and 2010, voices in favour of using more deficit spending to stimulate the economy were scarce, and the Republican gains in Congress in the 2010 midterm elections all but removed that option from the table. (See Sidebar on page 482.) A taste of how difficult it would be to reduce the deficit was offered by a commission appointed by Obama to recommend steps to do just that. The commission’s cochairs—former Republican senator Alan K. Simpson and Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to Democratic Pres. Bill Clinton—produced a proposal that included raising the Social Security retirement age and eliminating or reducing a host of popular tax breaks, such as the mortgage-interest deduction. When it became clear that the commission could not muster at least 14 of its 18 members to vote in favour of the proposal—the number required to force the measure to the Senate and House floors—the commission simply adjourned without a vote. Joel Havemann is a Former Editor and National and European Economics Correspondent for the Washington, D.C., and Brussels bureaus of the Los Angeles Times.

12/17/2010 Regulators shut down two banks in Georgia and one in Florida, bringing the number of failed banks in the U.S. in 2010 to 154.

12/31/2010 DJIA closes at 11,577.51, up 11% for the year; Nasdaq composite rose 17% in 2010. Gold closes at a record high $1,421.10, and oil closes at $91.38.

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SPECIAL REPORT

BP’s Deepwater Horizon

Oil Spill by Richard Pallardy

T

he explosion on April dome over the largest leak in the 20, 2010, of energy gibroken riser were thwarted by ant BP’s Deepwater the buoyant action of gas hyHorizon oil rig in the drates—gas molecules trapped in Gulf of Mexico, couan ice matrix—which formed pled with its sinking on April 22, when natural gas and cold water led to the largest accidental macombined under high pressure. rine oil spill in history. The rig After an attempt to employ a was located about 66 km (41 mi) “top kill,” whereby drilling mud off the coast of Louisiana. The was pumped into the well to ecological and economic fallout stanch the flow of oil, also failed, was immense, with numerous BP turned in early June to an apjobs, species of wildlife, and paratus called a lower marine communities affected by the riser package (LMRP) cap. The spill. damaged riser was shorn from The Explosion. The Deepwater the LMRP—the top segment of Horizon rig, owned and operthe BOP—and the cap was lowated by offshore-oil-drilling ered into place. Though fitted company Transocean and leased loosely over the BOP, allowing by BP, was situated in the Masome oil to escape, the cap encondo oil prospect in the Misabled BP to siphon approxisissippi Canyon, a valley in the mately 15,000 bbl per day to a continental shelf. The oil well tanker. The addition of an ancilover which it was positioned lary collection system compriswas located on the seabed 1,522 ing several devices, also tapped m (4,993 ft) below the surface into the BOP, increased the coland extended approximately lection rate by approximately 5,486 m (18,000 ft) into the 25,000 bbl a day. rock. On the night of April 20, In early July the LMRP cap was a surge of natural gas blasted removed for several days so that through a cement cap that had On July 12, nearly three months after the explosion a more permanent seal could be recently been installed to seal and sinking of energy giant BP’s Deepwater Horizon installed; this capping stack was the well for later use. The gas offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, this in place by July 12. Though the traveled up the rig’s riser to the containment cap was lowered to the seabed and leak had slowed before it was platform, where it ignited, installed on the gushing wellhead to finally end the successfully capped, a governkilling 11 workers and injuring massive crude oil leak. ment-commissioned panel of sci17. The rig capsized and sank entists estimated that 4.9 million on the morning of April 22, bbl had already leaked from the rupturing the riser, through which was thought by U.S. scientists and en- well, of which about 800,000 bbl had drilling mud was normally injected in gineers to have peaked at more than been captured. On August 3 BP conorder to counteract the upward pres- 60,000 bbl per day. ducted a “static kill,” a procedure in sure of oil and natural gas. Without Leaking Oil. Although BP attempted to which drilling mud was pumped into the opposing force, oil began to dis- activate the rig’s blowout preventer the well through the BOP. Though simcharge into the Gulf. The volume of (BOP), a fail-safe mechanism designed ilar to the failed top kill, mud could be oil escaping the damaged well—origi- to close the channel through which oil injected at much lower pressures durnally estimated by the U.S. Coast was drawn, the device malfunctioned. ing the static kill because of the stabiGuard at about 1,000 bbl per day— Efforts in May to place a containment lizing influence of the capping stack.

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Reuters—BP/Landov

The defective BOP and the capping stack were removed in early September and replaced by a functioning BOP. The success of these procedures cleared the way for a “bottom kill,” which was considered to be the most likely means of permanently sealing the leak. This entailed pumping cement through a channel—known as a relief well—that paralleled and eventually intersected the original well. Construction of two such wells had begun in May. On September 17 the bottom kill maneuver was successfully executed through the first relief well. The second, intended to serve as a backup, was not completed. Two days later, following a series of pressure tests, it was announced that the well was completely sealed. In May claims by several research groups that they had detected large subsurface plumes of dispersed microscopic oil droplets were initially dismissed by BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In June, however, it was verified that the plumes existed and had come from the Deepwater spill. Their presence cast doubt on earlier predictions about the speed with which the discharged oil would dissipate. Cleanup Efforts. The petroleum that had leaked from the well formed a slick extending over thousands of square kilometres of the Gulf of Mexico. To clean oil from the open water, dispersants— substances that emulsified the oil, thereby allowing for easier metabolism by bacteria—were pumped directly into the leaks and applied aerially to the slick. Booms to corral portions of the slick were deployed, and the contained oil was then siphoned off or burned. As oil began to contaminate Louisiana beaches in May, it was manually removed; more difficult to clean were the state’s marshes and estuaries, where the topography was knit together by delicate plant life. By June oil and tar balls had made landfall on beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Thousands of birds, mammals, and sea turtles were plastered with oil. Birds were particularly vulnerable to the effects; many perished from ingesting oil as they tried to clean themselves or because of the substance’s interference with their ability to regulate their body temperatures. The brown pelican, recently delisted as an endangered species, was among the species most affected. Animals found alive were transported to rehabilitation centres

Scientists noted that the prevailing paths of the Gulf of Mexico’s Loop Current and a detached eddy located to the west kept much of the oil from reaching shore.

and, after they had been cleaned and medically evaluated, were released in oil-free areas. The fragile larvae of the many fish and invertebrates that spawned in the Gulf were also likely to be affected. The various cleanup efforts were coordinated by the National Response Team, a group of government departments and agencies headed by the Department of Homeland Security. BP, Transocean, and several other companies were held liable for the millions of dollars in costs accrued. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, formed by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama in May, faulted the Obama administration’s response to the spill in a report issued in October. In December the Justice Department sued BP, along with other companies involved in the disaster, in New Orleans civil court. The commission’s final report, issued in January 2011, attributed the spill to lack of regulatory oversight by the government and negligence and time-saving measures by BP and its partners. Human Impacts. Economic prospects in the Gulf Coast states were dire, as the spill affected many of the industries upon which residents depended. More than one-third of federal waters in the Gulf were closed to fishing at the peak of the spill because of fears of con-

tamination. A moratorium on deepwater drilling, enacted by the Obama administration despite a district court reversal, left an estimated 8,000–12,000 people temporarily unemployed. Few travelers were willing to face the prospect of petroleum-sullied beaches, and those who depended on tourism were left struggling to supplement their incomes. Following demands by President Obama, BP created a $20 billion compensation fund for those affected by the spill. As oil dispersed, portions of the Gulf began reopening to fishing in July, and by October the majority of the closed areas had been judged safe. The drilling moratorium, initially set to expire in November, was lifted in mid-October. The emergence of BP’s British chief executive, Tony Hayward, as the public face of the oil giant further inflamed public sentiment against the embattled company. Deemed by one publication “the most hated—and most clueless— man in America,” Hayward was derided for his alternately flippant and obfuscating responses in media interviews related to the spill and while testifying before the U.S. Congress. He was replaced in October by American Robert Dudley. Richard Pallardy is a Research Editor at Encyclopædia Britannica.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Freedom from Empire:

An Assessment of Postcolonial Africa

by Ebenezer Obadare

T

he currency of the tag postcolonial as a cognomen for countries that once laboured under various forms of European colonial rule tends to obscure the fact that it is at the same time a hotly disputed label. Scholars who embrace it (which is not to say that they are not at the same time critical of it) argue that it is a convenient term for referring to those societies (whether in Africa, Asia, or Latin Amer-

176

ica) that, being former colonies, continue in different ways to display the imprints of European colonialism. To deploy postcolonial in this sense is to account for the subsisting maladies in those places against the background of the exceptional severity of the colonial impact. At the same time, those who refuse to touch the term with a barge pole insist, no doubt with some merit, that behind what is presented as an innocent attempt at periodization often

A giant billboard in Kinshasa proudly proclaims the 50th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s independence from Belgium as a crowd of Congolese spectators watch a military parade in June commemorating the occasion. lurks a derogatory tendency to totalize those societies in an apparent attempt to describe the unique pathologies that Dai Kurokawa—EPA/Landov

they are presumed to embody. In this alternative sense, postcolonial refers not merely to the simple fact that a group of countries share certain characteristics on account of their status as former colonies; it is about the seeming intractability of those problems because they are rooted in a vaguely defined postcolonial culture. These disputations are in their own way echoes of fundamental ideological tensions among those who study postcolonial societies generally. In Africa such tensions funnel down to the ticklish issue of how the history of the continent is to be written—which social agents and political narratives to valorize and what cultural values to affirm and/or defend. These tensions are not irreconcilable. On the one hand, it is possible to acknowledge, as scholar Richard L. Sklar once said, that colonialism has produced “enduring social formations” in Africa without necessarily succumbing to the nihilism (Sklar, to be sure, does not) that those formations are ineradicable. To do so is to dismiss out of hand the corrective capacities of human agency. On the other hand, it is possible, even necessary, to insist on the unpalatability of the existing social order in most of Africa while not balking at the moral imperative of allocating blame not only when, but especially when those who are deserving of blame are African agents themselves; and although the range of possible perspectives on Africa is not exhausted by these polarities, they are at least a reminder of the important fact that when it comes to the history of the continent, very few issues are actually settled. When we talk about postcolonial Africa, therefore, it is important to bear in mind that we are referring to an extraordinarily diverse spectrum of political regimes, economic conditions, and social realities. For instance, while it is common to characterize the entire continent as an economic basket case, the examples of Tunisia, Botswana, Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt—countries with the most stable GDP growth on the entire continent—offer more positive stirrings. This fact is worth reiterating, if only to counter the dogma of those who would use the postcolonial label without the slightest concession to its capacity to gloss over this complexity. Even to assert this complexity is not to deny that African countries are beset by similar social, economic, political, and infrastructural AP

challenges. Rather, it is to affirm that much as this is true, it should not be allowed to detract from the fact that an increasing number of countries (Ghana is a good example) appear to be on the cusp of the most revolutionary transformations seen anywhere in the whole of the less-developed world over the past half century.

