Milestones

RETURNED. SAM RAINSY, 56, outspoken Cambodian opposition leader; to his home country; ending a year of self-imposed exile in France to avoid imprisonment on charges of defaming the government; in Phnom Penh. Rainsy, who fled Cambodia last February after being stripped of his parliamentary immunity, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for linking Prime Minister Hun Sen to a fatal grenade attack at an opposition rally in 1997. Last week Rainsy received a pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni after issuing a statement expressing regret and pledging to temper his criticism of the country's leaders in the future.

ESCAPED. JAMAL AL-BADAWI, 36, al-Qaeda operative sentenced to death for masterminding the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which killed 17 sailors; from a Yemeni prison, along with 22 other convicts; through a 140-m tunnel officials said was dug by inmates as well as conspirators outside the prison; in Sana'a. The carefully planned escape raised questions about whether al-Badawi, who broke out of another Yemeni jail in 2003 and was recaptured 11 months later, had assistance from Yemeni officials.

REFUSED ENTRY. JOSE BOVÉ, 52; to the U.S.; in New York City. Due to deliver a speech at Cornell University, the French antiglobalization activist was detained and questioned upon arrival at J.F.K. Airport before being flown back to France. U.S. officials said Bové—who was jailed in France for destroying genetically modified crops and demolishing a McDonald's restaurant—was barred from entering as he failed to mention his previous convictions on an immigration form.

RESIGNED. ANDREW LINDBERG, 52, chief executive of Australian wheat exporter AWB; amid allegations of corruption involving the United Nations oil-for-food program governing trade with Saddam Hussein's Iraq; in Melbourne. U.N. officials claim that from 1996 to 2003, when AWB—formerly the state-controlled Australian Wheat Board—was the largest supplier of humanitarian goods to Iraq, the firm gave up to $222 million in kickbacks to Iraqi ministers in exchange for lucrative contracts. AWB has denied any wrongdoing.

DIED. NADIRA, 74, one of only a handful of Jewish actresses in Bollywood; in Bombay. Born Florence Ezekiel to a Jewish family in Bombay, Nadira made a name for herself in the 1950s playing vamps and villains—in particular as a temptress wooing Raj Kapoor in 1955's Shree 420—in an era when most actresses shied away from such parts. She appeared in more than 60 films and was famed for her imperious on-set attitude. "How did you know I had given you permission to scold me?" she once responded to a director who had lost his temper.

DIED. FREDDIE LAKER, 83, ebullient airline industry underdog and visionary who in the 1970s pioneered the concept of cheap fares for the masses with his short-lived but much admired Skytrain service; in Hollywood, Florida. Launched in 1978, the London-based service encouraged flyers to cross the Atlantic casually, without even booking a flight. Though his company disbanded in 1982 after bigger airlines slashed fares, Laker became a hero to entrepreneurs including his fellow Briton Virgin Atlantic CEO Richard Branson.

DIED. NORMAN SHUMWAY, 83, the first physician to perform a successful heart transplant in the U.S.; in Palo Alto, California. His first transplant patient, in 1968, died of complications after 14 days. In the years that followed, most transplants ended in lethal infections or organ rejection soon after surgery. But Shumway, working with a Stanford University team, used smaller doses of toxic anti-rejection drugs and found other ways to dramatically improve transplant survival rates.

Numbers
160 million years Age of recently unearthed fossils belonging to a Guanlong wucaii in northwestern China—making the dinosaur the oldest-discovered ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex

10,082 Closing value of India's Sensex stock market index on Feb. 7, the first time the index has closed above 10,000

$6,114 Overdue charge for a copy of The Punch Library of Humour checked out from a New Zealand library in 1945; the library waived the fine in return for permission to put the overdue book on display

517 Number of Guantánamo Bay detainees classified as "enemy combatants" by the United States, according to a recent study of Defense Department data
55% Proportion of those detainees who have not been positively determined to have committed any hostile acts against U.S. or allied forces, according to the study