SEPTEMBER 11, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 10

Milestones
BY PENNY CAMPBELL

BORN. TO PRIYANKA GANDHI VADRA, 29, daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter, respectively, of three former Indian Prime Ministers, and businessman Robert Vadra, 31, the couple's first child, a son; in New Delhi. The new scion of the Gandhi dynasty is already being billed as a possible future leader.

RESIGNED. SONG JA, 64, South Korea's Education Minister, after being criticized by civic groups for unethically profiting from a 1998 stock purchase; in Seoul. Song, who was appointed minister in mid-August, used a loan from Samsung Electronics, of which he was then a director, to buy discounted shares in the company, netting $1.4 million.

RESIGNED. JEAN-PIERRE CHEVENEMENT, 61, as French Interior Minister, in protest over Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's devolution concessions to the island of Corsica; in Paris. An outspoken left-wing nationalist, Chevènement believes that the concessions threaten national unity. Chevènement, who once said, "A minister either shuts his mouth or quits," has left three cabinets on points of principle, the last--and most notable--occasion being his resignation as Defense Minister in 1991 in opposition to France's participation in the Gulf War.

RETRIAL GRANTED. FOR LORI BERENSON, 30, a U.S. citizen sentenced to life imprisonment by a secret military court in 1996 on charges that she helped the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement plot to overthrow the Peruvian Congress; in Lima. The sentence has been voided by a military tribunal, and Berenson, who has always protested her innocence, faces retrial in a civilian court.

DIED. ROSE HOBART, 94, American film actress whose two-decade career came to a halt in 1949 when she was blacklisted following an appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee; in Los Angeles. Hobart appeared in more than 40 films in the 1930s and '40s, including Conflict (1945) opposite Humphrey Bogart. Although she denied being a communist, the Committee deemed subversive her activities in the Screen Actors Guild and the Actors Lab, a group that sought better working conditions for actors.

DIED. SIR Lynden Pindling, 70, former Prime Minister of the Bahamas, who led the islands to independence from Britain in 1973; in Nassau. A former barrister, Pindling helped found the black-led Progressive Liberal Party in 1953. His 1967 election as Prime Minister ended centuries of white minority rule. Pindling was in power for 25 years and knighted in 1983, but his reputation was tainted by never-proven allegations of bribe-taking and protecting drug traffickers.

CHARGED. RICARDO MIGUEL CAVALLO, former Argentine army officer, with genocide in connection with the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of people during Argentina's "Dirty War" in the late '70s and early '80s; in Madrid. A Spanish judge is seeking his extradition from Mexico, where until his arrest two weeks ago he was a prominent businessman. The judge claims jurisdiction on the grounds that some of the crimes were committed against Spanish citizens. Cavallo says he is a victim of mistaken identity.

Boob Tube Update

REALITY BITES BACK Now that the Survivor TV series is over, what will obsessed Americans watch? U.S. networks are doing their best to translate other foreign "reality" shows to local tastes: ABC has picked up Britain's Jailbreak (10 "prisoners" under 24-hr. surveillance try to escape for big money), and NBC has locked up Holland's Chains of Love (one person chained to a quartet of the opposite sex). But we found some gems they may have overlooked ...

71 DEGREES NORTH (Norway) Contestants race from Norway to the Arctic Circle. In extreme conditions. On foot. One trekker is voted off the glacier every two days

LOVE TEST (Holland) Dutch spouses watch on hidden cameras to see if their partners park their clogs under someone's bed and explore the netherlands

BIG DIET (Germany) Ten chubsters are locked in "a golden cage of temptations" and try to lose as much weight as possible in 100 days. The winner receives the equivalent of his or her loss in gold