Ghanaian Pres. Kwame Nkrumah, who was known for his eloquent oratory, addresses a White House press conference on March 8, 1961, after meeting with U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy to discuss the prospects of Ghana and other newly independent African countries. Oddly enough, the mood in these expanding economies is reminiscent of the headiness on the rest of the continent in 1960. That year was heralded as the year of Africa’s freedom from empire. In 1960 alone, 17 African countries, 14 of which had been ruled by France, broke free from their European overlords. These were Cameroon (January 1), Togo (April 27), Mali (June 20), Senegal (June 20), Madagascar (June 26), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June 30), Somalia (July 1), Benin (August 1), Niger (August 3), Burkina Faso (August 5), Côte d’Ivoire (August 7), Chad (August 11), the Central African Republic (August 13), the Republic of the Congo (August 15), Gabon (August 17), Nigeria (October 1), and Mauritania (November 28). Earlier, Egypt (1922), Ethiopia (1941), Libya (1951), and, between 1956 and 1958, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, and Guinea had blazed the trail in

becoming fully independent African countries. Other countries snapped their chains at different points in the course of the 1960s, while late decolonization brought the fruits of independence to Angola and Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, in 1975, 1980, and 1990, respectively. (See Map.) At the dawn of independence in these countries, the thrill of autonomous nationhood was matched by the anticipation of material elevation. There was understandable expectation that political freedom would translate into instant economic dividends. The giddiness of those days was most famously rendered in the soaring rhetoric of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who boldly proclaimed that once African countries realized “the political kingdom” for which they had so valiantly struggled, it was only a matter of time before “all things shall be added.” As if to confirm Nkrumah’s optimism, the initial auguries were in fact very positive. The first two decades of postindependence have been rightly described as the “golden era” of African development. This is no surprise, as they coincided with massive state outlays for social and physical infrastructure. Many of the new states reaped the rewards for their investments with periods of sustained growth: the average rate of annual GDP growth in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s was nearly 5%, with Botswana, Gabon, and Côte d’Ivoire (easily the most successful African performers) notching upwards of 7% growth. This period of excellent economic performance lasted until the early 1980s, following which the story for most African economies has been one of consistent decline. The reversal of economic fortunes is indexed by the fact that today Africa receives the highest amount of foreign grants and loans per capita of any region of the world. Indeed, according to the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s 2010 Multidimensional Poverty Index, the 10 poorest countries in the world are in Africa (from poorest to least poor): Niger, Ethiopia, Mali, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda. The dispute over how African countries seem to have snatched grim destitution from the jaws of economic prosperity is far from settled, and the battle line remains drawn between those who blame problems that were 177

inherited at independence and others who contend that African countries (by which they mean African leaders) are solely responsible for their own wretched lot. Both positions have merits that are worth pondering. Those who plead colonial incapacitation argue that while African countries might have thought that they had secured political independence from their colonial masters, what they actually got was a caricature rather than the substance of independence. In this view, political independence was a mere facade for the retention of actual economic power by the colonial masters, insofar as power was transferred to a local elite whose weltanschauung was no different from the Europeans’. In reality, so the argument goes, what this meant was that colonial rule perdured through other means, with the important difference that while the former European masters were white, their African successors were black. No doubt this argument is often overstated, but the reality that it seeks to apprehend is legitimate nonetheless: the one lament most likely to be heard from citizens in Africa nowadays is 178

that just as in colonial days, their leaders do not seem to give a hoot about their welfare. Many citizens, amid obvious frustration, have toyed with the idea of a romanticized return to what they are convinced were the certainties of the colonial era. Emergent scholarship on the colonial era in Africa has qualified this view somewhat by suggesting, controversially, that since African subjects themselves were complicit in the implementation of colonial governmentality (think for a moment of the army of “local custodians” required to carry through various colonial ordinances), it is dishonest to describe them as innocent victims of colonial rule. The logic of this position is that postcolonial African leaders may indeed have been recipients of a mode of power that was guaranteed to perpetuate the hegemony of the colonial masters, but these leaders took the reins with their eyes wide open and could not claim total ignorance of the structure of a system that they themselves had partly implemented, if not designed. The latter constitutes the point of departure for those who indict African agency for Africa’s

myriad problems. Such people point to the absence of accountability among officeholders, political arbitrariness, endemic corruption, and persistent human rights abuses as the bane of the African political class and the signal reasons why the majority of African countries are, as it were, stuck in a rut. Zimbabwe and Nigeria are often invoked, rightly, to a degree, as prime examples of countries where these factors have produced a state of developmental stasis. Was Africa dealt a bad hand at independence, or did Africans dig themselves into a hole from which they have so far failed to extricate themselves? Are the economic and political problems of African countries a result of an international Western conspiracy or a concatenation of foreign and domestic factors that astute political agency might have alleviated? Contrasting answers to these questions are possible on the bases of contradictory African examples. Given the well-documented plunder in the late 1800s of the Congo region under Belgium’s King Leopold II, for instance, Congolese could justly complain that their country was dealt

a bad hand at independence. The Republic of the Congo (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was born in the throes of violently enforced slave labour, and the country’s traumatic history continued after independence when Western leaders, ostensibly on the trail of “Soviet-backed communists,” went after authentic representatives of the people (e.g., nationalist Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first prime minister [June–September 1960]) and paved the way for a pliable but vicious leadership (by Mobutu Sese Seko [1965–97]). With the Cold War as backdrop, this pattern was repeated in several other African countries; Somalia, Angola, and Mozambique immediately come to mind. The example of Botswana, for instance, would seem to suggest that neither colonial rule nor continued Western interference need be a death sentence. Scholars who take this position point to the landlocked Southern African country as an example of an African nation that has risen from the ashes of British colonialism to construct one of the most politically stable and economically prosperous societies on the continent—though it is fair to say that Britain never quite went after “Soviet-backed communists” in Botswana after the colony won independence in September 1966. The Botswana “miracle” is usually attributed to a range of factors, especially a relatively coherent and disciplined leadership and a strong civil service— in short, an efficient state, the kind that seems to be missing in such places as Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Cameroon. Yet, whether one sees the bottle as half full or half empty, or whether one blames foreign or domestic factors for postcolonial Africa’s woes, two points seem clear. One is that both positions can end up seeming frustratingly inadequate. There is always a tendency, after all, to read too much meaning—or too little, for that matter—into current events in Africa, a tendency that often leaves analysts of various hues looking rather distant from the rough-and-tumble of local milieus. The second point deserves greater elaboration. In attempting to counter narratives of gloom in which postcolonial Africa’s so-called backwardness is pinned on an inscrutable “African essence,” scholars often cite economic statistics that appear to show conclusively that the continent is embarked on an upward spiral. They note, for exAP

ample, that since 2000 Africa’s economic growth has accelerated. Indeed, from 2000 to 2008 collective GDP grew by leaps and bounds, rising 4.9% (a June 2010 McKinsey Global Institute report put Africa’s collective GDP in 2008 at $1.6 trillion, roughly equal to that of Brazil or Russia). Scholars point, moreover, to an increase in for-

In 2010 Belgian lawyers sought to bring war-crimes charges against Belgian officials and military officers believed to have been involved in the murder of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in January 1961, just months after this photo was taken. eign direct investment in Africa from $9 billion in 2000 to $62 billion in 2008, and they cite rapid growth in the region’s domestic service sectors—such as banking, retailing, and telecommunications—as household incomes have climbed. Such positive trends would seem to bode well for Africa. Now, one might pour water on this enthusiasm by noting that we have been here before (witness the African “golden era” referenced earlier) or by remarking that such is the fragility of many political regimes in Africa that these important gains remain susceptible to quick reversals. Those observations would be valid. They are not the point I am pursuing here, however. What I would like to underscore is simultaneously more mundane and more profound: even when the most positive

economic indicators are indisputable, they invariably exist cheek by jowl with deep immiseration. South Africa perfectly emblematizes this striking paradox of high economic development and profound human degradation. Africa’s biggest economy by some distance, South Africa in 2009 boasted a per capita GDP of $10,000 and ranked a proud 31st on the global GDP scale. Yet 22% of its 49.3 million people (2009 estimate) were living at or below the national poverty line in 2008, and nearly 22% were unemployed. South Africa, of course, has its own problems, intelligible in the specific matrix of the enduring effects of apartheid capitalism and its skewed distribution of economic advantages on the basis of race. But the pattern in South Africa—of stupendous poverty in the midst of plenty—is hardly unique. The pattern is the sociological backdrop to the angry militarism of young “emancipation fighters” in the oil-producing Niger Delta, the material underpinning of the turn to religious essentialism on sundry college campuses across western Africa, and easily the most important factor behind the ceaseless hemorrhage of highly skilled people from every region of the continent to Europe, North America, and increasingly Asia. In pondering this and other ancillary issues, one invariably arrives at the critical crossroads where the question of the continued legitimacy of the postcolonial state becomes the key issue. If the postcolonial state in most of Africa has become nothing more than an institutional appendix, what is the point of keeping it alive? The debate that emanates from this critical question is at the heart of most discussions about the character of politics and the nature of political contestation in contemporary Africa. For the underprivileged, though, the debate has always taken a radically different slant. For instance, while the elite’s quest for political liberalization in Africa that took wing in the mid-1980s has had state “reform” as its goal, the underprivileged have consistently agitated for a root-and-branch perestroika that they hope will eventuate in wealth redistribution. It would seem at the moment that only serious attention to the latter can stem the continued erosion of the legitimacy of the postcolonial state in Africa. Ebenezer Obadare is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Yemen’s

Perilous State by Robert Burrowes

B

y early 2010 the struggle faced by Yemen and its antiterrorist allies against alQaeda, the Islamic militant organization, had come to dominate that country’s narrative. Since 2007 the Yemeni state had been seriously challenged by a rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and the revival of al-Qaeda throughout the country. Yemen, divided by tribal and other political forces and marked by corruption and inefficiency, had been judged by many to have a failing state that could become a failed state. In February 2010 the regime headed by !Ali !Abdullah Salih and the northern al-Huthi rebels reached an uneasy truce. Shortly thereafter, after a spasm of violence, the southern secession seemed to lose momentum, although this may have been partly an artifact of the regime’s conflating some secessionist activities with those of alQaeda. In any case, with al-Qaeda resurgent, a revised narrative held out the prospect of Yemen’s becoming a failed state and a major base for transnational political Islam as well as terrorism. Al-Qaeda’s revival had been heralded in early 2009 by the creation of alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a merger of the Saudi Arabian and Yemeni branches and based in Yemen. AQAP’s verbal barrage called for the overthrow of the Saudi and Yemeni regimes “subservient” to the U.S. and their replacement with an Islamic caliphate. Even before this development, a new al-Qaeda leadership had launched attacks against tourists, foreign facilities, and government forces. Most notable was the September 2008 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, killing 17. Increasingly over the next two years, AQAP attacked Yemen’s se-

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On June 10, antigovernment protesters march under the flag of the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) near the town of Labous in southern Yemen. Many southern Yemenis never accepted their country’s 1990 unification with the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen). curity forces, mostly in the south; many of the latter were killed, including 13 at security headquarters in the city of Aden. In April 2010 a suicide bomber failed in an attempt to assassinate Britain’s ambassador in Sanaa. By early 2009, prodded by the U.S. and newly aware that AQAP posed a threat to it, the Salih regime had largely abandoned its old live-and-letlive policy toward al-Qaeda. Indeed, President Salih declared “total war” on AQAP in early 2010. Operations by military and security forces increased markedly, as did arrests and trials. In the fall of 2010, the military laid siege to two large southern towns harbouring al-Qaeda elements. By this time,

moreover, the U.S. had clandestinely increased CIA and Special Operations units in Yemen and was already conducting joint actions with the country. Most notable were the large and lethal air strikes conducted in the south on Dec. 17 and 24, 2009, and another one in May 2010. The event that focused United States attention on AQAP was the failed Christmas 2009 attempt by a young Nigerian to blow up a Detroit-bound plane, an incident that highlighted the danger non-Yemenis trained and radicalized in Yemen posed to the U.S. and Europe. By late 2009 the personification of the struggle had become Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born militant STR—Reuters/Landov

