On December 31, 1981, Pérez de Cuéllar succeeded Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General and was re-elected for a second term in October 1986. During his two terms, he led mediations between Britain and Argentina in the aftermath of the Falklands War and promoted the efforts of the Contadora Group to bring peace and stability to Central America. He also interceded in the negotiations for the independence of Namibia, the conflict in Western Sahara between Morocco and the Polisario Front, and the Cyprus issue.
Shortly before the end of his second term, he was unofficially requested by members of the Security Council to run for a third term of two years, to give time for a successor to be found.
Pérez de Cuéllar died in Lima on March 4, 2020, at age 100.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali ( ""; 14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat. He was the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from January 1992 to December 1996.
Boutros-Ghali graduated from Cairo University in 1946. He received a PhD in public international law from the University of Paris. Then he received a diploma in international relations from the Sciences Po in 1949.
Boutros-Ghali's political career took off during the days of former president Anwar El-Sadat. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union (1974-77). He had been Egypt's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1977 until early 1991. He then became Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs for several months before moving to the UN. As Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, he played a part in the peace agreements between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Elected to the top post of the UN in 1991, Boutros-Ghali's term in office remains controversial. He was criticised for the UN's failure to act during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, which officially left about 937,000 people dead, and he appeared unable to muster support in the UN for intervention in the continuing Angolan Civil War. One of the hardest periods for his office during his term was dealing with the crisis of the Yugoslav wars after the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. His reputation thus became entangled in the larger controversies over the effectiveness of the UN and the role of the United States in the UN. For his detractors, he came to symbolise the UN's alleged inaction in the face of humanitarian crises.
In 1996, ten Security Council members, led by African members Egypt, Guinea-Bissau and Botswana, sponsored a resolution backing Boutros-Ghali for a second five-year term, until 2001. However, the United States vetoed a second term for Boutros-Ghali. In addition to the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, South Korea, and Italy did not sponsor this resolution, although all four of those nations voted in support of Boutros-Ghali after the US had firmly declared its intention to veto. Although not the first vetoed (China vetoed the third term of Kurt Waldheim in 1981), Boutros-Ghali was the first and only UN secretary-general not to be elected to a second term in office. He was succeeded at the UN by Kofi Annan.
US counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, Michael Sheehan, and Jamie Rubin participated in what they called "Operation Orient Express." From page 201 of Clarke's book Against All Enemies: "Albright and I and a handful of others (Michael Sheehan, Jamie Rubin) had entered into a pact together in 1996 to oust Boutros-Ghali as Secretary General of the United Nations, a secret plan we had called Operation Orient Express, reflecting our hope that many nations would join us in doing in the UN head. In the end, the US had to do it alone (with its UN veto) and Sheehan and I had to prevent the President from giving in to pressure from world leaders and extending Boutros-Ghali's tenure, often by our racing to the Oval Office when we were alerted that a head of state was telephoning the President. In the end Clinton was impressed that we had managed not only to oust Boutros-Ghali but to have Kofi Annan selected to replace him. (Clinton told Sheehan and me, 'Get me a crow, I should eat a crow, because I said you would never pull it off.')"
From 1997 to 2002 Boutros-Ghali was Secretary-General of La Francophonie, an organisation of French-speaking nations. From 2003 to 2006, he served as the Chairman of the Board of the South Centre, intergovernmental research organisation of developing countries. He was currently President of the Curatorium Administrative Council at the Hague Academy of International Law. In 2003 Boutros-Ghali was appointed as The Director of the Egyptian National Council of Human Rights.
From April 2007 Boutros-Ghali had supported the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. He was one of the initial signers of the campaign's appeal. In a message to the campaign, he stressed the necessity to establish democratic participation at the global level.
Boutros-Ghali died on 16 February 2016 at a hospital in Cairo, Egypt after suffering from a broken pelvis. He was 93.
Boutros-Ghali published two memoirs:
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, (pronounced|ʒuˈzɛ sɐɾɐˈmagu; born November 16, 1922; died June 18, 2010) was a Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist.
Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998. He lived on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain.
Saramago was born into a family of landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village in the province of Ribatejo some hundred kilometers north-east of Lisbon.
Saramago married Ilda Reis in 1944. Their only child, Violante, was born in 1947. Since 1988, Saramago has been married to the Spanish journalist Pilar del Río, who is the official translator of his books into Spanish.
José Saramago was in his mid-fifties before he had international success; his novel "Baltasar and Blimunda" brought him an international readership. This novel won the Portuguese PEN Club Award.
Saramago was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1969, until his death as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist. His views have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ".
Saramago uses for his works fantastic scenarios. In his 1986 novel, "The Stone Raft", the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from the rest of Europe and sails about the Atlantic Ocean. In his 1995 novel, "Blindness", an entire country is stricken with a mysterious plague called “white blindness”.
Upasni Maharaj
Upasni Maharaj (May 15, 1870 – December 24, 1941) was a Hindu guru who lived in a small village called Sakori in Maharashtra, India. Upasni had been a yogi and after coming to the famous Indian saint Sai Baba of Shirdi, and staying in his care for three years, he is said to have become a sadguru. Upasni is most famous as the guru of Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba. There are still disciples of Upasni Maharaj today who live in Sakori and take care of his temple there.
The principal teachings of Upasni Maharaj were:
Finntroll
Finntroll is a folk metal band from Finland. They mix elements of extreme metal with Finnish polka, called "humppa". Finntroll's lyrics are in Swedish, one of Finland's two national languages, because they say "Swedish just sounds damn trollish". Finntroll means "Troll from Finland" or "a spotty troll".
Finntroll was founded in 1997, by Teemus Raimoranta. One year later they recorded their first demo, "Rivfader". After the demo Samu Ruotsalainen (drums),Samuli Ponsimaa (guitar), Henri Sorvali (keyboard) and Sami Uusitalo joined the band. The record company Spinefarm got interested in the band and then their first album "Midnattens Widunder" was recorded.