DIED. STROM THURMOND, 100, oldest and longest-serving Senator in U.S. history; in Edgefield, South Carolina. In
a political career that spanned seven decades, Thurmond ran unsuccessfully for President in 1948, won eight terms in the Senate, and held the record for the longest speech on the Senate floor24 hours and 18 minutesagainst a 1957 civil-rights bill to end segregation in housing. In later years, Thurmond dropped his segregationist views but remained controversially
conservative.
FREED. THICH QUANG DO, 74, prominent Vietnamese Buddhist dissident; from house arrest; in Ho Chi Minh City. Do, a leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, had been confined to a monastery since 2001 for agitating for religious freedom and human rights. A Communist Party newspaper said Do was released because of the government's "humanitarian policies." But some observers speculated the authorities might be trying to blunt the strong international condemnation over the recent 13-year jailing of another dissident, Pham Hong Son.
CHARGED. PARK JIE WON and LIM DONG WON, former South Korean government officials, and CHUNG MONG HUN, chairman of Hyundai Asan, with violations in connection with the 2000 summit between the two Koreas; in Seoul. Park (pictured), a top aide to Kim Dae Jung, then South Korea's President, was charged with having abused his authority. Chung and Lim, another Kim aide, were charged with having violated foreign-currency regulations. The Hyundai Group sent $500 million to North Korea months before the historic summit, the first since the Korean War ended in 1953. An investigation found that $100 million of this money was provided by Kim's administration as "politically motivated government aid." The findings cast doubt on the validity of the summit, which won Kim the Nobel Peace Prize, and on South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with Pyongyang.
IMPRISONED. JOSE BOVE, 50, militant French farm leader; for 10 months for destroying genetically modified food crops; outside Montpellier, France. Propelled to fame as an opponent of globalization when he partially dismantled a McDonald's restaurant in 1999, Bov was spirited to jail by helicopter following a dawn raid on his farm by 80 antiriot cops. Bov's conviction stems from protests denouncing the dangers of genetically modified crops, during which he demolished experimental plots of rice and corn.
Numbers
98 Price of a used copy of
a best-selling biography of U.S. Fed chairman Alan Greenspan
$29.99 Price of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the latest in the series
$20 Amount paid for some baby girls in India, most of whom are adopted by Western parents
$725 Amount paid for six Thai spirit houses by English footballer David Beckham and his wife, Victoria
5 Number of stocks listed on the Uganda Securities Ex-change, which is four years old
4,000 Number of people who have been arrested in Iran during recent demonstrations against the country's funda- mentalist Islamic government
27 Number of years a Bangladeshi man waited for telephone service after submitting his application
15 Cumulative number of years the average man can expect to be seriously or chronically ill
Omen
A British study has found that employees who perceive their bosses to
be unjust or unreasonable may suffer from increased blood pressure, leading to greater risk of heart attack and stroke