cleric of Yemeni origins who had capacity to do what had to be proved to be a skillful Internet done to make Yemen’s economy propagandist. Awlaki, finding and society viable and sustainsafe haven amid the Awlaki tribe able. The reasons for this lay in in the south, became an informal the natures of the Yemeni state voice of AQAP and called for atand the Salih regime. The state tacks on the U.S. and Americans. was weak and lacking in capacity He had counseled the Nigerian because of insufficient state bomber and the U.S. army offibuilding over several decades, cer who in mid-2009 killed 13 and the regime, despite its demcolleagues at Ft. Hood, Texas. In ocratic facade, remained an oliApril 2010 the CIA put Awlaki on garchy consisting mostly of milia capture-or-kill list. tary and security officers, tribal The equating of Yemen and terleaders, and northern businessrorism increased sharply in the men. Beginning in the late 1980s, U.S. and spread throughout Eumoreover, it evolved into a sperope with the discovery in late cial kind of oligarchy, a kleptocOctober of two bombs sent from racy—i.e., government of, by, and Yemen on U.S.-bound air cargo In Aden, the second largest city in Yemen and the for the few who use their posiplanes. Under increasing pres- former capital of the People’s Democratic Republic tions to divert public funds for sure, Yemen in early November of Yemen (South Yemen), black smoke billows from their private gain. Operating announced a trial in absentia of the intelligence services building, which on June 19 from “profit centres” through Awlaki on charges of incitement came under attack by suspected al-Qaeda gunmen. which flowed increasing oil revto murder foreigners. enues and aid, this militaryIn late 2010 the U.S. declared tribal-business complex proAQAP a greater threat than its coun- for 32 years, had over time lost most of duced a Yemen best distinguished by terpart in Pakistan. Months earlier its support and legitimacy owing to its rampant corruption, staggering inWashington had doubled aid to Yemen failure to meet the basic wants and equality, an eroded infrastructure, and to $150 million and promised to in- needs articulated by the Yemeni people. hollowed-out social institutions. crease it to $300 million in the next fis- The politics of 1990–95, framed by the Deflecting Yemen’s trajectory toward cal year. Indeed, the Pentagon in late unification of the two Yemens in 1990 state failure would require the coordi2010 proposed to increase aid to $1.2 and the war of secession in 1994, were nation of international and domestic billion over six years. Also in 2010, matched by profound economic and so- forces to effect massive changes in ecomore than 20 Western and Arab states cial changes. Yemen’s failure to join in nomic and social policy and govermet twice to create the Friends of the effort to force Iraq from Kuwait in nance. Friends of Yemen could have an Yemen for the purposes of both in- 1990–91 led Saudi Arabia to expel the important role to play, using carrots creasing aid for Yemen and pressuring approximately 800,000 Yemeni workers and sticks. However, most of the Yemen to adopt the major reforms whose remittances were key to the roughly $6 billion pledged at the 2006 needed for that aid to be used effec- Yemeni economy in the 1970s and ’80s. London Conference remained undelivtively. These gatherings were prepara- In addition to virtually destroying the ered and unspent in 2010. While the tory for a major Friends of Yemen remittance system, the expulsion sud- donor community had resorted to meeting to be held in Saudi Arabia in denly created massive unemployment; threats and punishments, it had freearly 2011. widespread poverty soon followed. The quently backed down in the face of Doubts persisted, however. Donors modest inflow of oil revenues that be- Yemen’s defiance. questioned whether, as in the past, eco- gan in the late 1980s only temporarily Short of a coup or a revolution, the nomic aid would be lost to incompe- cushioned this economic disaster. domestic political changes required call tence and corruption and whether mil- Yemen had become just another Third for a credible opposition strong enough itary aid would be turned against the World country—and one of the poorest to persuade or pressure the Salih regime’s non-AQAP enemies. Despite of them. regime to effect the needed reforms. his pledges of support, President Salih In 1995, with the economy in free-fall, The 2009 parliamentary elections were still had to balance U.S. demands the Salih regime and the IMF and the postponed because of political turmoil against a domestic political landscape World Bank agreed on a long-term mul- and the inability of the regime and opmarked by strong Islamic sensibilities, tistage package of reforms designed to position to agree on the terms of the Yemeni nationalism, and anti-American restore Yemen’s viability and attract elections. For needed change to occur, feelings. In addition, the tribes often foreign donors and private investment. a lot would depend on whether these felt compelled to confront the state Initially, the regime and its interna- elections, rescheduled for 2011, and the when it acted against militants seeking tional partners worked together to im- 2013 presidential elections were held refuge in tribal areas. Finally, some sen- plement successive reforms. By 1998, and, if they were, the outcomes. The ior military officers and politicians in- however, as the reforms demanded fun- past gives little reason for optimism. side the Salih regime were themselves damental changes in the economy and militants or politically tied to them. governance, the regime largely stopped Robert Burrowes was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington’s Jackson School The turmoil and violence of the past implementing them. decade were but symptoms of the exClearly, the Salih regime from the late of International Studies, and he is the author tent to which the Salih regime, in office 1990s demonstrated a lack of will and of the Historical Dictionary of Yemen. AP

181

SPECIAL REPORT

Cyberwarfare: The Invisible Threat by John B. Sheldon

C

omputers and the ical attacks usually occur durnetworks that coning conventional conflicts, nect them are colsuch as NATO’s Operation Allectively known as lied Force against Yugoslavia the domain of cyin 1999 and the U.S.-led operberspace, and in 2010 the issue ation against Iraq in 2003, in of security in cyberspace came which communication netto the fore, particularly the works, computer facilities, and growing fear of cyberwarfare telecommunications were damwaged by other states or their aged or destroyed. proxies against government Attacks can be made against and military networks in order the syntactic layer by using cyto disrupt, destroy, or deny berweapons that destroy, intertheir use. In the U.S., Secretary fere with, corrupt, monitor, or of Defense Robert Gates on otherwise damage the softMay 21 formally announced ware. Such weapons include the appointment of Army Gen. malicious software, or malKeith B. Alexander, director of ware, such as viruses, trojans, the National Security Agency spyware, and worms that can (NSA), as the first commander U.S. Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander (left) acknowledges introduce corrupted code. In of the newly established U.S. the applause of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates distributed denial of service Cyber Command (USCYBER- (right) and others on May 21 after having taken charge (DDoS) attacks, hackers, using COM). The announcement was of the newly created U.S. Cyber Command. malware, hijack a large numthe culmination of more than a ber of computers to create botyear of preparation by the Denets, groups of zombie compartment of Defense. Soon after a govare becoming more reliant upon cyber- puters that then attack other targeted ernment Cyberspace Policy Review was space every year. Therefore, the threat computers, preventing their proper published in May 2009, Gates had isof cyberwar and its purported effects function. This method was used in cysued a memorandum calling for the esare a source of great concern for gov- berattacks against Estonia in April and tablishment of USCYBERCOM, and ernments and militaries around the May 2007 and against Georgia in AuAlexander underwent months of U.S. world. Cyberwarfare should not be con- gust 2008. On both occasions it was alSenate hearings before he was profused with the terrorist use of cyber- leged that Russian hackers, mostly moted to a four-star general in May space or with cyberespionage or cyber- civilians, conducted DDoS attacks 2010 and confirmed in his new posicrime. Some states that have engaged against key government, financial, metion. USCYBERCOM, based at Fort in cyberwar may also have engaged in dia, and commercial Web sites. In 2010 Meade, Maryland, was charged with disruptive activities such as cyberespi- Australian government Web sites came conducting all U.S. military cyberoperonage, but such activities in themselves under DDoS attack by cyberactivists ations across thousands of computer do not constitute cyberwar. protesting national Internet filters. networks and with mounting offensive The cyberspace domain is composed Semantic cyberattacks manipulate strikes in cyberspace if required. USof three layers: the physical, including human users’ perceptions and interpreCYBERCOM became fully operational hardware, cables, satellites, and other tations of computer-generated data in in late 2010. equipment; the syntactic, which in- order to obtain valuable information Attacks in Cyberspace. Western councludes computer operating systems and (such as passwords, financial details, tries depend on cyberspace for the other software; and the semantic, and classified government information) everyday functioning of nearly all aswhich involves human interaction with from the users through fraudulent pects of modern society, including critthe information generated by comput- means. Social engineering techniques ical infrastructures and financial instiers and the way that information is per- include phishing (attackers send seemtutions, and less-developed countries ceived and interpreted by its user. Phys- ingly innocuous e-mails to targeted 182

Cherie Cullen/Department of Defense

users, inviting them to divulge protected information for apparently legitimate purposes) and baiting (malwareinfected software is left in a public place in the hope that a target user will find and install it, thus compromising the entire computer system). Semantic methods are used mostly to conduct espionage and criminal activity. Cybercrime, Cyberespionage, or Cyberwar? One of the first references to the term cyberwar can be found in Cyberwar Is Coming!, a landmark article by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, two researchers for the RAND Corporation, published in 1993 in the journal Comparative Strategy. The term is increasingly controversial, however, and many experts in the fields of computer security and international politics suggest that the cyberactivities in question can be more accurately described as crime, espionage, or even terrorism but not necessarily as war, since the latter term has important political, legal, and military implications. It is far from apparent that an act of espionage by one state against another, via cyberspace, equals an act of war—just as traditional methods of espionage have rarely, if ever, led to war. For example, a number of countries, including India, Germany, and the U.S., believe that they have been victims of Chinese cyberespionage efforts, but overall diplomatic relations remain undamaged. Similarly, criminal acts perpetrated in and from cyberspace are viewed as a matter for law enforcement, though there is evidence to suggest that Russian organized crime syndicates helped to facilitate the cyberattacks against Georgia in 2008 and that they were hired by either Hamas or Hezbollah to attack Israeli Web sites. On the other hand, a cyberattack made by one state against another, resulting in damage against critical infrastructures or financial networks, might legitimately be considered an armed attack if attribution could be reliably proved. In recent years cyberwar has assumed a more prominent role in conventional armed conflicts, ranging from the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon in 2006 to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. In these cases cyberattacks were launched by all belligerents before the armed conflicts began, and cyberattacks continued long after the shooting stopped, yet it cannot be claimed that the cyberattacks caused the conflicts. Similarly, the cyberattacks against Estonia in 2007 were conducted in the context of a wider political crisis. Tech. Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo/U.S. Air Force

American airmen at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, update antivirus software in July in an effort to prevent hackers from accessing military computer networks. The Air Force Cyberspace Command was part of the new U.S. Cyber Command. Cyberattack and Cyberdefense. Despite its increasing prominence, there are many challenges for both attackers and defenders engaging in cyberwarfare. In order to be effective in a cyberattack, however, the perpetrator has to succeed only once, whereas the defender must be successful over and over again. Another challenge is the difficulty of distinguishing between lawful combatants and civilian noncombatants. Civilians are capable of mounting and participating in cyberattacks against state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and individual targets. The legal status of such individuals—under the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions—is unclear, presenting additional difficulty for those prosecuting and defending against cyberwar. Perhaps the greatest challenge is the anonymity of cyberspace, in which anyone can mask his or her identity, location, and motive. For example, there is little solid evidence linking the Russian government to the Estonian and Georgian cyberattacks, so one can only speculate as to what motivated the attackers. If the identity, location, and motivation of an attack cannot be established, it becomes very difficult to deter such an attack, and using offensive cybercapabilities in retaliation carries a strong and often unacceptable risk that the wrong target will face reprisal. Key features of any country’s major cyberdefense structure include firewalls to filter network traffic, encryption of data, tools to prevent and detect network intruders, physical security of equipment and facilities, and training

and monitoring of network users. A growing number of modern militaries also are creating units specifically designed to defend against the escalating threat of cyberwar, including the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, both of which formed new commands under USCYBERCOM. In the U.K. the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) created a Cyber Security Operations Centre in September 2009, and France set up its Network and Information Security Agency in July 2009. In October 2010 Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate reported a huge increase in cyberattacks on that country’s military computer networks. While the present focus is on defending against cyberattacks, the use of offensive cybercapabilities is also being considered. In many Western countries such capabilities are proscribed extensively by law and are alleged to be the preserve of intelligence agencies such as the NSA in the U.S. and GCHQ in the U.K. In China it is believed that organizations such as the General Staff Department Third and Fourth Departments, at least six Technical Reconnaissance Bureaus, and a number of People’s Liberation Army Information Warfare Militia Units are all charged with cyberdefense, attack, and espionage. Similarly, it is thought that in Russia both the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of Defense are the lead agencies for cyberwar activities. John B. Sheldon is Professor of Space Security and Cybersecurity at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

