OCTOBER 23, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 16

Milestones
By PENNY CAMPBELL

DIED. DONALD DEWAR, 63, Scotland's widely respected First Minister, known as the "Father of the Nation" for his role in bringing into being the first Scottish Parliament in 300 years, from a brain hemorrhage; in Edinburgh. A Labour Member of Parliament at Westminster for 26 years, Dewar became Scottish Secretary after the party's victory in 1997. The following year he led the referendum campaign on devolution that resulted in the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and was elected its head.

DIED. SIRIMAVO BANDARANAIKE, 84, former Sri Lankan Prime Minister and the world's first elected woman Premier; near Colombo. Bandaranaike succeeded her assassinated husband as head of the socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party in 1959, and a year later was elected Prime Minister. She served three terms, the most recent of which ended in August when she stepped down so President Chandrika Kumaratunga, her daughter, could select a new party leader to fight the general election that was held last week.

CONVICTED. JAYARAM JAYALALITHA, 2, former Chief Minister of India's Tamil Nadu state, to three years in jail for graft and abuse of office; in Madras. Jayalalitha, who faces a raft of other suits relating to her 1991-96 administration, was convicted of charges that in 1992 state-owned land was sold at a fraction of its value to a company she controlled. She was sentenced in February to a year in jail, also for graft, but was free on appeal.

AWARDED. TO KIM DAE JUNG, 74, South Korean President, the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work toward reconciliation with North Korea that led to the historic inter-Korean summit in June; in Oslo. Kim, who as an opposition politician was twice sentenced to death by South Korea's military rulers and survived two assassination attempts, has followed his "sunshine policy" of rapprochement toward North Korea since he was elected President in 1997.

APPOINTED. ALI KHALIF GALAYDH, 58, as Prime Minister of Somalia; in neighboring Djibouti. Galaydh was appointed by recently elected President Abdulkassim Salad Hassan to set up Somalia's first government since dictator Siad Barre was ousted in 1991 and the country fell under the control of warlords.

RESIGNED. MASATOSHI ONO, 3, as ceo of Bridgestone/Firestone, two months after the company announced the recall of millions of tires worldwide; in Nashville, Tennessee. Ono said that his retirement, after 40 years with the company, was for health reasons and unrelated to the tire fiasco.

TIME CAPSULE

It has been 50 years since the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel. Last week the nation made another crossing when a top North Korean military officer became the first Pyongyang official to meet with an American President since the 1950-53 war.
"Just before a gray dawn came up over the Peninsula, North Korea's Communist army started to roll south. Past terraced hills, green with newly transplanted rice, rumbled tanks. . . Then the heavy artillery started to boom. All along the 38th parallel--the boundary between North and South Korea--the invaders met little resistance. . . The South Korean government had . . . warned the population not to be frightened by 'strange-looking' aircraft, i.e., American planes. . . To the people and to the Army of South Korea it meant that there would be American planes overhead to help them; that there would be . . . American weapons and material of all kinds. To them it meant that the world's most powerful nation had clearly sided with the distant . . . little republic of Korea."
--TIME, July 3, 1950