JANUARY
Phil Spector, who revolutionized 1960s pop music with his “Wall of Sound” but who was jailed for murder in 2009, dies on Jan. 16, aged 81.
A week later, Larry King, the braces-sporting American talk host who interviewed everyone who was anyone, dies at 87.
Photo: AFP
FEBRUARY
Veteran Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, star of The Sound of Music, dies on Feb. 5 aged 91.
George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state who helped end the Cold War but contributed to conflict by advocating pre-emptive strikes, passes the next day at 100.
Photo: AFP
Argentina’s former president Carlos Menem dies at 90 on Feb. 14.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the last great poet of the Beat Generation, passes eight days later aged 101.
Papua New Guinea’s “father of the nation” Sir Michael Somare, its first prime minister, dies aged 84 on Feb. 26.
MARCH
Reggae legend Bunny Wailer passes away on March 2 aged 73.
South African Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, 72, dies on March 12.
Madagascar’s former leader Didier Ratsiraka, instigator of a socialist revolution on the Indian Ocean island, dies aged 84 on March 28.
APRIL
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the 99-year-old husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, dies on April 9.
American rapper DMX, 50, dies the same day. Bernie Madoff, mastermind of the largest financial scam in history, dies in jail in North Carolina on April 14 aged 82.
Two days later British actress Helen McCrory — who starred in Peaky Blinders, Harry Potter and The Queen — dies of cancer aged 52.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby, 68, dies from battle wounds the day after his election for a sixth term on April 20.
Legendary German soprano Christa Ludwig, 93, passes away on April 24.
Fashion designer Alber Elbaz, of Lanvin fame, dies in Paris aged 59 from Covid-19 the same day.
MAY
Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, of unknown age, is killed during infighting between rival factions of the extremist group on May 19.
JUNE
“Africa’s Gandhi” Kenneth Kaunda, 97, Zambia’s founding president, dies on June 17.
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan after the World Trade Center attack of 2001, dies aged 88.
JULY
Richard Donner, director of the first Superman movie and as well The Goonies, dies on July 5 aged 91.
Two days later much-loved Bollywood veteran Dilip Kumar passes away at 98.
AUGUST
The leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, 48, is killed by French forces on Aug. 17.
Former Chadian president Hissene Habre dies a week later from COVID-19 at 79. He was serving a life sentence in Senegal for crimes against humanity.
Charlie Watts, the drummer of the Rolling Stones, dies aged 80 on Aug. 24.
Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, dies on Aug. 29. The Belgian was 79.
The same day Lee “Scratch” Perry, the wildly influential Jamaican singer and producer of Bob Marley, dies aged 85.
SEPTEMBER
Renowned Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, 96, who scored the 1964 film Zorba the Greek and resisted military dictatorship in Greece, dies on Sept. 2. Actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of Breathless and one of postwar French cinema’s biggest names, dies aged 88 on Sept. 6.
Michael Williams, who played Omar in the cult US television series The Wire, dies the same day of an accidental overdose aged 54 in New York.
The founder of Peru’s Maoist Shining Path rebel group, Abimael Guzman, 86, dies in prison on Sept. 11.
Algeria’s longest-serving president Abdelaziz Bouteflika dies on Sept. 17 aged 84.
OCTOBER
Kenya’s world record-holding runner Agnes Tirop, 25, is stabbed to death at her home on Oct. 13. Her husband is later charged with her murder.
Colin Powell, a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state whose reputation was sullied by the invasion of Iraq, dies from complications from COVID-19 aged 84 on Oct. 18.
NOVEMBER
FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, dies aged 85 on Nov. 11. He freed Nelson Mandela from prison and later shared a Nobel Peace Prize with him.
Zambia-born bestselling novelist Wilbur Smith, 88, who chronicled dramatic adventures on the African continent, passes away two days later.
War in the Taiwan Strait is currently a sexy topic, but it is not the only potential Chinese target. Taking the Russian Far East would alleviate or even solve a lot of China’s problems, including critical dependencies on fuel, key minerals, food, and most crucially, water. In a previous column (“Targeting Russian Asia,” Dec. 28, 2024, page 12) I noted that having following this topic for years, I consistently came to this conclusion: “It would simply be easier to buy what they need from the Russians, who also are nuclear-armed and useful partners in helping destabilize the American-led world order.
If you’ve lately been feeling that the “Jurassic Park” franchise has jumped an even more ancient creature — the shark — hold off any thoughts of extinction. Judging from the latest entry, there’s still life in this old dino series. Jurassic World Rebirth captures the awe and majesty of the overgrown lizards that’s been lacking for so many of the movies, which became just an endless cat-and-mouse in the dark between scared humans against T-Rexes or raptors. Jurassic World Rebirth lets in the daylight. Credit goes to screenwriter David Koepp, who penned the original Jurassic Park, and director Gareth Edwards, who knows
Last Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) detected 41 sorties of Chinese aircraft and nine navy vessels around Taiwan over a 24-hour period. “Thirty out of 41 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern ADIZ (air defense identification zones),” it reported. Local media noted that the exercises coincided with the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taiwan. During the visit of then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022, the largest number of sorties was on Aug. 5, “involving a total of 47 fighter aircraft and two supporting reconnaissance/patrol aircraft.
July 7 to July 13 Even though the Japanese colonizers declared Taiwan “pacified” on Nov. 18, 1895, unrest was still brewing in Pingtung County. The Japanese had completed their march of conquest down the west coast of Taiwan, stamping out local resistance. But in their haste to conquer the Republic of Formosa’s last stronghold of Tainan, they largely ignored the highly-militarized Liudui (六堆, six garrisons) Hakka living by the foothills in Kaohsiung and Pingtung. They were organized as their name suggested, and commanders such as Chiu Feng-hsiang (邱鳳祥) and Chung Fa-chun (鍾發春) still wanted to fight. Clashes broke out in today’s
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