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SPECIAL REPORT

The Tea Party: A New Force in U.S. Politics

Tea Party supporters gather at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, Calif., on September 12 to listen to Mark Meckler (onstage) at a rally sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots, a group he cofounded.

by Michael Ray

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n Nov. 2, 2010, voters in the United States headed to the polls for a midterm election that in some ways served as a referendum on the presidency of Barack Obama. (See Sidebar on page 482.) With a Democrat in the White House and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, pundits and poll watchers expected the electorate to support Republican candidates as a way of providing “balance” to the government. This voting response was typical when a single party controlled both the executive and legislative branches, but a wild card was at play in this election cycle. The Tea Party, a conservative populist social and political movement that had emerged in 2009, exerted an amount of influence that was surprising, given the group’s lack of centralized leadership. Generally opposing what they considered excessive taxation, immigration, and government in-

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tervention in the private sector, Tea Party-affiliated candidates by the dozen won the Republican nominations for their respective U.S. Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. In Kentucky, for example, Rand Paul, son of former Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul, captured the Republican primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In a decision that was widely seen as a repudiation of the Republican Party establishment, Paul defeated Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state and the favoured choice of Senate minority leader and Kentuckian Mitch McConnell. Successes such as these sparked a conflict of ideological purity, and a push-pull relationship between Tea Party supporters and the Republican Party ensued, with each side presenting itself as the true representative of conservative values. In some states Tea Party candidates won endorsement from local Republican groups, while in others they provoked a

backlash from the Republican establishment. When ballots were finally cast in the general election, it seemed that the Tea Party label mattered less than the strength of an individual candidate. In Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, who endured lampooning by the national media because of statements she had made on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect television program years earlier, lost the Senate race by a wide margin, and in Nevada embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite low approval ratings, defeated Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. Rand Paul coasted to a comfortable victory in Kentucky, and in Florida Tea Party nominee Marco Rubio won a three-way Senate race that included the sitting Republican governor, Charlie Crist. Dan Maes, running as a Republican with Tea Party backing, faded from contention for the Colorado governor’s office after former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo entered the race on the American Constitution Party ticket. Mike Lee won an easy victory in Utah’s Senate race with a platform that advocated both strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution and a desire to alter it—specifically, changing or repealing the 14th and 17th Amendments (which grant birthright citizenship and the direct election of U.S. senators, respectively). Perhaps the most surprising result came from the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin’s home state, where the Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, Joe Miller, won the Republican nomination but faced a strong general election challenge from incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski, who chose to run as a write-in candidate. After weeks of vote tallying, Murkowski appeared to have a commanding lead, and she declared victory on November 17. Historically, populist movements in the U.S. have arisen in response to periods of economic hardship. In the wake of the financial crisis that swept Steve Yeater/AP

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska takes a break on the campaign trail in October. Murkowski lost the Republican primary to a Tea Party-backed challenger, but she retained her seat after waging a historic write-in campaign in the general election in November.

the globe in 2008, populist sentiment was once more on the rise. The catalyst for what would become known as the Tea Party movement came on Feb. 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, a commentator on the business-news network CNBC, referenced the Boston Tea Party (1773) in his response to President Obama’s mortgage-relief plan. Speaking from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli heatedly stated that the bailout would “subsidize the losers’ mortgages” and proposed a Chicago Tea Party to protest government intervention in the housing market. The five-minute video clip became an Internet sensation, and the “Tea Party” rallying cry struck a chord with those who had already seen billions of dollars flow toward sagging financial firms. Unlike previous populist movements, which were characterized by a distrust of business in general and bankers in particular, the Tea Party movement focused its ire at the federal government and extolled the virtues of free-market principles. Within weeks Tea Party chapters began to appear around the U.S., using social media sites such as Facebook to coordinate protest events. They were spurred on by conservative pundits, particularly by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck. The generally libertarian character of the movement drew disaffected Republicans to the Tea Party banner, and its antigovernment tone resonated with members of the paramilitary militia movement. Obama himself served as a powerful recruiting tool as the Tea Party ranks were swelled by “Birthers”—individuals who claimed, despite incontrovertible evidence to the (Top left) Chris Miller/AP; (top right) Ed Reinke/AP

Tea Party favourite Rand Paul campaigns for a U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky at a rally on July 10. Paul defeated the mainstream candidate in the Republican primary and was elected to the Senate on November 2.

contrary, that Obama had been born outside the U.S. and was thus not eligible to serve as president—as well as by those who considered Obama a socialist and those who believed the unsubstantiated rumour that Obama, a practicing Christian, was secretly a Muslim. The Tea Party movement’s first major action was a nationwide series of rallies on April 15, 2009, that drew more than 250,000 people. April 15 is historically the deadline for filing individual income-tax returns, and protesters claimed that “Tea” was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already.” The movement gathered strength throughout the summer of 2009, with its members appearing at congressional town hall meetings to protest the proposed reforms to the American health care system. The frequent branding of government policies as socialist recalled the rhetoric of the Cold War-era John Birch Society (JBS), and it was not uncommon to see some Tea Party groups and the JBS working in concert. At the national level, a number of groups claimed to represent the Tea Party movement as a whole, but with a few exceptions the Tea Party lacked a clear leader. When Palin resigned as governor of Alaska in July 2009, she became an unofficial spokesperson of sorts on Tea Party issues, and in February 2010 she delivered the keynote address at the first National Tea Party Convention. Beck, whose 9/12 Project— so named for Beck’s “9 principles and 12 values” as well as for the obvious allusion to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—drew tens of thousands of protesters to the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 12, 2009, also offered daily affirmations of

Tea Party beliefs on his TV and radio shows. FreedomWorks, a supply-side economics advocacy group headed by former Republican House majority leader Dick Armey, provided logistic support for larger gatherings, and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina supported Tea Party candidates from within the Republican establishment. The absence of a central organizing structure was cited as proof of the Tea Partiers’ grassroots credentials, but it also meant that the movement’s goals and beliefs were highly localized and even personalized. In the special election in January 2010 to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy, dark-horse candidate Scott Brown defeated Kennedy’s presumptive successor, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. That race shifted the balance in the Senate, depriving the Democrats of the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority that they had held since July 2009. With its mixed performance at the midterm polls, it remained to be seen if the Tea Party could maintain its momentum through another election cycle. While certain elements appeared to have been co-opted into the mainstream Republican Party, others remained well apart, focusing on single policy issues or rejecting the trappings of power almost as a matter of principle. The diffuse collection of groups and individuals who made up the Tea Party movement was unique in the history of American populism, as it seemed to draw strength from its ability to “stick apart.” Michael Ray is an Assistant Editor, Geography, at Encyclopædia Britannica.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Invasive Species:

Exotic Intruders T by John P. Rafferty

he increasing prevalence of invasive species and their impact on biodiversity briefly pushed global warming and climate change out of the environmental spotlight, especially since the United Nations and many conservation organizations recognized 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. In particular, the activities of two invasive groups of animals in North America—the Asian carp, a collection of Eurasian fishes that belonged to the family Cyprinidae, and the Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus)—received the most attention during the year. Invasive species, which are also known as exotic or alien species, are plants, animals, and other organisms that have been introduced either accidentally or deliberately by human actions into places outside their natural geographic range. Many foreign species set free in new environments do not survive very long because they do not possess the evolutionary tools to adapt to the challenges of the new habitat. Some species introduced to new environments, however, have a built-in competitive advantage over native species; they can establish themselves in the new environment and disrupt ecological processes there, especially if their new habitat lacks natural predators to keep them in check. Since invasive competitors thwart native species in their bid to obtain food, over time they can effectively replace, and thus eliminate from the ecosystem, the species they compete with. On the other hand, invasive predators, which also could spread diseases, may be so adept at capturing prey that prey populations decline over time, and many prey species are eliminated from affected ecosystems. One of the best contemporary examples of an invasive competitor is the Asian carp. After having been taken to

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Asian carp, voracious eaters of algae and plankton, make their way upstream in the Kansas River near Edwardsville, Kan. Environmentalists, state government officials, and the members of the sportfishing and tourism industries feared that these fish could drastically alter Great Lakes ecosystems. the United States in the 1970s to help control algae on catfish farms in the Deep South, bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (H. molitrix) escaped into the Mississippi River system during flooding episodes in the early 1990s. After establishing self-sustaining populations in the lower Mississippi River, they began to move northward. Thus far, they have been restricted to the Mississippi River watershed; however, it is feared that they will enter the Great Lakes through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Once in the Great Lakes ecosystem, they could seriously disrupt the food chains of the major lakes and adjoining rivers. These two species of carp pose the greatest danger. They consume large amounts of algae and zooplankton, eating as much as 40% of their body weight per day. They are fierce competitors that often push aside native fish to ob-

tain food, and their populations grow rapidly, accounting for 90% of the biomass in some stretches of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. (Some scientists suggest, however, that the carp’s impact may be tempered by the presence of the quagga mussel, Dreissena bugensis, a filter-feeding mollusk that has already scoured plankton from parts of the Great Lakes.) In addition, silver carp often leap out of the water when startled by noise, creating lifethreatening aerial hazards to anglers, water-skiers, and boaters. With the discovery of Asian carp DNA in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and in Lake Michigan, a controversy erupted between Illinois and a coalition of other Great Lakes states and a Canadian province. The coalition then asked Illinois to close the locks to prevent the transfer of the carp between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. Travis Heying—Wichita Eagle/AP

A Burmese python is displayed wrapped around the arm of a researcher during a news conference in the Florida Everglades. These dangerous constrictor snakes were responsible for the decline of native rodents, birds, reptiles, and amphibians in regions where they had been introduced.

Citing the potential loss of shipping revenue, Illinois declined—an action that spawned two petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court and one to Federal District Court with the goal of forcing Illinois to close the canal’s locks. All three petitions were rebuffed by the courts in 2010. However, the announcement in early September that John Goss, the former director of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, would serve as U.S. Pres. Barack Obama’s Asian carp czar, along with the allotment of $79 million earlier in the year, signaled greater White House involvement in the issue. Florida ecosystems, in contrast, faced a different type of invader. Unlike the Asian carp, the Burmese python is a voracious predator. Released into the Florida landscape after Hurricane Andrew damaged pet stores in 1992, as well as by change-of-heart pet owners, Burmese pythons have established breeding populations in the state. Growing to nearly 6 m (20 ft) long, these giant constrictor snakes have become significant predators in the area, challenging the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) for dominance. The python’s penchant for consuming the Key Largo wood rat (Neotoma floridana) and the wood stork (Mycteria americana) have caused both species to decline locally. As python numbers con(Top) Lynne Sladky/AP; (bottom) John J. Mosesso/NBII Life

tinue to grow, predation pressure on these and other prey animals will as well. Wildlife managers and government officials gave up hope of completely eradicating the animals, choos-

ing instead to implement a program of monitoring and control. They also worry that the Burmese python could interbreed with the more aggressive African rock python (Python sebae sebae), another species released by pet owners. Those concerned remain optimistic about containing the animals, however. A cold snap descending on Florida in January 2010 was thought to have killed large numbers of pythons. Unfortunately, the Asian carp and Burmese python are only two examples of several invasive species currently affecting North America. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Great Lakes region was altered by the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), a primitive fish that uses a specially modified sucker to latch on to game fish and drain their blood. In the 1980s the introduction of the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha), a filter-feeding mollusk that clogs water intake pipes and removes much of the algae from the aquatic ecosystems it inhabits, created further ecological disruption. Other parts of the U.S. are covered by kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata), a fast-growing vine native to Asia that deprives native plants of sunlight, and plagued by the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta), an aggressive swarming and biting species native to South America.

Kudzu can grow up to 26 cm (10 in) per day, relentlessly covering forest-edge habitats, tree plantations, banks of streams and lakes, pastures, and other managed lands, such as this roadside in southern Virginia.

