Dani Wadada Nabudere, Ugandan academic, died he was 79.

Dani Wadada Nabudere was a Ugandan academic, author, political scientist and development specialist died he was 79.. He was a professor at the Islamic University and Executive Director of the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute, Mbale. He was a barrister and former member of the Uganda National Liberation Front government. 

(15 December 1932 – 9 November 2011)^[1][2] 

Career

Nabudere obtained the degree of LLB (London) in 1963 and was admitted as a barrister at law, Lincolns Inn, London, in the same year. He was previously Associate Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Visiting Professor at the University of Zimbabwe. Professor Nabudere was Minister of Justice in 1979 and Minister of Culture, Community Development and Rehabilitation in 1979–1980 in the UNLF Interim Government of Uganda. He was President of the African Association of Political Science from 1983 to 1985 and Vice-President of the International Science Association (IPSA) from 1985 to 1988. He was engaged in a collaboration arrangement with the University of South Africa in joint research projects under the umbrella theme of "Reclaiming the Future".^[3] He was the executive director and principal of the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute (MPAI), Mbale, Uganda. Over the last ten years, Nabudere was working on setting up grassroots organisations to assist rural communities and raise their voices over issues that concern their lives.^[4]


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Richard Morant, British actor, died he was 66.

Richard Morant  was an English actor. died he was 66.

(30 October 1945 – 9 November 2011)

Morant was born in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire. His father was the actor Philip Morant (1909–1993).^[1] He was also a nephew of actors Bill and Linden Travers, and a cousin of actress Penelope Wilton. He enjoyed a long television and theatre career, first creating an impression as the bully Flashman in a BBC adaptation of the Thomas Hughes novel, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1971), and followed this up with a regular role as Dr Dwight Enys in the popular BBC series of Poldark (1975).
Morant also appeared in several BBC classic serials, including adaptations of Walter Scott's Woodstock (1973), as the future Charles II, and The Talisman (1980), as Conrade of Montserrat.
He played Robespierre in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), and he later played Bunter, the valet of Lord Peter Wimsey, in the BBC's productions of Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night (all based on Dorothy Sayers's original novels). In 1988 he played Theodore Dyke Acland in the serial Jack the Ripper.
His stage appearances included a starring role in Noël Coward's Private Lives at the Oxford Playhouse in 1984. The following year he co-starred with Stephanie Beacham and Pam Ferris in ITV's rag-trade soap drama, Connie. He also did voice-over, radio, and audio book work including voicing books by Julian Barnes and Julian Fellowes.^[2]

Personal life

His first wife was the actress Melissa Fairbanks, a daughter of the actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., with whom he had a son and daughter. After that marriage ended he married Valerie Buchanan, with whom he had another son and daughter. ^[3]
He had a sideline as a dealer in Asian carpets and textiles, including running his own gallery in Notting Hill. In 2005 he became the sole owner of an established company specialising in carpets and fine textiles,^[4] headquartered in Notting Hill, London. After suffering a short illness, Morant died suddenly on 9 November 2011.^[5]

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Roger Christian, American Olympic gold medal-winning (1960) ice hockey player, died he was 75.

Roger Allen Christian was an American professional ice hockey player died he was 75..

(December 1, 1935 – November 9, 2011)

Born in Warroad, Minnesota, Christian played for the American 1960 Winter Olympics and 1964 Winter Olympics ice hockey teams, winning a gold medal in 1960. He was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989. He was also a co-founder of Christian Brother's Hockey Sticks, along with his brother Bill Christian and brother-in-law Hal Bakke.
He died on November 9, 2011 in Grand Forks, North Dakota.^[1]

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Wilfred G. Lambert, English historian and archaeologist, died he was 85.

Wilfred George Lambert FBA was a historian and archaeologist, a specialist in Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology died he was 85..

(26 February 1926 – 9 November 2011)

Early life

Lambert was born in Birmingham, and, having won a scholarship, he was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham. He obtained two degrees, in Classics and Oriental Languages, at Christ's College, University of Cambridge.^[1]

Academic career

Lambert taught and researched at the University of Birmingham for thirty years, during which period he made weekly trips to work on deciphering cuneiform tablets in the British Museum. After retirement he worked with the Museum on their Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals Project, dealing with the inscriptions on the seals.^[2] In January 2010 Professor Lambert and Dr Irving Finkel identified pieces from a cuneiform tablet that was inscribed with the same text as the Cyrus Cylinder.^[3]
Lambert was an external consultant for the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.^[4][5] His work, 'Introduction: the transmission of the literary and scholarly texts', in Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art II: Literary and scholastic texts of the first millennium BC, was used as background material for the The Higher Education Academy's project, Knowledge and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.^[6] He was also noted for his new discoveries in relation to the Gilgamesh text.^[7]

Personal life

Lambert was a Christadelphian, and a conscientious objector. From 1944 he worked in a horticultural nursery north of Birmingham in lieu of military service and supervised Italian prisoners of war in their work.^[8] Later, in his spare time, he was editor of one of his church's quarterly magazines.^[9]

Appointments and Memberships

• 1959–64: Associate Professor and Chair of Oriental Seminary, Johns Hopkins University
• 1970–93: Professor of Assyriology, University of Birmingham.

Lambert was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1971. He was also a presenting member of the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology).

