Milestones

ASSASSINATED. ZORAN DJINDJIC, 50, Serbian Prime Minister; by snipers as he arrived outside a government building; in Belgrade. Djindjic, an energetic reformer, helped oust former President Slobodan Milosevic and engineered Milosevic’s extradition to the U.N. war-crimes tribunal in 2001. He established democratic institutions and cracked down on political extremists and criminal gangs. Following his assassination, authorities declared a nationwide state of emergency and detained Milosevic’s former intelligence chief, as well as nearly 200 suspected members of the Serbian underworld.

DIED. MARINA LADYNINA, 94, legendary Russian actress who became popular for her roles in several comedies during the Stalinist era; in Moscow. Ladynina made her screen debut in 1935 in The Enemy’s Paths but gained iconic status after she starred in a string of comedies directed by her late husband, Ivan Pyriev. She left movies in the 1950s to do theater and poetry recitals.

DIED. HOWARD FAST, 88, best-selling writer of more than 80 books, including the historical drama Spartacus, which was made into a movie in 1951; in Connecticut, U.S. In the 1950s, Fast was among a number of high-profile American writers jailed for their activities in the Communist Party, and his books were purged from libraries across the country. He later broke with the communists.

DIED. LYNN THIGPEN, 54, American Tony Award-winning actress of the CBS police drama The District, of unstated causes; in Los Angeles. The actress, who began her career on the stage, won a Tony Award for her work on the play An American Daughter. During her nearly three decades in show business, Thigpen appeared in several movies, including Shaft and Tootsie, and in TV shows, including Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, L.A. Law and the ABC soap opera All My Children.

DIED. BERNARD DOWIYOGO, 57, President of Nauru, a tiny South Pacific island about midway between Australia and Hawaii, following heart surgery; in Washing-ton, D.C. Dowiyogo first served as President from 1976 to 1978 and came to power again several times for brief periods until he last regained his seat in January 2003. Nauru used to have one of the highest per-capita incomes among Third World countries but is now running out of its only export, phosphates.

RESIGNED. MICHAEL FAWCETT, 40, personal assistant to Britain’s Prince Charles; after an official report investigating the management of the prince’s household found that staff, including Fawcett, had accepted gifts and hospitality from outsiders; in London. The internal inquiry was ordered to probe charges of royal intervention in the 2002 trial of Princess Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell and accusations of a cover-up of sexual violence among palace employees. Fawcett, who began his royal service in 1981 as a footman to the Queen, rose steadily through the ranks to become the prince’s closest aide. Charles once described him as an “indispensable” member of his household.

SENTENCED. BRIGADIER GENERAL NOER MUIS, 50, Indonesia’s last military commander in East Timor, to five years in prison by a special human-rights court; in Jakarta. Muis, the highest-ranking Indonesian officer to be convicted in the Timor trials, was found guilty of failing to halt a deadly attack in East Timor days after its people voted in 1999 to break away from Indonesian rule.

Numbers
12 people died in a train bombing last week in Bombay that police called a terrorist act

350,000 years old is the presumed age of human footprints found in Italy

$27 million is the reward reportedly being paid to an unnamed Egyptian man for aiding in the capture of al-Qaeda’s Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

4 delegates at China’s National People’s Congress voted against Hu Jintao’s nomination as president; 2,937 voted in favor

36 of “40 Licks” on the new Rolling Stones album, not including “Brown Sugar,” were deemed by China to be suitable for the band’s concerts there in April

$5.9 billion was loaned to the Philippines by the Asian Development Bank for 86 projects from 1986 to 2001; only 36 were completed

32.5 million foreign-born residents live in the United States11.5% of its population

Omen
The Los Angeles Times reports that a confidential State Department document disputes President George W. Bush’s claim that regime change in Iraq will spur democratic reform across the Middle East