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North American gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinenis) introduced to the United Kingdom (top left) continue to outcompete native red squirrels (S. vulgaris). Gray squirrels have driven out native red squirrels from most of their habitat in Britain. Cane toads (top right), native to Central and South America, have established invasive populations in Florida and the islands of the Caribbean, Australia and New Guinea, and parts of Polynesia. Sea lampreys (centre left) probably entered the Great Lakes through shipping canals of the northeastern U.S. connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean; however, some scientists contended that these fish were first introduced to the Great Lakes and its tributaries by anglers as bait. Oriental bittersweet (centre right), which was introduced to the United States in the middle of the 19th century, is a climbing vine that smothers native shrubs and burdens the crowns of larger trees. By decimating pollinator species on Guam, brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) interfered with plant reproduction (bottom left), which slowed the rate of plant regeneration on the island. Zebra mussels (bottom right), nuisance mollusks that are notorious for choking water-intake pipes, encrust a pier that has been pulled from Lake Erie in Monroe, Mich. 188

(Top left) iStockphoto/Thinkstock; (top right) U.S. Geological Survey Archive—U.S. Geological Survey/Bugwood.org; (centre left) Blickwinkel/Alamy; (centre right) James H. Miller—USDA Forest Service/Bugwood.org; (bottom left) Gordon H. Rodda/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; (bottom right) Jim West/Alamy

The invasive species problem is neither new nor restricted to North America. One of the best-known historical examples is the spread of the Norway, or brown, rat (Rattus norvegicus) throughout the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Since the rat’s accidental introduction during the voyages of exploration between the late 18th and 19th centuries, populations have established themselves on numerous Pacific islands, including Hawaii and New Zealand, where they prey on many native birds, small reptiles, and amphibians. Dogs, cats, pigs, and other domesticated animals taken to new lands caused the extinction of many other species, including the dodo (Raphus cucullatus). In modern times, red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in the United Kingdom are being replaced by North American gray squirrels (S. carolinensis), which breed faster than red squirrels and are better equipped to survive harsh conditions. Although invasive species occur on all continents, Australia and Oceania have been particularly hard hit. The first

The population of red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in the United Kingdom declined in part because of a disease brought by and competition with gray squirrels (S. carolinensis) introduced from North America.

(Top) Ronald Laubenstein/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; (bottom) iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are clever, omnivorous mammals that typically prey on rodents and insects; however, they are also capable of consuming fruit, grain, and carrion. wave of invasive species arrived in Australia and the islands of the Pacific with European explorers in the form of feral cats and various rat species. European wild rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were introduced to the continent in 1827 and have multiplied significantly. Over time, they degraded grazing lands by stripping the bark from native trees and shrubs and consuming their seeds and leaves. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has wreaked havoc on marsupials and native rodents since its introduction in the 1850s. The voracious cane toad (Bufo marinus), a poisonous species with few natural predators, was introduced to Australia in the 1930s from Hawaii to reduce the effects of beetles on sugarcane plantations. Cane toads are responsible for a variety of ills, such as population declines in native prey species (bees and other small animals), population drops in amphibian species that compete with them, and the poisoning of species that consume them. On Guam, Saipan, and several other Pacific islands, the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) has caused the extinction of several birds, reptiles, and amphibians and two of Guam’s three native bat species. The best way to thwart further invasions and contribute to the protection of biodiversity is to prevent the introductions of exotic species to new areas. Although international trade and travel continue to provide opportunities for “exotic stowaways,” governments and citizens can reduce the risk of their re-

lease to new environments. Closer inspection of pallets, containers, and other international shipping materials at ports of departure and arrival could uncover insects, seeds, and other stowaway organisms. Tougher fines and the threat of incarceration might also deter buyers, sellers, and transporters of illegal exotic pets. More stringent control at ports will not work for invasive species already established, however. Climate change, for example, may afford some invasive species new opportunities. The continued rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations has been shown to fuel photosynthesis (and thus growth and reproductive success) in some plants. For botanical invaders such as kudzu and Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), climate warming associated with increases in atmospheric carbon will likely allow these species to gain footholds in habitats formerly off-limits to them. To prevent such scenarios from playing out, aggressive monitoring and eradication programs need to be put in place. Ideally, these actions, combined with effective education programs that give citizens the knowledge and resources to deal with exotic plants, animals, and other species in their region, will prevent the further loss of biodiversity from invasive species. John P. Rafferty is the Associate Editor of Earth and Life Sciences for Encyclopædia Britannica.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Engineering for

Earthquakes by Robert Reitherman

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ajor earthquakes in Haiti and in Chile made the headlines in 2010. Though both quakes caused significant damage to buildings and other infrastructure, the degree of destruction and disruption was extremely severe in Haiti but was held to a modest level in Chile. The reason for this was not so much a difference in the earthquakes themselves as in the high level of earthquake engineering that had been implemented in Chile and the absence of such strategies in Haiti. In the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, more than 220,000 people were killed. (See Sidebar on page 407.) Fatalities totaled about 10% of the population of the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area, whereas past statistics for equally strong earthquakes in urban areas in many countries usually have fatality ratios of less than 1%. In Chile the February 27 earthquake killed fewer than 600 people. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital and its predominant urban centre, the peak ground-shaking severity was greater than in Chile. The Haiti earthquake had a magnitude of “only” 7.0, while the Chile earthquake had a near-record magnitude of 8.8, but Port-au-Prince was very close to the rupturing fault. In Chile a much-larger earthquake (roughly packing 1,000 times more energy) was spread over a far greater area, along approximately 800 km (about 500 mi) of South America’s coastline and adjacent interior areas, where 8 of Chile’s 10 largest cities are located. Along with the larger magnitude came a larger duration of shaking. One explanation for the difference in losses between those two countries is that Chile is historically among the world’s most seismically active coun190

Poor-quality construction contributed to the collapse of this five-story masonryand-concrete-frame building in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that befell the capital and surrounding areas in January.

tries, where some of the largest earthquakes have been recorded, including significant events as recently as 1960 and 1985. In Haiti there were earthquakes that damaged Port-au-Prince in 1751, 1770, and 1860, but time can lead to complacency when the most recent serious event was more than a century earlier. Earthquake engineering and its disciplines of structural and geotechnical engineering deal with the world “from the ground up” and are primarily implemented via professions and trades that conscientiously carry out the seismic regulations in construction codes and in guidelines and standards. In Haiti the building code did not have significant seismic provisions, and,

with the exception of isolated instances, there was little voluntary application of current-day earthquake engineering. Standard procedure in Haitian government bureaus was to issue building permits without any engineering review of the plans or visits to the site to observe construction. Architects and engineers practice in Haiti without any particular licensure requirements, and much of the housing there is built without any permits. Historically, earthquake requirements have typically been grafted onto an existing building code that is already enforced for ordinary gravity-load design and fire safety, but in Haiti’s case the prerequisite—a preexisting effectively enforced building code—does not exist. Eduardo Fierro—BFP Engineers, Inc./Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE)

On the other hand, earthquake engineering in Chile extended back to Aug. 17, 1906, when there was a magnitude8.2 earthquake that caused as much damage in Valparaiso, Chile, as the magnitude-7.9 earthquake that struck San Francisco earlier that year, on April 18. One of the world’s most prominent seismologists at the time, Ferdinand de Montessus de Ballore, emigrated from Paris to Santiago to head the Chilean Seismological Service. He also established a course at the University of Chile on earthquake-resistant design. In 1939 Chile’s most deadly natural disaster occurred, a magnitude-7.8 earthquake centred near Chillán in which some 28,000 people died. This resulted in the beginnings of a national seismic code. Quality of construction materials is also crucial. Reinforced concrete consists of five ingredients: Portland cement, aggregate (gravel), sand, water, and air. If Portland cement is not supplied in the mix in sufficient quantity, there is not enough “glue” to hold the concrete together. The sand must be clean, not beach sand with a salty residue that chemically reacts in a negative way with the other ingredients. The aggregate should be of a specified type and size of rock, not random-sized or excessively large. The water must be essentially as clean as drinking water. In Haiti each ingredient, however, is too often substandard. Also, reinforcing steel bars (“rebar” about the diameter of a finger) are sometimes made in long lengths at the factory and then bent or folded several times so that they can fit onto small trucks. They are then straightened at the construction site. The steel in seismically designed construction is calculated to be ductile; that is, it must be capable of being permanently bent out of shape while still remaining intact and resisting load. That ductility is used up when the steel has already been severely bent back and forth, just as one can break a paper clip by simply bending the wire back and forth. Several popular theories have been widely disseminated to explain the difference in losses in Haiti and Chile in 2010. One says that Haiti’s poverty is the explanation, but the GDP per person in Haiti, at approximately $1,000, is about the same as in Nepal. Yet in Nepal there is an active program instructing builders about earthquake-resistant construction as well as a national earthquake engineering society, and Nepalese engineering students are Chuck Burton/AP

During an earthquake engineering test in October at the Institute for Business and Home Safety in Richburg, S.C., a building constructed according to conventional design crumbles while one adhering to earthquake-fortified standards shows little or no damage.

being trained at universities in neighbouring India and other countries where earthquake engineering is already part of the curriculum. Lack of government stability is another theory, and it is noteworthy that Haiti has suffered more than 30 coups in its 200 years. Where Caribbean governmental stability is concerned, there is no match for Cuba, with its 50 years under Fidel Castro. Under Castro, and before him Fulgencio Batista, the University of Havana came under political control, and academic access to knowledge in most other countries was cut off. In the countries that kept advancing their earthquake engineering over the past half century—including Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, the U.S., and Italy—exchanges of professors on sabbatical leave and students studying abroad have been keys to success. Thus, Cuba’s second largest city, Santiago de Cuba, located a short distance across the Windward Passage from Haiti, may be another candidate for earthquake disaster, even though government instability and extreme poverty are not present. Because the field’s major innovations have already occurred over the past three or four decades, the big story that surfaced in 2010 is how those innovations are being applied. One advance is the invention in the 1970s of seismic isolators, bearings installed between the concrete foundation and the superstructure above, which convert the jittery and violent motion of the earth—and the

foundation embedded in the earth—into smoother and less-severe motions that the building or bridge above can withstand. Seismic dampers, which are similar in function to shock absorbers in an automobile, can damp out the bumpy motions. New types of steel braces (diagonal struts) can take the lateral load of an earthquake without buckling. Analytic techniques also continuously improve, and engineers today can make a computer-simulation model that includes every column, beam, brace, floor, and foundation element and then analyze that structure with regard to half a dozen or more recorded earthquake motions to test and refine the design. Although these more sophisticated applications are often found in countries where earthquake engineering is most advanced, many countries such as Haiti could benefit from simply applying much more basic technology in a reliable way. In earthquake engineering, as in medicine, there are many kinds of barriers to the application of measures that can protect a population, but simple precautions—including robust building codes and professional standards for architects and engineers, the use of quality construction materials, and educated earthquake engineers—can make all the difference. Robert Reitherman is Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering and is coauthor (with Christopher Arnold) of Building Configuration and Seismic Design.

