December 13, 2005. Copyright 2005, Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Review 2005: Last Farewells
By Julie Mullins

LONDON, December 13, Graphic News:  Captions accompany photomontage GN18679


1. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a massive bombing in Beirut on February 14. Around 1,000 kilograms of explosives were detonated as HaririÕs motorcade passed the St Georges Hotel on the cityÕs seafront corniche, killing him and 22 others. Tensions in the region soared following the attack, with many in Lebanon and the wider world suspecting Syrian involvement despite strenuous denials from Damascus.

2. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal died September 20 at his home in Vienna, Austria, aged 96. Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Holocaust, dedicated his life after World War II to finding and bringing to justice over 1,100 Nazi war criminals responsible for the genocide of the Jews. High-profile successes included Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor Nazi death camps in Poland, and Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer responsible for the arrest of Anne Frank.

3. Former football star George Best died at a London hospital at the age of 59. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in British and world football, the ex-Manchester United and Northern Ireland star brought a pop star image to the game during his heyday in the 1960s, but his playboy lifestyle ultimately proved his downfall. He underwent a liver transplant in 2002 but was unable to kick his addiction to alcohol. Best helped Manchester United win the First Division title in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968, when he was voted European Footballer of the Year. He made a total of 466 appearances for United, scoring a total of 178 goals; and won 37 caps, scoring nine goals, for Northern Ireland.

4. Influential American playwright Arthur Miller died February 10, aged 89. His best known plays include Death of a Salesman, in which Willy Loman is the little man destroyed by the pressures of modern life, and The Crucible, a devastating study of the power of mass hysteria inspired after he became embroiled in the McCarthy witch hunts. MillerÕs fame was further magnified by his brief marriage to Marilyn Monroe, whose final film, The Misfits, he scripted.

5. BritainÕs former Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam died August 19, aged 55, following a fall at her home. One of the most popular politicians of recent times, Mowlam oversaw the talks which led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Her fatal fall resulted from balance problems related to radiotherapy she received after developing a brain tumour in 1997, a disability she turned to her advantage in the complex negotiations between the obdurate foes of Northern Ireland politics, whipping off her wig and slamming it on the table when negotiations reached sticking point. British politics lost three other major figures during the year; former prime ministers James Callaghan and Edward Heath, and one-time Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook.

6. Veteran U.S. chat-show star Johnny Carson died January 23, aged 79. The former host of NBCÕs Tonight Show, introduced with the catchphrase ÒHeeeeereÕs Johnny!Ó dominated late-night television for 30 years from 1962. He retired while still at the top of his game in 1992, watched by an estimated 55 million viewers as he handed over the Tonight Show to comic Jay Leno.

7. Pope John Paul II, spiritual leader of the worldÕs 1.1 billion Catholics, died at the age of 84 after a papacy lasting 26 years, the third-longest in history. Born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, he studied for the priesthood in secrecy under the Nazi occupation. When elected pope in 1978, aged 58, he was the youngest pontiff of the 20th century, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first from a communist country. The hugely charismatic John Paul drew vast crowds on his travels to some 130 countries, and is credited with playing a major part in the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. He remained steadfastly conservative on theological issues but greatly encouraged Christian unity and did much to improve relations with other faiths. More than two million people lined up to view John PaulÕs body as it lay in state in St PeterÕs Basilica before his funeral, which was attended by some 200 world and religious leaders.

8. Milton Obote, former President of Uganda, died October 10 at the age of 80. Obote steered Uganda to independence from Britain in 1962, but was overthrown nine years later in a coup led by army officer Idi Amin. He returned to power in 1980, but was again overthrown and fled to Zambia in 1985, where he remained in exile until his death.

9. Sir Joseph Rotblat, one of the scientists recruited to build the atomic bombs which ended World War II, died August 31 aged 96. Born in Poland, Rotblat was marooned in Britain in 1939 when his homeland was invaded by the Nazis and said he became involved in the development of the atomic bomb because he was afraid Hitler might use it first. After the war he campaigned actively against nuclear weapons, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

10. Severely brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo died March 31, on the 14th day after her feeding tube was removed. Despite interventions by President Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and both houses of Congress, FloridaÕs legal system repeatedly rejected appeals by Mrs SchiavoÕs parents to have the tube reinserted. The right-to-life case sharply divided opinion across the United States.

11. Prince Rainier III of Monaco, EuropeÕs longest-reigning monarch, died April 6, aged 81. He ruled EuropeÕs last constitutional autocracy from 1949, leading Monaco, a 2.5 sq km (1 sq mile) territory tucked between the French town of Nice and the Italian border, into an age of skyscrapers, international banking and business. His marriage to glamorous film star Grace Kelly in 1956 captivated the world but the fairy tale ended with her death in a car crash in 1982. Rainier was succeeded by his son, Prince Albert.

12. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia died August 1. He had ruled since 1982, but had been largely a figurehead for 10 years following a severe stroke. He was a consistent advocate of modernisation in his country and was actively involved in regional issues, providing financial aid to moderate Arab states, notably Egypt, and seeking peaceful resolutions to conflicts such as the civil war in Lebanon. But his decision to invite U.S. forces into Saudi Arabia after IraqÕs invasion of Kuwait was heavily criticised at home and in the wider Islamic world, with many believing it contributed to the rise of al-Qaeda and its Saudi-born leader, Osama bin Laden.

13. Rosa Parks, the woman whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in Alabama marked the start of the modern U.S. civil rights movement, died October 24 at the age of 92. Her simple gesture prompted a mass black boycott of buses, organised by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr, that lasted 381 days. This in turn spawned the protest movement that brought about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in the United States. Rosa Parks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and was awarded AmericaÕs highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal, in 1999.

14. Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft died from cancer on June 6, aged 73. She won her Oscar for The Miracle Worker (1962), in which she played the teacher of the blind, deaf and mute Helen Keller, but her most famous role was as Mrs Robinson, the woman who seduced a young Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967). Bancroft married comedian-director Mel Brooks in 1964, and is credited with having persuaded her husband to rework his movie The Producers into a highly successful stage musical.
/ENDS