Milestones

ELECTED. VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO, 50, leader of November and December’s “Orange Revolution”; as President of Ukraine, by more than 2.2 million votes over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, after three rounds of voting; according to the Central Election Commission in Kiev. Western election monitors alleged widespread fraud in the Nov. 21 runoffwhich named Yanukovych the winnerand the Supreme Court nullified the results.

RETURNED HOME. ERIK AUDE, 24, actor who appeared in the films Dude, Where’s My Car and Bounce; after 34 months in a Rawalpindi jail for drug smuggling; to Los Angeles. Aude was arrested at Islamabad airport in February 2002 when security agents found 3.6 kg of opium in the lining of his suitcase. His seven-year sentence was commuted when Razmik Minasian, who hired Aude to transport leather goods from Pakistan to the U.S., was arrested in Los Angeles on a drug-smuggling charge and admitted that he had put the drugs in the suitcase lining. On his return, Aude said, “I’m lucky to be here on American soil.”

ARRESTED. KIM JONG HON, 43, South Korean businessman; following the seizure of freight containers holding 13 highly radioactive devices; on Sakhalin Island, Russia. Kim, president of South Korea’s All Nations Co., was detained by Russian police for allegedly attempting to import undeclared items. The devices, according to Russian authorities, contained uranium 238, a metal used in the process of armor plating and the production of ammunition, although some experts say it could possibly be used to make dirty bombs. South Korean officials say the devices were to be used at a construction site.

ARRESTED. DAGOBERTO FLOREZ, 47, an alleged leader of the largest Colombian drug cartel and one of the most wanted alleged drug traffickers in the U.S., which offered a $5 million bounty for his capture; outside Medellin, Colombia. Florez is reputed to be one of nine capos of the Norte del Valle drug cartel, an organization accused by American authorities of exporting some $10 billion worth of cocaine to the U.S. over the past 15 years, half of the country’s cocaine supply.

SENTENCED. ABDUL AZI HAJI CHIMING, MUHAMMAD YALALUDIN MADING and SMAN ESMA EL, alleged members of the militant Jemaah Islamiah (J.I.) organization; for plotting to bomb the U.S. and British embassies in Cambodia, to life in prison; in Phnom Penh. The three men denied any involvement with the plot or the terrorist group, saying they had met Hambaliallegedly J.I.’s former operations chiefwhile working for a Saudi Arabian-funded charity that helped poor Cambodian Muslims. Hambali and two other foreigners, identified as Rousha Yasser and Ibrahim, were tried and sentenced in absentia.

DIED. SUSAN SONTAG, 71, prominent critic, novelist and outspoken public intellectual; in New York City. Although she was best known for her works of nonfiction, including Against Interpretation and the critical study On Photography, Sontag wrote fiction (including The Way We Live Now and the best-selling The Volcano Lover), directed films, produced the movie Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo, and wrote numerous articlesproving, according to her own definition, that a writer should be “someone who is interested in everything.”

DIED. PAMULAVARTI VENKAT NARASIMHA RAO, 83, former Prime Minister of India whose bold reforms in the 1990s helped jump-start the country’s economy; in New Delhi. Following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, Rao abandoned a planned retirement to lead the government, and over the next five years guided the nation through a grave economic crisis and a bitter battle between Hindus and Muslims over a mosque in central India. Rao ultimately fell victim to political infighting and accusations of corruption by members of the opposition, for which he was recently acquitted. After the Congress Party lost a general election in 1996, he published an autobiographical novel about Indian politics, The Insider. Rao’s Finance Minister in the 1990s, who helped draft many of the economic reforms, was current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

DIED. ARTIE SHAW, 94, suave, inventive clarinetist and bandleader in the ’30s and ’40s whose hit recording of Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine and subsequent work helped define the Big Band era; in Lakeville, Connecticut. In between frequent retirements, the “King of Swing” recorded such hits as Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive, Moonglow and Dancing in the Dark with his eponymous big band and the Grammercy Five. A brainy and sometimes irascible perfectionist who was married eight times (including to Lana Turner and Ava Gardner), Shaw had little patience for the music business, which he quit for good in 1954.

Numbers
20,000 Approximate number of earthquakes the U.S.’s National Earthquake Information Center detects worldwide each year, an average of 50 a day

734 Number of votes John Kerry picked up in an Ohio recount of its U.S. presidential-election ballots

118,457 Number of votes by which George W. Bush still beat Kerry in Ohio

10,000 Pieces of luggage stranded by US Airways over Christmas when an unexpectedly high number of its baggage handlers called in sick

20 million Cost in lira of a night out at the movies with popcorn in Turkey on Dec. 31

20 Cost in lira of a night out at the movies with popcorn on Jan. 1, after Turkey eliminated the last six zeroes from its inflated currency (the exchange rate will not be affected)