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Molecular Gastronomy: The Science Behind the Cuisine by Hervé This

M

olecular Gastronomy. By 2010 the term Molecular Gastronomy—as well as other names, among them Molecular Cooking and Molecular Cuisine— had wrongly become identified with a culinary trend that had been spreading among chefs worldwide for some 20 years. As a result, the designation of the scientific discipline that was created in 1988 by myself and Nicholas Kurti (a former professor of physics at the University of Oxford [died in 1998]) often became associated with the cooking trend rather than with the scientific application behind the techniques used to fashion unique culinary creations. In part this confusion arose because, beginning in 1992, we established international meetings that we called International Workshops on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy, which took place about every two years in Erice, Italy. In our attempt to infuse our program of Molecular Gastronomy with a mix of science (looking for new knowledge on the mechanisms of phenomena), technology (improving technique, or craft, using the results produced by that science), and communication, Kurti and I contributed to the confusion between the various names. We wanted to (1) understand culinary phenomena, (2) collect and test culinary old wives’ tales, (3) invent new dishes based on these phenomena and old wives’ tales, (4) introduce into the kitchen “new” tools, ingredients, and methods, and (5) use all of this to demonstrate to a large audience how wonderful science is. Even if the goals—science, technology, and communication—were of a heterogeneous nature, and even if it were felt that technology is easier to implement when new knowledge produced by science is used, the initial idea for Molecular Gastronomy was clearly scientific. This was the reason why we decided on the name chosen 192

Chef Grant Achatz at his Chicago restaurant Alinea uses a blowtorch to complete his recipe for pheasant that has been cooked sous vide (simmered at a relatively low temperature in a vacuum-sealed bag), then deep-fried tempura-style with apple cider gelled with agar, and skewered with burning oak leaves. for this research. Gastronomy, as defined by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, author of Physiologie du goût (1825; The Physiology of Taste, 1949), is not “cooking with expensive ingredients” but rather “the intelligent knowledge of whatever concerns man’s nourishment.” It was obvious to us that to characterize this particular part of gastronomy would require using an adjective such as chemical or physical, but in order to avoid excluding any particular science, the term molecular was chosen. Molecular Gastronomy developed very quickly, in part because many chefs who had at least one coveted Michelin star were invited to the International Workshops but also because it was new and highly needed. It slowly became apparent that the confusion between science and cooking was unfortunate. In about 1999 it was determined that different names had to be applied to the scientific activity on the one hand and the culinary enterprise on the other. The name Molecular Cooking (and its variations Molecular

Cookery and Molecular Cuisine) was introduced as the kind of technologically oriented way of cooking developed by some of the world’s top chefs. Proposed just before 2000, this new terminology gained momentum, and by 2010 it had become clear that Molecular Gastronomy should be used to designate the scientific discipline that investigates the mechanism of phenomena that occur during culinary transformation, while the term Molecular Cooking (Cookery, Cuisine) should define the culinary trend in which chefs use the new tools, ingredients, and methods developed through research in Molecular Gastronomy. Historical Context. Molecular Gastronomy has famous ancestors. These include 18th-century chemist ClaudeJoseph Geoffroy, who studied essential oils in plants; 18th-century French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who studied meat stock and was celebrated as one of the founders of modern chemistry; American-born British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, count von Jim Newberry/Alamy

Culinary foams, such as this soybean froth atop an oyster au gratin, involve spraying out of a nitrous-oxide canister a mixture of a flavour ingredient and a natural gelling agent, such as agar or lecithin. Rumford, who developed modern theories regarding heat and was also interested in meat cooking; German chemist Friedrich Christian (Frederick) Accum, whose A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820) raised awareness of food safety; and 19th-century French chemist MichelEugène Chevreul, who analyzed the chemical composition of animal fats. In the 20th century French microbiologist Edouard de Pomiane published bestselling books on cooking. Since 1988 research teams have been established under the name Molecular Gastronomy at universities in many countries. Educational initiatives have also been introduced within the main framework of physical chemistry education, such as the Experimental Cuisine Collective launched in 2007 at New York University. Molecular Gastronomy has been shown to be an excellent educational tool, as the students (in chemistry, physics, and biology) can observe and understand the practical use of the theories that they learn. Scientifically speaking, it was understood in the early 2000s that “cooking” involves an artistic element of fundamental importance: creating a cheese soufflé is not cooking if the flavour is such that it is not eaten, but flavour is a question of art, not of technique. At the same time, it was understood that the “social link” of food is also very important. A distinction was then made between the various parts of recipes, which led to the proposal of a new program for Molecular Gastronomy: (1) to model recipes (“culinary definitions”), (2) to collect and test “culinary precisions,” (3) to explore (scientifically) the (Left) Bon Appetit/Alamy; (right) Bernat Armangue, FILE/AP

Catalan chef Ferran Adrià, one of the foremost exponents of Molecular Cooking, announced in 2010 that he was closing his award-winning restaurant, El Bulli, to focus more on culinary research and teaching.

artistic component of cooking, and (4) to explore (scientifically) the “social link.” Among many other achievements, a formalism called “complex disperse systems/non periodical organization of space” (CDS/NPOS) was introduced in 2002 in an effort to describe the organization and material of food in particular but also of all formulated products (including drugs, cosmetics, paintings, etc.), and new analytic methods were introduced for the study of the transformation of foods either in isolation or in aqueous solutions such as broths and stocks. On the other hand, Molecular Cooking, or Molecular Cuisine, is now clearly defined as the culinary trend wherein chefs use new tools, ingredients, and methods. Of course, the word new is itself problematic. Tools such as laboratory filters (for clarification), decanting bulbs (used in skimming stocks), vacuum evaporators (for making extracts), siphons (for producing foams), and ultrasonic probes (for emulsions) are not new in chemistry laboratories. Gelling agents such as carrageenans, sodium alginate, agaragar, and others are certainly not entirely new in the food industry. Even liquid nitrogen (used to make sherbets and to flash freeze almost anything) was proposed for use in the kitchen as early as 1907. None of these tools or ingredients, however, was present in cookbooks as recently as the 1980s. Molecular Cuisine. Molecular Cooking has been perfected by such noted chefs as Ferran Adrià (see BIOGRAPHIES) and Andoni Luis Aduriz in Spain, Denis Martin in Switzerland, Ettore Bocchia in Italy, Alex Atala in Brazil, Heston

Blumenthal in the U.K., René Redzepi in Denmark, Sang-Hoon Degeimbre in Belgium, and Thierry Marx in France. Critics and foodies alike enjoyed the marriage of food science and artistry. In the U.S., Fritz Blank left his career as a clinical microbiologist in 1979 to open his Philadelphia restaurant Deux Cheminées before retiring in 2007. At his restaurant wd~50 in New York City, Wylie Dufresne invented such singular creations as deep-fried mayonnaise and noodles made with protein (such as shrimp) instead of flour. In Chicago, chefs Homaru Cantu at Moto and Grant Achatz at Alinea devised such innovations as edible ink and paper and dishes nestled on aromatic pillows, respectively. Even chefs who do not specialize in Molecular Cuisine have introduced to their menus spherification (liquids that create their own spherical “skin” through gelling agents), culinary foams (popularized by Adrià), and flash-frozen popcorn balls, among other concoctions. While this innovative, and often whimsical, cuisine has become very fashionable, it is important to remember that Molecular Cooking per se might die as the modernization of culinary activities is achieved. Molecular Gastronomy, however, will remain forever and will continue to develop in new and exciting directions because it is a science and not technology or technique. Hervé This, one of the founders of Molecular Gastronomy, is the head of the Molecular Gastronomy Group at the AgroParisTech/INRA Research Unit in Paris and Scientific Director of the Food Science and Culture Foundation of the French Academy of Sciences.

193

SPECIAL REPORT

The XXI Olympic

Winter Games

by Melinda C. Shepherd

V

ancouver welcomed the world to Canada “With Glowing Hearts” as the city and its environs played host to the XXI Olympic Winter Games on Feb. 12–28, 2010. Some 2,600 athletes representing 82 national Olympic committees (NOCs)—including first-time participants Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Peru—competed in 86 medal events in 15 disciplines. There were two new events: freestyle skiing ski cross for both men and women. The competition was spread across nine venues in Vancouver (those for ice hockey, curling, figure skating, and short-track speed skating), suburban Richmond (speed skating), the Whistler Mountain resort (sliding events and most of the skiing events), and Cypress Mountain (freestyle skiing and snowboard). BC Place in Vancouver was the site of many of the victory medal ceremonies in addition to the relatively low-key opening and closing ceremonies, which drew on Canadian culture as well as the self-deprecating humour and legendary politeness of the self-described “Canucks.” In preparing for the Games, the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) emphasized participation by members of the Canadian aboriginal peoples— First Nations, Inuit, and Métis—especially in the accompanying Cultural Olympiad. Even the Olympic mascots were inspired by First Nations aboriginal mythology. Quatchi, the sasquatch of the forests, and Miga, the sea bear (half orca whale and half white Kermode bear), were prominent figures, often with Mukmuk the marmot, their unofficial “sidekick.” Sumi, a magical guardian spirit who “wears the hat of the orca whale, flies with the wings of the mighty thunderbird, and runs on the strong furry legs of the black bear,” served as a special mascot for the fivesport Winter Paralympics that followed the Games on March 12–21.

194

Fears that the Whistler Sliding Centre track (used for bobsleigh, skeleton, and luge) was too dangerous were heightened after Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed when he lost control of his sled during a training run and

During the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games on February 12, performers dance through a symbolic forest, one of many features at the Games that were inspired by First Nation aboriginal mythology. was thrown off the track into a supporting girder. Among other cautions, the accident triggered calls for more stringent qualifications for less-experienced competitors. Officials moved the starting gates for both men and women to lower positions on the track and made other changes to the track in an effort to improve safety and reduce top speeds. Weather played a role on the slopes as the region experienced mild tempera-

tures, and VANOC organizers had to truck in extra snow. Rain, heavy fog, high winds, or blowing snow forced the postponement of some Alpine skiing runs, while athletes at Whistler and Cypress Mountain faced poor visibility during some skiing and snowboard events. In the end, however, nothing was canceled, and the general atmosphere remained cheerful. At the closing ceremony, International Olympic Committee Pres. Jacques Rogge called the Vancouver Games a “unique and joyous celebration of Olympism.” The United States, with 37 medals (9 gold, 15 silver, and 13 bronze), set a record for a single Winter Olympics and finished atop the Winter Olympic medal rankings for the first time since the 1932 Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. Germany was second with 30 medals (10 gold, 13 silver, and 7 bronze). Canada’s controversial Can$117 million (about U.S.$104 million) “Own the Podium” funding program paid off, as the host country, which had no gold medals from the two prior Olympics held in Canada (Montreal, 1976, and Calgary, Alta., 1988), captured a record 14 gold (breaking the previous record of 13 set by the Soviet Union in 1976 and matched by Norway in 2002). Canada claimed an additional 7 silver and 5 bronze medals and finished an unprecedented third in the final medal rankings. The other top countries were Norway, with 23 medals (9 gold); Austria, with 16 (4 gold); Russia, with 15 (3 gold); and South Korea, with 14 (6 gold). Altogether, 26 NOCs earned at least one medal. There were 61 multiple-medal winners in Vancouver, with 15 competitors taking three or more. Norwegian crosscountry skier Marit Bjørgen topped the individual medals table, reaching the podium in all five events in which she competed and finishing with three gold, one silver, and one bronze. Her teammate Petter Northug led the men’s list with four cross-country medals Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

(two gold, one silver, and one bronze). Short-track speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno (see Biographies), competing in his third Winter Olympics, took a silver and two bronze and set a record for an American Winter Olympian with a career total of eight medals, two better than the previous leader, speed skater Bonnie Blair, who competed in 1988, 1992, and 1994. Alexandre Bilodeau of Rosemère, Que., made history on the second full day of competition when he became the first Canadian to win gold on home soil, narrowly defeating Vancouver-born Australian Dale Begg-Smith in the freestyle skiing moguls final. Canadian fans rejoiced when the ice dancing team

of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who led going into the final free skate, held on for the gold medal. (See Biographies.) Virtue and Moir were the first North American team ever to win the event. In the last event of the Vancouver Games, the men’s ice hockey final, Canada defeated the U.S. to give the host country its record 14th gold medal and a thrilling victory in what many considered the national sport. In women’s ice hockey Canada accomplished a “three-peat,” defeating the U.S. in the gold-medal game after having secured the gold in Salt Lake City, Utah (2002), and in Turin, Italy (2006). Six other gold medalists from the Turin Games also won the same

event in Vancouver: American snowboarders Shaun White (halfpipe) and Seth Wescott (snowboardcross [SBX]), American speed skater Shani Davis (1,000 m), short-track speed skater Wang Meng of China (500 m), André Lange and Kevin Kuske of Germany (two-man bobsleigh), and brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger of Austria (luge doubles). American Evan Lysacek (see Biographies) turned in a nearly flawless free skate to become the first non-Russian or non-Soviet men’s Olympic figure skating champion since American Brian Boitano in 1988. Melinda C. Shepherd is Senior Editor of Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbooks.

OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS, XXI WINTER GAMES, VANCOUVER Alpine Skiing—Men Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Downhill Slalom Giant slalom Super G Super Combined

Didier Defago (SUI) Giuliano Rozzoli (ITA) Carlo Janka (SUI) Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR) Bode Miller (USA)

1 min 54.31 sec 1 min 39.32 sec 2 min 37.83 sec 1 min 30.34 sec 2 min 44.92 sec

Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR) Ivica Kostelic (CRO) Kjetil Jansrud (NOR) Bode Miller (USA) Ivica Kostelic (CRO)

Bode Miller (USA) Andre Myhrer (SWE) Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR) Andrew Weibrecht (USA) Silvan Zurbriggen (SUI)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Downhill Slalom Giant slalom Super G Super Combined

Lindsey Vonn (USA) Maria Riesch (GER) Viktoria Rebensburg (GER) Andrea Fischbacher (AUT) Maria Riesch (GER)

1 min 44.19 sec 1 min 42.89 sec 2 min 27.11 sec 1 min 20.14 sec 2 min 09.14 sec

Julia Mancuso (USA) Marlies Schild (AUT) Tina Maze (SLO) Tina Maze (SLO) Julia Mancuso (USA)

Elisabeth Görgl (AUT) Sarka Zahrobska (CZE) Elisabeth Görgl (AUT) Lindsey Vonn (USA) Anja Pärson (SWE)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

1.5-km sprint team sprint

Nikita Kriyukov (RUS) Øystein Pettersen, Petter Northug (NOR) Dario Cologna (SUI) Marcus Hellner (SWE) Petter Northug (NOR) Sweden (Daniel Richardsson, Anders Södergren, Marcus Hellner, Johan Olsson) Simon Ammann (SUI)

3 min 36.3 sec 19 min 01.0 sec

276.5 pt

Aleksandr Panzhinskiy (RUS) Tim Tscharnke, Axel Teichmann (GER) Pietro Piller Cottrer (ITA) Tobias Angerer (GER) Axel Teichmann (GER) Norway (Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, Lars Berger, Petter Northug) Adam Malysz (POL)

Petter Northug (NOR) Nikolay Morilov, Aleksey Petukhov (RUS) Lukas Bauer (CZE) Johan Olsson (SWE) Johan Olsson (SWE) Czech Republic (Martin Jaks, Lukas Bauer, Jiri Magal, Martin Koukal) Gregor Schlierenzauer (AUT)

Simon Ammann (SUI)

283.6 pt

Adam Malysz (POL)

Gregor Schlierenzauer (AUT)

Austria (Wolfgang Loitzl, Thomas Morgenstern, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Andreas Kofler) Jason Lamy Chappuis (FRA)

1,107.9 pt

25 min 01.1 sec

Germany (Michael Neumayer, Andreas Wank, Martin Schmitt, Michael Uhrmann) Johnny Spillane (USA)

Norway (Anders Bardal, Tom Hilde, Johan Remen Evensen, Anders Jacobsen) Alessandro Pittin (ITA)

Bill Demong (USA)

24 min 46.9 sec

Johnny Spillane (USA)

Bernhard Gruber (AUT)

Austria (Bernhard Gruber, Felix Gottwald, Mario Stecher, David Kreiner)

49 min 31.6 sec

United States (Brett Camerota, Todd Lodwick, Johnny Spillane, Bill Demong)

Germany (Johannes Rydzek, Tino Edelmann, Eric Frenzel, Björn Kircheisen)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

1.5-km sprint team sprint

Marit Bjørgen (NOR) Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle, Claudia Nystad (GER) Charlotte Kalla (SWE) Marit Bjørgen (NOR)

3 min 39.2 sec 18 min 03.7 sec

Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) Charlotte Kalla, Anna Haag (SWE)

24 min 58.4 sec 39 min 58.1 sec

Kristina Smigun-Vaehi (EST) Anna Haag (SWE)

Petra Majdic (SLO) Irina Khazova, Nataliya Korosteleva (RUS) Marit Bjørgen (NOR) Justyna Kowalczyk (POL)

Alpine Skiing—Women

Nordic Skiing—Men

15-km freestyle 30-km pursuit 50-km mass start 4 × 10-km relay

normal hill (106-m) ski jump large hill (140-m) ski jump large hill (140-m) team ski jump Nordic combined NH/10 km Nordic combined LH/10 km Nordic combined team 4 × 5-km relay

33 min 36.3 sec 1 hr 15 min 11.4 sec 2 hr 5 min 35.5 sec 1 hr 45 min 05.4 sec

Nordic Skiing—Women

10-km freestyle 15-km pursuit

195

Nordic Skiing—Women (continued) Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

30-km mass start 4 × 5-km relay

Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) Norway (Vibeke W. Skofterud, Kristin Størmer Steira, Marit Bjørgen, Therese Johaug)

1 hr 30 min 33.7 sec 55 min 19.5 sec

Marit Bjørgen (NOR) Germany (Katrin Zeller, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle, Miriam Grossner, Claudia Nystad)

Aino-Kaisa Saarinen (FIN) Finland (Pirjo Muranen, Virpi Kuitunen, Riitta-Liisa Roponen, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

10-km sprint 12.5-km pursuit 15-km mass start 20 km 4 × 7.5-km relay

Vincent Jay (FRA) Björn Ferry (SWE) Yevgeny Ustyugov (RUS) Emil Hegle Svendsen (NOR) Norway (Halvard Hanevold, Emil Hegle Svendsen, Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Tarjei Bø)

24 min 07.8 sec 33 min 38.4 sec 35 min 35.7 sec 48 min 22.5 sec 1 hr 21 min 38.1 sec

Emil Hegle Svendsen (NOR) Christoph Sumann (AUT) Martin Fourcade (FRA) Ole Einar Bjørndalen (NOR)* Austria (Simon Eder, Daniel Mesotitsch, Dominik Landertinger, Christoph Sumann)

Jakov Fak (CRO) Vincent Jay (FRA) Pavol Hurajt (SVK) Sergey Novikov (BLR)* Russia (Ivan Tcherezov, Anton Shipulin, Maksim Tchoudov, Yevgeny Ustyugov)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

7.5-km sprint 10-km pursuit 12.5-km mass start 15 km 4 × 6-km relay

Anastazia Kuzmina (SVK) Magdalena Neuner (GER) Magdalena Neuner (GER) Tora Berger (NOR) Russia (Anna Bogaliy-Titovets, Olga Medvedtseva, Olga Zaitseva, Svetlana Sleptsova)

19 min 55.6 sec 30 min 16.0 sec 35 min 19.6 sec 40 min 52.8 sec 1 hr 09 min 36.3 sec

Magdalena Neuner (GER) Anastazia Kuzmina (SVK) Olga Zaitseva (RUS) Elena Khrustaleva (KAZ) France (Marie-Laure Brunet, Sylvie Becaert, Marie Dorin, Sandrine Bailly)

Marie Dorin (FRA) Marie-Laure Brunet (FRA) Simone Hauswald (GER) Darya Domracheva (BLR) Germany (Andrea Henkel, Kati Wilhelm, Simone Hauswald, Martina Beck)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Moguls Aerials Ski cross

Alexandre Bilodeau (CAN) Alexei Grishin (BLR) Michael Schmid (SUI)

26.75 pt 248.41 pt

Dale Begg-Smith (AUS) Jeret Peterson (USA) Andreas Matt (AUT)

Bryon Wilson (USA) Liu Zhongqing (CHN) Audun Grønvold (NOR)

Biathlon—Men

Biathlon—Women

Freestyle Skiing—Men

Freestyle Skiing—Women Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Moguls Aerials Ski cross

Hannah Kearney (USA) Lydia Lassila (AUS) Ashleigh McIvor (CAN)

26.63 pt 214.74 pt

Jennifer Heil (CAN) Li Nina (CHN) Hedda Berntsen (NOR)

Shannon Bahrke (USA) Guo Xinxin (CHN) Marion Josserand (FRA)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Parallel giant slalom Halfpipe Snowboardcross (SBX)

Jasey Jay Anderson (CAN) Shaun White (USA) Seth Wescott (USA)

48.4 pt

Benjamin Karl (AUT) Peetu Piiroinen (FIN) Mike Robertson (CAN)

Mathieu Bozzetto (FRA) Scott Lago (USA) Tony Ramoin (FRA)

Snowboarding—Men

Snowboarding—Women Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Parallel giant slalom Halfpipe Snowboardcross (SBX)

Nicolien Sauerbreij (NED) Torah Bright (AUS) Maëlle Ricker (CAN)

45.0 pt

Yekaterina Ilyukhina (RUS) Hannah Teter (USA) Deborah Anthonioz (FRA)

Marion Kreiner (AUT) Kelly Clark (USA) Olivia Nobs (SUI)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Men Women Pairs

Evan Lysacek (USA) Kim Yu-Na (KOR) Shen Xue, Zhao Hongbo (CHN)

257.67 pt 228.56 pt 216.57 pt

Yevgeny Plushchenko (RUS) Mao Asada (JPN) Pang Qing, Tong Jian (CHN)

Ice dancing

Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir (CAN)

221.57 pt

Meryl Davis, Charlie White (USA)

Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) Joannie Rochette (CAN) Aliona Savchenko, Robin Szolkowy (GER) Oksana Domnina, Maksim Shabalin (RUS)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 5,000 m 10,000 m Team pursuit

Mo Tae-Bum (KOR) Shani Davis (USA) Mark Tuitert (NED) Sven Kramer (NED) Lee Seung-Hoon (KOR)§ Canada (Mathieu Giroux, Lucas Makowsky, Denny Morrison, François-Olivier Roberge)

69.82 sec† 1 min 08.94 sec 1 min 45.57 sec 6 min 14.60 sec‡ 12 min 58.55 sec‡ 3 min 41.37 sec

Keiichiro Nagashima (JPN) Mo Tae-Bum (KOR) Shani Davis (USA) Lee Seung-Hoon (KOR) Ivan Skobrev (RUS) United States (Brian Hansen, Chad Hedrick, Jonathan Kuck, Trevor Marsicano)

Joji Kato (JPN) Chad Hedrick (USA) Havard Bokko (NOR) Ivan Skobrev (RUS) Bob de Jong (NED) Netherlands (Jan Blokhuijsen, Sven Kramer, Simon Kuipers, Mark Tuitert)

Figure Skating

Speed Skating—Men

196

Speed Skating—Women Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 3,000 m 5,000 m Team pursuit

Lee Sang-Hwa (KOR) Christine Nesbitt (CAN) Ireen Wüst (NED) Martina Sablikova (CZE) Martina Sablikova (CZE) Germany (Daniela Anschütz-Thoms, Stephanie Beckert, Anni FriesingerPostma, Katrin Mattscherodt)

76.09 sec† 1 min 16.56 sec 1 min 56.89 sec 4 min 02.53 sec 6 min 50.91 sec 3 min 02.82 sec

Jenny Wolf (GER) Annette Gerritsen (NED) Kristina Groves (CAN) Stephanie Beckert (GER) Stephanie Beckert (GER) Japan (Masako Hozumi, Nao Kodaira, Maki Tabata, Miho Takagi)

Wang Beixing (CHN) Laurine van Riessen (NED) Martina Sablikova (CZE) Kristina Groves (CAN) Clara Hughes (CAN) Poland (Katarzyna Bachleda-Curus, Natalia Czerwonka, Katarzyna Wozniak, Luiza Zlotkowska)

