Milestones Aug. 15, 2005

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APPOINTED. JOHN BOLTON, 56, controversial nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; by George W. Bush, during Congress's August recess, the timing of which allowed the President to install the caustic critic of the U.N. without congressional approval; in Washington. Democrats had blocked a confirmation vote for months amid allegations that the former State Department official had manipulated intelligence to suit his ideology, bullied subordinates and tried to reassign those who disagreed with him. Bush said the post was "too important to leave vacant any longer."

DIED. STEVEN VINCENT, 49, freelance journalist reporting on the rise of Shi'ite fundamentalism and corruption among police and politicians in Basra, Iraq; after being abducted on a busy street and shot repeatedly, as was his interpreter, who survived; in Basra. Vincent was the first American journalist to be murdered since the war began.

DIED. ROBIN COOK, 59, former British Foreign Secretary who resigned from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet in 2003 to protest the war in Iraq; after collapsing during a mountain hike; in Inverness, Scotland. Known for his debating skills and scandalous divorce, Cook declined to run against Blair for Labour Party leader in the '90s, declaring, "I am not good-looking enough."

DIED. JOHN GARANG, 60, Sudanese rebel leader turned Vice President and key negotiator of a fledgling peace agreement between the Islamist government and Christian rebels in the south that, if completed, will end the longest civil war in African history; after his helicopter crashed in southern Sudan.

DIED. IBRAHIM FERRER, 78, Cuban singer whose global fame came late in life with the hit 1997 album Buena Vista Social Club, which introduced new generations of fans to the island's traditional son music of the 1940s and '50s; in Havana. Plucked from obscurity--when asked to sing on the Ry Cooder-- produced album, Ferrer was shining shoes to supplement his retirement income--the septuagenarian was named Best New Artist in 2000 at the Latin Grammys for his first solo album.

DIED. KING FAHD BIN ABDUL AZIZ AL SAUD, 84, monarch who kept Saudi Arabia stable during two decades of regional and domestic crises; after several strokes and diabetes left him largely incapacitated for the past decade; in Riyadh. Fahd's rule, which now passes to his half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah, was marked by an effort to balance his country's traditionalist religious faith with the imperative to build a modern state. A fan of the U.S., he transformed the once primitive desert kingdom into a gleaming bastion of skyscrapers and expressways and oversaw a massive expansion of Islam's two holiest mosques, in Mecca and Medina. He worked to open education to women and in 1990, in a move that fueled a backlash among fundamentalists, agreed to be host to 500,000 U.S. troops during the first Gulf War. But his tolerance for the extreme brand of Islam known as Wahhabism helped spawn the Islamic holy war led by Saudi native Osama bin Laden against both the West and the Saudi royal family.