Milestones

Fight of Their Lives
Nguyen Ba To remembers the 56-day siege of dien bien phu: the hardiness of his fellow soldiers, artillery shells that exploded so close he could barely breathe, a buddy who died. Last week, the 73-year-old veteran returned to the site of the battle that led to France’s withdrawal from Vietnam. “It’s changed a lot,” he said, scanning a parking lot jammed with motorbikes near a carefully preserved French bunker.

In a celebration that was simultaneously reverent and self serving, the ruling Communist Party commemorated the 50th anniversary of the French surrender with fireworks and dance performances. Military mastermind General Vo Nguyen Giap, 92, though shouldered out of the Party’s inner circle in the 1980s, was back in the public eye, attending functions in Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu. The regime even delivered some true eloquence. “In the Vietnamese tradition,” said Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, “when you take a sip of water, you should remember the origin of the stream. The present generation has to remember those who made sacrifices on their behalf.”
By Phil Zabriskie/Dien Bien Phu

CONVICTED. FRANK QUATTRONE, 48, star investment banker who shepherded some of the hottest companies of the dotcom stock boom to the public market and made $120 million in 2000 at Credit Suisse First Boston; of obstructing justice and witness tampering; in New York City. His first trial ended in a hung jury.

DIED. MANFRED SCHOENI, 58, Hong Kong-based art dealer who championed contemporary Chinese artists, including the country’s Pop Art painters; of stab wounds apparently inflicted during a robbery; on Boracay Island, the Philippines. Schoeni, who owned two Hong Kong galleries and a South African vineyard, helped create the 1990s boom in mainland art.

DIED. CLEMENT (SIR COXSONE) DODD, 72, pioneering Jamaican music producer who launched the influential Studio One and was the first person to record Bob Marley and the Wailers; in Kingston, Jamaica. In the 1950s, he operated some of the most popular “sound systems”makeshift turntable and speaker sets that played dance records for partygoerswhich helped lay the foundation for hip-hop and DJ culture.

BANNED. RIGHT-TO-LEFT WRITING, the centuries-old method for printing Chinese, in official documents; in Taiwan. Officials say the change was made to conform with the West’s left-to-right form of writing, because the inclusion of numerals and English words was too confusing in the old style.

RESIGNED. SURYA BAHADUR THAPA, 76, Prime Minister of Nepal, after weeks of violent protest in the capital by opposition political parties demanding that he step down; in Kathmandu. Thapa was the second premier appointed by King Gyanendra since the monarch sacked the elected government in October 2002.

RESIGNED. YASUO FUKUDA, 67, trusted adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the government’s top spokesman; from his position as Chief Cabinet Secretary after he admitted failing to pay his national pension premiums for 105 months from 1976 to 1995; in Tokyo. Fukuda’s resignation came amid revelations that seven Cabinet members, and the head of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, have failed to meet their pension payments, despite a recent government campaign exhorting the public to do so. Announcing his resignation, Fukuda apologized for “intensifying people’s distrust in politics.”

SURRENDERED. MILORAD LUKOVIC, 39, former paramilitary leader suspected of masterminding the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic; in Belgrade. Lukovic, a onetime backer of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic, headed a feared antiterrorist police unit called the Red Berets. After Milosovic’s 2000 fall from power, Lukovic initially supported Djindjic’s administration, but he was soon removed from his police post.