INDICTED. ZHAO YAN, 43, New York Times researcher; on charges of revealing state secrets; in Beijing. While the indictment does not refer to a specific story, Zhao was arrested in September 2004, days after a Times report correctly predicted that former President Jiang Zemin was about to step down from his post as head of the military. Zhao, whom the Times has said did not provide the newspaper with state secrets, faces a 10-year prison sentence if convicted.
ORDERED DEPORTED. JOHN DEMJANJUK, 85, retired autoworker accused of being a Nazi concentration camp guard; in a decision that could end a court battle dating back to the 1970s; by a U.S. judge who rejected his claim that he would be tortured if sent back to his native Ukraine; in Cleveland, Ohio. Demjanjuk was convicted in 1988 by an Israeli court of being “Ivan the Terrible,” but he was cleared and had his U.S. citizenship restored. His citizenship was again withdrawn when, in 2002, new evidence convinced a U.S. court that he was a different camp guard.
WITHDRAWN. INDONESIAN ARMY TROOPS; from war-torn and tsunami-devastated Aceh province; after a bloody, 26-year conflict against the separatist Free Aceh Movement (G.A.M.). The last of 24,000 nonlocal troops departed in accordance with a peace deal prompted by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, which killed as many as 170,000 in Aceh; 14,500 local troops will remain. “I hope this really means peace is at hand,” said G.A.M. spokesman Irwandi Yusuf.
CHARGED. STAFF SERGEANT CHAD CARPENTIER and LANCE CORPORALS DANIEL SMITH, DOMINIC DUPLANTIS and KEITH SILKWOOD; with the rape of a 22-year-old Filipino woman; in Olongapo City, the Philippines. The four U.S. Marines, in the country to participate in military exercises, are accused of raping the woman in a van on Nov. 1 at the former U.S. naval base of Subic Bay. The soldiers, who deny the charges, face a court martial in Okinawa in addition to their trial in the Philippines.
DIED. KERRY PACKER, 68, brash Australian tycoon whose $5 billion fortune made him the country’s richest person; in Sydney. Packer took over his family’s media empire, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd., in 1974, and expanded it into areas including gambling, real estate and gemstone exploration. His TV-friendly World Series Cricket, with shorter matches, colorful uniforms and night games, helped revitalize public enthusiasm for the sport. Packer suffered a heart attack in 1990 and was dead for eight minutes before being revived, later prompting him to tell a talk-show host, “The good news is there’s no devil. The bad news is there’s no heaven.”
DIED. VINCENT (CHIN) GIGANTE, 77, Mafia boss who feigned mental illness for decades to avoid jail; in prison in Springfield, Missouri, on Dec. 19. The empire of the pompadoured head of New York’s Genovese crime family once ranged from Little Italy’s street fairs to Miami’s shipping docks. The “Oddfather” sometimes wandered about Greenwich Village in a tattered bathrobe muttering incoherently, and was once discovered naked in the shower holding an umbrella by federal agents delivering a subpoena. The ex-boxer was convicted in 1997 on racketeering charges. He later admitted his deception.
DIED. NORMAN VAUGHAN, 100, dog sledder, explorer and the last surviving member of Admiral Richard Byrd’s historic 1928 expedition to Antarctica; in Anchorage. As a mushing-obsessed Harvard student, he persuaded Byrd to bring him along as a dog driver. Affectionately dubbed “the Colonel” in his adopted home state of Alaska, he climbed the 3,140-m Mt. Vaughan (named for him by Byrd) to celebrate his 89th birthday. His motto: “Dream big, and dare to fail!”
Numbers
67 Average number of children between the ages of 7 and 15 who visit British emergency rooms each weekend with broken bones
55% Percentage the average dropped on weekends after the two most recent Harry Potter books were released
1 sec. Time added to 2005, to compensate for a discrepancy in astronomical timekeeping caused by the earth’s tides
$36 billion Amount of Chinese government funds misappropriated or misspent in the first 11 months of 2005, according to state auditors
$82,748 Price paid for a 325-kg bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, the second highest price ever for a single tuna
2,380 hrs. Estimated time worked by the average South Korean in 2004, the highest among all countries in a recent survey
3 Number of confirmed bird-flu deaths in China in 2005, after the virus killed a 41-year-old woman in Fujian province last month
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