On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Neil MacFarquhar tours Bekaa Valley in Lebanon with star chef Ramzi Shwayri, sampling meze, Middle Eastern hors d'oeuvres traditionally served with arak, liquor distilled from anise; Shwayri looks forward to day when country can return to past glory as destination for bon vivants; recipe; photos (M)
New York Giants prepare to face Indianapolis Colts; photos (M)
Tyco International former independent director Frank E Walsh Jr pleads guilty to securities fraud, becoming first board member to be charged with crime in recent wave of corporate scandals; acknowledges receiving $20 million payment from Tyco for helping to broker acquisition but did not disclose his compensation arrangement to rest of board or to shareholders; avoids prison sentence by agreeing to repay money and $2.5 million fine as part of plea agreement; Walsh is charged with felony violation of Martin Act, New York State's general business law; Manhattan Dist Atty Robert M Morgenthau comments; criminal complaint contends Tyco's former chief executive L Dennis Kozlowski negotiated to pay Walsh $20 million 'finder's fee' for pushing Tyco to CIT Group that was run by Walsh's friend Albert R Gamper Jr; Tyco has divested itself of CIT and booked loss of about $7 billion; Tyco paid Walsh, who is member of board's compensation committee, $10 million personally and $10 million more to favorite charity, Community Foundation of New Jersey; Tyco made payments in July 2001, but board did not learn of them until six months later; photo (M)
Study of compensation committees at 2,000 of largest American corporation reveals that their members frequently are not independent enough of executives whose pay they will set; committee members should in theory be independent enough to deny executives raises or force them to take pay cuts when things are going poorly, but members of compensation committees at hundreds of companies work for or do business with company or its chief executive, and in some cases they even belong to executive's family; such ties are not always disclosed; experts concede that even committees with minor or nonexistent conflicts of interest can approve outside pay for lackluster or even poor performance; legislation enacted this summer after wave of costly corporate scandals is silent about makeup of compensation committees; both New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq market have proposals before SEC that would require independent compensation committees as part of listing standards; table; photos (L)
Calvin Klein sells company that bears his name to Phillips-Van Heusen, country's biggest shirtmaker, for $400 million in cash, plus $30 million in stock and up to $300 million in royalties, linked to revenues over next 15 years; Phillips-Van Heusen plans to introduce new Calvin Klein's men's sportswear line, to complete with more moderately priced Lauren line by Ralph Lauren, and with Jones New York labels; new men's line will be produced by Van Heusen and be marketed in 2004; company also plans to coin some new licenses, most likely to include similarly lower-priced women's sportswear line; Van Heusen's chief executive Bruce Klatsky comments; Klein says he will remain active at Van Heusen; co-founder of Klein's company is Barry Schwartz; photos (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 18, 2002, covering December 18, 2002.
Shania Twain
Tim McGraw
Mariah Carey
Various Artists
Soundtrack
2002Giuliano Simeone, Argentine footballer[†]
Giuliano Simeone Baldini is a professional footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club Atlético Madrid. Born in Italy, he plays for the Argentina national team.
2002Necip Hablemitoğlu, Turkish historian and academic (born 1954)[†]
Necip Hablemitoğlu was a Turkish historian and intellectual. He was assassinated in front of his home in 2002. The perpetrators of this assassination have still not been found. In Ergenekon trial testimony, however, detained suspects Osman Yıldırım claimed that Osman Gürbüz killed him by the motivation of detained suspects Veli Küçük and Muzaffer Tekin for a false flag operation.
2002Ray Hnatyshyn, Canadian lawyer and politician, 24th Governor General of Canada (born 1934)[†]
Ramon John Hnatyshyn was a Canadian lawyer and statesman who served as the 24th governor general of Canada from 1990 to 1995.
2002Wayne Owens, American lawyer and politician (born 1937)[†]
Douglas Wayne Owens was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Utah's 2nd congressional district from 1973 to 1975 and again from 1987 to 1993. He was posthumously inducted into the Hinckley Institute of Politics hall of Fame.
2002Lucy Grealy, Irish-American author (born 1963)[†]
Lucinda Margaret Grealy was an Irish-American poet and memoirist who wrote Autobiography of a Face in 1994. This critically acclaimed book describes her childhood and early adolescent experience with cancer of the jaw, which left her with some facial disfigurement. In a 1994 interview with Charlie Rose conducted right before she rose to the height of her fame, Grealy stated that she considered her book to be primarily about the issue of "identity."
2002California gubernatorial recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.[†]
The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. The recall effort spanned the latter half of 2003. Seven of the nine previous governors, including Davis, had faced unsuccessful recall attempts.
In 2002, the world population was approximately 6,337,730,342 people[†]