Milestones

FOUND. BEAT GENERATION, a long-forgotten play by American counterculture icon Jack Kerouac; by his agent; while going through old files in a New Jersey warehouse. Kerouac, whose semi-autobiographical stories featured his enlightenment-seeking, hard-drinking literary buddies Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, wrote the three-act play in 1957, the same year his epic novel On the Road was printed, but it was never performed or published. Best Life magazine, which will carry an excerpt from Beat Generation in its July issue, describes it as "a day in the drink- and drug-hazed life of [Kerouac's] own literary alter ego."

TOOK OFFICE. VINCENT CHENG, 56, the first ethnic Chinese Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the Asia-Pacific arm of HSBC Group, the world's second-largest bank by assets and a symbol of British colonial power; after being named to the position last December; in Hong Kong. Cheng, who grew up in a working-class tenement and suffered from polio as a child, embraced social activism in the early 1970s (he was once arrested while protesting the demolition of a squatter camp) before joining the bank in 1978 and rising rapidly through the ranks. On reporting to his new job last week, he said, "I almost feel like I'm Cinderella and this is a fairy tale."

SENTENCED. SCHAPELLE CORBY, 27, Australian beauty school student; to 20 years in prison for smuggling 4.1 kg of marijuana; in Bali, Indonesia. Corby was arrested last October after a customs official found the drugs in her boogie board bag. Defense lawyers maintained her innocence, arguing that the drugs were planted by Australian baggage handlers in Brisbane as part of a smuggling operation. The case was widely followed in Australia where, according to one poll, 90% of the public believes she is innocent and the sentence prompted an outpouring of sympathy. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said, "Guilty or innocent, I feel for this young woman."

CLOSED. THAM KRABOK CAMP, home to ethnic Hmong refugees from neighboring Laos since 1992; following an agreement by the U.S. to accept most of its remaining 5,000 residents under a refugee resettlement deal; in Tham Krabok, Thailand. Located 130 km north of Bangkok on the grounds of a Buddhist temple, the camp once housed as many as 20,000 people. Its closure marks the end of a nearly three-decade-long project to resettle more than 300,000 Hmong, who were enlisted by the U.S. to fight communists in Laos and were consequently persecuted by the ruling regime.

DIED. SUNIL DUTT, 75, Bollywood actor turned politician who rose from poverty to star in 100 movies and later spent two decades in India's Parliament; in Bombay. One of India's best-loved actors, Dutt's breakthrough role came in 1957 as an idealistic young man who stands up to loan sharks in the Academy Award-nominated classic Mother India. Elected to Parliament five times starting in 1984 as a member of the Congress Party, he became India's Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs in 2004. On his death, chairperson of India's ruling coalition Sonia Gandhi praised him as a "good friend," and India declared a national day of mourning.

DIED. THURL RAVENSCROFT, 91, versatile voice-over specialist whose booming "Gr-r-eat!" made Tony the Tiger, the mascot of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes (known in some parts of the world as Frosties), one of TV's most recognized commercial pitchmen; in Fullerton, California. "I've made a career out of one word," he once said.

Numbers

33 Rank of Hong Kong in a new survey measuring the entrepreneurial spirit of 35 world economies by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
10 Rank of Shenzhen, the mainland Chinese city across the border from Hong Kong

$77 billion Annual household income lost in the U.S. due to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a Harvard study

40% Minimum estimated portion of Afghanistan's economic output that is derived from the production of opium
6 years Time in which Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said he hopes to eradicate opium cultivation, during his visit last week to Washington, D.C.

200 Number of people who crossed the land bridge from Asia to North America 14,000 years ago—the progenitors of all Native Americans, according to a new DNA study

12 cm Height of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's platform shoes, according to a report in the South Korean daily Dong-A Ilbo