Short-Track Speed Skating—Men Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 5,000-m relay

Charles Hamelin (CAN) Lee Jung-Su (KOR) Lee Jung-Su (KOR) Canada (Charles Hamelin, François Hamelin, Olivier Jean, François-Louis Tremblay)

40.981 sec 1 min 23.747 sec‡ 2 min 17.611 sec 6 min 44.224 sec

Sung Si-Bak (KOR) Lee Ho-Suk (KOR) Apolo Anton Ohno (USA) South Korea (Kwak Yoon-Gy, Lee Ho-Suk, Lee Jung-Su, Sung Si-Bak)

François-Louis Tremblay (CAN) Apolo Anton Ohno (USA) J.R. Celski (USA) United States (J.R. Celski, Travis Jayner, Jordan Malone, Apolo Anton Ohno)

Short-Track Speed Skating—Women Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 3,000-m relay

Wang Meng (CHN) Wang Meng (CHN) Zhou Yang (CHN) China (Sun Linlin, Wang Meng, Zhang Hui, Zhou Yang)§

43.048 sec 1 min 29.213 sec 2 min 16.993 sec‡ 4 min 06.610 sec¶

Marianne St-Gelais (CAN) Katherine Reutter (USA) Lee Eun-Byul (KOR) Canada (Jessica Gregg, Kalyna Roberge, Marianne St-Gelais, Tania Vicent)

Arianna Fontana (ITA) Park Seung-Hi (KOR) Park Seung-Hi (KOR) United States (Allison Baver, Alyson Dudek, Lana Gehring, Katherine Reutter)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Men (winning team) Women (winning team)

Canada

6–1–0

United States

Finland

Canada

5–0–0

United States

Finland

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Men (winning team)

Canada (Kevin Martin [skip], John Morris, Marc Kennedy, Ben Hebert, Adam Enright) Sweden (Anette Norberg [skip], Eva Lund, Cathrine Lindahl, Anna Le Moine, Kajsa Bergström)

11–0–0

Norway (Thomas Ulsrud [skip], Torger Nergård, Christoffer Svae, Håvard Vad Petersson, Thomas Løvold) Canada (Cheryl Bernard [skip], Susan O’Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire, Cori Bartel, Kristie Moore)

Switzerland (Markus Eggler [skip], Ralph Stöckli, Jan Hauser, Simon Strübin, Toni Müller) China (Wang Bingyu [skip], Liu Yin, Yue Qingshuang, Zhou Yan, Liu Jinli)

Ice Hockey

Curling

Women (winning team)

10–1–0

Bobsleigh Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Two man

André Lange, Kevin Kuske (GER 1) Steven Holcomb, Steve Mesler, Curtis Tomasevicz, Justin Olsen (USA 1) Kaillie Humphries, Heather Moyse (CAN 1)

3 min 26.65 sec

Thomas Florschütz, Richard Adjei (GER 2) André Lange, Alexander Rödiger, Kevin Kuske, Martin Putze (GER 1) Helen Upperton, Shelley-Ann Brown (CAN 2)

Aleksandr Zoubkov, Aleksey Voyevoda (RUS 1) Lyndon Rush, Chris Le Bihan, David Bissett, Lascelles Brown (CAN 1) Erin Pac, Elana Meyers (USA 2)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Men (singles) Men (doubles)

Felix Loch (GER) Andreas Linger, Wolfgang Linger (AUT 1) Tatjana Hüfner (GER)

3 min 13.085 sec 1 min 22.705 sec

David Möller (GER) Andris Sics, Juris Sics (LAT 1)

2 min 46.524 sec

Nina Reithmayer (AUT)

Armin Zöggeler (ITA) Patric Leitner, Alexander Resch (GER 1) Natalie Geisenberger (GER)

Event

Gold medalist

Performance

Silver medalist

Bronze medalist

Men Women

Jon Montgomery (CAN) Amy Williams (GBR)

3 min 29.73 sec 3 min 35.64 sec

Martins Dukurs (LAT) Kerstin Szymkowiak (GER)

Aleksandr Tretyakov (RUS) Anja Huber (GER)

Four man

Women

3 min 24.46 sec

3 min 32.28 sec

Luge

Women (singles)

Skeleton

*Tied

for silver, no bronze awarded. †Time is combined total of two heats. winner disqualified. ¶World record.

‡Olympic

record.

§Original

197

Events of 2010

Exploding Olympic rings form a backdrop to a soaring snowboarder during the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games on February 12. Michael Kappeler—AFP/Getty Images

Anthropology and Archaeology Investigators mapped much of the GENOME of the Neanderthal and discovered a NEW SPECIES of human ancestor. EARLY FLINT TOOLS pushed back the dating of the human population of Britain, and in South Africa DECORATED OSTRICH EGGSHELLS seemed to indicate an ancient concept of art.

ANTHROPOLOGY

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n the field of physical anthropology, the key developments of 2010 included the publication of a draft sequence of approximately two-thirds of the Neanderthal nuclear genome. The work was accomplished by an international team of genetic researchers led by Swedish biologist Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Ger. The DNA sequence came from three long bone fragments representing three different female Neanderthals who occupied the Vindija cave in Croatia approximately 38,000–45,000 years ago. Estimates of human DNA contamination were all less than 1%, which thereby strengthened the credibility of perhaps the most surprising result of the study—i.e., the discovery of genetic evidence for interbreeding between the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. An estimated 1–4% of the genome in modern Eurasians was found to be derived from Neanderthals. Because the Neanderthals were significantly more closely related to all nonAfrican samples than to African samples, scientists speculated that the actual genetic admixture occurred in the Middle East after modern humans left Africa but before the global expansion and differentiation of modern human populations. Conversely, there was no evidence of any gene flow into the Neanderthal population from modern human groups. Seventy-eight amino acid differences were found between Neanderthals and modern humans such that Neanderthal samples had the ancestral state, while modern human samples were fixed for an evolutionarily derived state. These changes occurred in 73 separate genes, with 5 genes exhibiting two substitu-

tions involving phenotypes (properties produced by the interaction of the genotype and the environment) associated with the sperm flagellum, wound healing, gene transcription, and skin structure and function. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based test for positive natural selection in modern humans identified 212 regions of the genome where selection had, indeed, taken place when our ancestors separated from the Neanderthals or shortly thereafter. Some of the strongest selection signals in the modern human lineage were associated with the following phenotypes: type II diabetes and energy metabolism, Down syndrome and its associated cognitive impairment, schizophrenia and cognitive function, autism and cognitive development, and the clei-

docranial dysplasia syndrome, which includes distinctive traits that differ in Neanderthals and modern humans. Pääbo’s study calculated that Neanderthals and modern humans separated between 270,000 and 440,000 years ago. The evolutionary implications of the subsequent gene flow between these two groups were noteworthy. First, according to the standard biological species definition wherein reproductive isolation was the primary criterion for separate species status, Neanderthals and modern humans might represent two subspecies of H. sapiens, as many paleoanthropologists have contended. Second, the “strong” model of the “outof-Africa” scenario for human origins— which posited virtually concurrent population-size and geographic expansion and that allowed no gene flow between archaic hominin populations and early humans—has been refuted. The model that most closely corresponded to the new genetic data was the “mostly outof-Africa” model, which stated that although African populations largely replaced archaic hominin populations throughout the world, some hybridization occasionally occurred when these two groups encountered each other. Pääbo’s laboratory also spearheaded a different international team’s discovery of a possible new hominin species en-

Drilling a Neanderthal bone fragment produces the matter that is used in the nuclear genome research project.

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

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Anthropology and Archaeology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

tirely based on molecular data. during the Early Pleistocene, In 2008 Russian archaeologists when Britain was connected to unearthed the distal phalanx mainland Europe by a land (fingertip) of a fifth (little) finger bridge. Site excavators Nick Ashat Denisova Cave in the Siberian ton of the British Museum and Altai Mountains in a stratum Simon Parfitt of the Natural Hisdated to between 48,000 and tory Museum believed the tools 30,000 years ago. The cave to be the work of Homo antecesshowed evidence of intermittent sor—a supposed ancestor of H. occupation having occurred over heidelbergensis—whose remains the past 125,000 years by both were found at Atapuerca, Spain. Neanderthals and modern huA study of the tooth enamel of mans. When the entire mitoa 14- to 15-year-old male— chondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome known as the Boy with the Amwas sequenced from the finger ber Necklace—buried some three bone, the results were both unkilometres (two miles) south of expected and astonishing. The Stonehenge c. 1550 BCE indicated that he may have grown up digit belonged neither to a in the Mediterranean. His burial Neanderthal nor to a modern was the latest in a growing list of human. The date of the most foreigners’ graves found near the recent common ancestor of site, suggesting that Stonehenge the Denisova hominin, Neancontinued to serve as a pilgrimderthals, and modern humans age destination long after its was calculated to be 1.04 million construction 5,000 years ago. years ago. Thus, Denisova Cave In Frome, Somerset, Eng., an may have harboured a hereto- Three fragments of long bones, representing three earthenware pot containing fore-undetected population of different female Neanderthals who occupied the more than 52,000 Roman coins hominins that migrated from Vindija cave in Croatia. DNA from these bones was dated to the 3rd century CE was Africa to northern Central analyzed for genome sequencing. discovered in a farmer’s field by Asia/southern Siberia after H. David Crisp, who was prospecterectus left Africa for Asia but before an African population of H. hei- the hip, knee, ankle, pelvis, and lower ing in the area with a metal detector. delbergensis (the probable ancestor of limbs all indicating habitual bipedal- Excavated by archaeologists from the the Neanderthals) arrived in Europe. ism, plus reduced premolars and mo- Somerset County Council and the The phylogenetic relationships of the lars combined with a flatter face and British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme, the Frome Hoard, the largest Denisova hominin remained specula- less-pronounced cheekbones. tive, awaiting the decipherment of its The authors claimed that their newly of its kind found to date, contained nuclear genome. If it was a new hom- erected australopithecine species could coins minted by 21 Roman emperors, inin lineage, the evolutionary implica- lie evolutionarily between A. africanus among them Gallienus, Diocletian, and tion was that as many as five hominin and early Homo. The dates for the Ma- Maximian, as well as several emperors’ taxa may have shared the Late Pleis- lapa site (between 1.78 million and 2.03 wives. Most notable, however, were the tocene landscape. million years ago) posed a dilemma for 766 coins, including 5 unusual silver A newly defined species from the Ma- this scenario, since they postdated the denarii, that bear the image of Caraulapa site in South Africa was identified earliest members of the genus Homo by sius, a brutal military commander who via fossil morphology, a more tradi- at least 300,000 years. Although the declared himself emperor of Britain and tional source. An international team most parsimonious cladogram depicted northern Gaul in 286 CE and ruled the headed by American paleoanthropolo- A. sediba as the sister-group of the region until his assassination in 293. In Italy a geophysical survey revealed gist Lee Berger from the University of Homo clade, many paleoanthropolothe Witwatersrand, S.Af., published a gists concluded that this taxon should what was believed to be the largest description of two specimens, a 12–13- be considered a member of the genus canal ever built by the Romans. It conyear-old male and an adult female, that Homo rather than a transitional aus- nected the deepwater harbour at Porthey placed in the new taxon, Australo- tralopithecine. (STEPHEN L. ZEGURA) tus, near modern Fiumicino, with Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber. According pithecus sediba. The specimens disto Portus Project director Simon Keay played a mosaic of more primitive ausof the University of Southampton, the tralopithecine-like traits and more ARCHAEOLOGY Eastern Hemisphere. The discovery in 90-m (300-ft)-wide canal—in use beadvanced Homo-like features. Traits reminiscent of A. africanus included 2010 of 70 flint tools and flakes dated tween the 2nd and 5th centuries CE— small cranial capacity (a minimum of to more than 800,000 years ago placed would have allowed cargo from 420 cc [26 cu in]), relatively long arms, early