Milestones

NAMED. Margaret Chan, 59, assistant director-general for communicable diseases at the World Health Organization; as the WHO's next director-general; in Geneva. A former head of Hong Kong's health department, Chan succeeded Lee Jong Wook, who died of a stroke in May. She was praised for her decisive handling of Hong Kong's H5N1 avian-flu outbreak in 1997. But during the 2003 SARS crisis that killed 299 in the territory, she was criticized for her slow response and her failure to investigate earlier outbreaks of the disease across the border on the Chinese mainland. During her campaign for the WHO's top job, Chan,...