Milestones

ELECTED. ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF, 67, former World Bank economist; as President of Liberia; in Monrovia. With 59% of the vote, the “Iron Lady” claimed victory over presidential rival and former international football star George Weah, who lodged a complaint of fraud. Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female President in Africa, must now calm Weah’s supporters and start rebuilding the West African nation, which suffered through two civil wars and the misrule of former President Charles Taylor until the United Nations intervened in 2003.

ARRESTED. ALBERTO FUJIMORI, 67, former Peruvian President; after five years of exile in Japan, where he fled as his 10-year rule collapsed in scandal in 2000; in Santiago, Chile. Fujimori, who faces extradition to Peru on charges of corruption and sanctioning death squads, has announced his intention to seek re-election as President of his home country in April, despite being barred from holding office until 2011.

SENTENCED. HUANG JINGAO, 53, Communist Party whistleblower who exposed graft in local government; to life in prison on charges of taking $715,000 in bribes; in Fuzhou, China. Huang gained widespread popular support in August 2004, when the People’s Daily website posted a letter from him describing corruption in Fujian province. Huang’s supporters claim the conviction is part of an effort to discredit him.

DIED. PATRICK LICHFIELD, 66, society photographer and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II; of a stroke; in Oxford, England. After inheriting a title he never used, the 5th Earl of Lichfield quit the army in 1962 for a career as a fashion photographer during London’s “Swinging Sixties.” Lichfield’s glossy lifestyle, high-profile romantic liaisons and 1986 divorce never cost him the loyalty of the Royal Family, which employed him to take many official portraits.

DIED. JOHN FOWLES, 79, reclusive and experimental novelist; in Lyme Regis, England. Escaping a career in teaching, Fowles became a transatlantic cult success in the mid-’60s with The Collector, a dark novella about obsession, and the 600-page, metaphysical labyrinth of The Magus—experiments in fiction that endure despite being made into forgettable films. His surprise best seller of 1969, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, may be best remembered for the windswept pairing of Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in the 1981 screen adaptation by Harold Pinter.

DIED. KOCHERIL RAMAN NARAYANAN, 85, diplomat who climbed from the depths of India’s caste system to become President; in New Delhi. Born into a poor Dalit (once called “untouchable”) family, Narayanan attended college in India and later earned a degree from the London School of Economics. In the foreign service, Narayanan served as India’s ambassador to Beijing and Washington; he was appointed to the largely ceremonial post of President in July 1997.

DIED. PETER DRUCKER, 95, pioneering consultant who argued that companies should free workers to reach management objectives; in Claremont, California. Born in Vienna, Drucker fled to London in 1933 after the Nazis banned one of his essays. Four years later he migrated to the U.S., where he published his 1939 book on the rise of authoritarianism, The End of Economic Man. It was his classic 1946 study of General Motors, The Concept of the Corporation, that launched his career as a business guru. Drucker went on to write more than 30 books advocating the empowerment of employees while questioning unbridled capitalism, big government and Wall Street greed.

7 years ago in TIME
In 1997, the first human outbreak of BIRD FLU in Hong Kong sounded a warning for the future. So far, the new virus has shown no evidence of reassortment. The fact that the outbreak happened before Hong Kong’s regular flu season reduced opportunities for reassortment, as did the prompt slaughter of the chickens. What researchers fear most is that someone infected with a common flu strain will also become infected with H5, and thus become an inadvertent mixing chamber for the production of a wholly new virus.

[Hong Kong microbiologist Kennedy] Shortridge is convinced that the avian virus is still circulating in the environment. “I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” says Shortridge. [Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist Keiji] Fukuda agrees: “You would be a fool to predict what the virus is going to do next. I’m equally prepared for this thing to disappear as I am to hear one day when I walk into the office, ‘Oh, did you hear? There’s another 10 cases—or 100 cases.'”

—TIME, Feb. 23, 1998