Milestones

ARRESTED. Charles Sobhraj, 59, seductive con man and accused serial killer, who has spent more than 20 years in Asian jails but has never been convicted of murder; in Kathmandu. The feral Sobhraj, a half-Indian, half-Vietnamese French citizen, traveled between Europe and Asia in the '60s and '70s picking up Western tourists and drugging and robbing them. By the time Indian police caught up with him in 1976 — after he drugged a hotel buffet served to French tourists — he was a suspect in the murder of at least 20 travelers in Afghanistan, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Nepal, Thailand and Turkey. He served 21 years in jail before being repatriated to France. Kathmandu police found Sobhraj gambling in a five-star hotel casino; he is being held for questioning over the 1975 murders in the Nepalese capital of an American woman and a Canadian man.

RESIGNED. Richard Grasso, 57, as chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange; in New York City. Grasso came under fire last month when it was revealed he would receive $139.5 million in deferred pay and retirement benefits.

RETIRED. Jaime Cardinal Sin, 75, Archbishop of Manila, whose call for Filipinos to defy former Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos started the People Power revolution of 1986; in Manila. In the predominantly Catholic archipelago, Sin wielded enormous influence on such issues as government support for birth control, which he opposes. But the height of his power came in 1986 — and again in January 2001, when Sin encouraged a second such public demonstration, which forced President Joseph Estrada from office. The ailing Sin, who suffered a mild stroke this past March, cloaked determination with a puckish sense of humor, greeting visitors to his official residence by saying "Welcome to the house of Sin."

RECOVERING. Aung San Suu Kyi, 58, detained Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from major surgery; in a private hospital in Rangoon. The Oxford-educated Suu Kyi has been held incommunicado by Burma's military government since a mob attacked her and a group of supporters four months ago.

RE-ELECTED. Junichiro Koizumi, 61, as president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP); in Tokyo. Having retained the party's presidency by a landslide, Koizumi will lead the LDP in coming elections for the lower house of the Diet, most likely in November.

SENTENCED. Ali Imron, 33, key planner of last year's Bali bombing; to life in prison for "planning, conspiring and organizing an act of terrorism"; in Denpasar, Indonesia. Imron is the third principal in the Bali case — including his older brother Amrozi — to be sentenced. He has expressed remorse, leading a panel of five judges to spare him from execution.

CONVICTED. Dara Singh, 40, along with 12 accomplices; for the 1999 murders of Australian missionary Graham Staines, 58, and his two sons, aged 12 and 8; in Bhubaneswar, India. In January 1999, Singh, allegedly a member of the pro-Hindu youth group Bajrang Dal, led a mob that surrounded the Jeep containing the three sleeping Staineses and burned them alive.

43 Years Ago in TIME TIME has a long tradition of reporting on promising NEW TECHNOLOGIES. Back in 1960, the magazine pledged to "capture the excitement, diversity and oddity of U.S. inventiveness" in its cover story on gadgets that would soon be available to consumers around the world:

"Dial-an-appliance ... enables a housewife who is downtown shopping to start dinner before she starts home; she simply telephones her home, then by dialing additional digits turns on the oven and sets it to cook the roast.

"High-style paper clothes that can be thrown away after a few wearings are being developed by American Cynamid, which is also experimenting with high-fashion paper hats. Paper pup tents and sleeping bags are now on sale.

"A facsimile-mail system. To be tried by the Post Office for the first time next month, it may revolutionize mail delivery ... Letters will be opened automatically, their contents electronically scanned and transmitted in less than a second. At the terminal points, the letters will be reproduced photographically, put back in envelopes and delivered by special messenger."
— TIME, Sept. 19, 1960