Bibliography

This is a partial bibliography:

Books

• Morals in ancient Mesopotamia Jaarbericht 15. Ex Oriente Lux. (1957–58) pp184–196.
• Babylonian Wisdom Literature 1960. (221.849.2 L222)
• A new Babylonian Theogony and Hesiod W. G. Lambert and Peter Walcot (1931–2009). Kadmos 4 (1965) pp64–72.
• Ancient Near Eastern seals in Birmingham Collections (1966)
• Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood by W. G. Lambert, A. R. Millard, and Miguel Civil. (Oxford 1969).
• Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (Jan. 1992)
• Art of the Eastern World by Geza Fehérvári, W. G. Lambert, Ralph H. Pinder-Wilson, and Marian Wenzel (1996)
• The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners W.G. Lambert in Festschrift für Rykle Borger (1998).
• Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Volume II: Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium BC edited by Ira Spar and W. G. Lambert. (2005)
• Babylonian Oracle Questions Eisenbrauns, 2007 (ISBN 9781575061368)

In honour of

• Wisdom, Gods and literature: studies in Assyriology in honour of W.G. Lambert By Wilfred G. Lambert, A. R. George, Irving L. Finkel 2002 462pp

Conference papers

• Babylonian Siege Equipment. 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien, Münster, 17–21 July 2006^[10]

Book Reviews

• Review of Erica Reiner Astral Magic in Babylonia in The Journal of the American Oriental Society 1999
• Review of Charles Penglase Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod. 1997 in The Journal of the American Oriental Society

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Har Gobind Khorana, Indian-born American biochemist, Nobel laureate (1968), natural causes he was 89.

Har Gobind Khorana also known as Hargobind Khorana was a biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell’s synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year natural causes he was 89..^[4]
He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966,^[1] and subsequently received the National Medal of Science. He served as MIT's Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry, Emeritus^[5] and was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute.

(January 9, 1922 – November 9, 2011)^[2][3] 

Early life and education

Khorana was born to Hindu^[6] parents in Raipur village in West Punjab, British India, currently Pakistan.^[7][8] His father was the village "patwari" (or taxation official). He was home schooled by his father until high school. He earned his B.Sc from Punjab University, Lahore, in 1943, and his M.Sc from Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan in 1945. In 1945, he began studying at the University of Liverpool. After earning a Ph.D in 1948, he continued his postdoctoral studies in Zürich (1948–1949). Subsequently, he spent two years at Cambridge University. In 1952 he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and in 1960 moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1970 Khorana became the Alfred Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked until retiring in 2007. ^[9]
Khorana married Esther Elizabeth Sibler, of Swiss origin, in 1952.^[10] They had three children: Julia Elizabeth (born May 4, 1953), Emily Anne (born October 18, 1954; died 1979), and Dave Roy (born July 26, 1958).^[10]

Research work

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) with three repeating units (UCUCUCU → UCU CUC UCU) produced two alternating amino acids. This, combined with the Nirenberg and Leder experiment, showed that UCU codes for Serine and CUC codes for Leucine. RNAs with three repeating units (UACUACUA → UAC UAC UAC, or ACU ACU ACU, or CUA CUA CUA) produced three different strings of amino acids. RNAs with four repeating units including UAG, UAA, or UGA, produced only dipeptides and tripeptides thus revealing that UAG, UAA and UGA are stop codons.^{[citation needed]}
With this, Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all codes, the biological language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three-letter words: each set of three nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid. Their Nobel lecture was delivered on December 12, 1968.^[11] Khorana was the first scientist to synthesize oligonucleotides. ^[12]

Subsequent research

He extended the above to long DNA Polymers using non-aqueous chemistry and assembled these into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase enzymes that link pieces of DNA together.^[13] as well as methods that anticipated the invention of PCR.^[14] These custom-designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals. This invention of Khorana has become automated and commercialized so that anyone now can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies. One merely needs to send the genetic sequence to one of the companies to receive an oligonucleotide with the desired sequence.
His lab has since mid 1970s ^[15] studied the biochemistry of the membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin responsible for converting photon energy into proton gradient energy and most recently studying the structural related visual pigment rhodopsin.^[16]

Legacy

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Government of India (DBT Department of Biotechnology), and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum jointly created the Khorana Program in 2007. The mission of the Khorana Program is to build a seamless community of scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.
The program is focused on three objectives: Providing graduate and undergraduate students with a transformative research experience, engaging partners in rural development and food security, and facilitating public-private partnerships between the U.S. and India. In 2009, Khorana was hosted by the Khorana Program and honored at the 33rd Steenbock Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Khorana died of natural causes on November 9, 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, aged 89.^[17] A widower, he was survived by his children Julia and Dave.^[18]


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Shmuel Ben-Artzi, Israeli writer, father-in-law of Benjamin Netanyahu, died he was 96..

Shmuel Ben-Artzi was an Israeli writer, poet and educator. Ben-Artzi was also the father in-law of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu died he was 96...

(Hebrew: שמואל בן ארצי‎; December 31, 1914 – November 9, 2011) 

Biography

Ben-Artzi was born Samuel Han on December 31, 1914, in Biłgoraj, Russian Empire (nowadays located in Poland). Growing up Ben-Artzi learned in a cheder and in a branch of the Novardok yeshiva in Mezhirichi. Later on in his life Ben-Artzi immortalized the world of the Novardok yeshiva in three of his books.
He made aliyah to Mandate Palestine in 1933 and began studying at the Beit Yosef yeshiva in Bnei Brak which was headed by Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky. After about a year he left the yeshiva and went to work as a farmer in groves of Bnei Brak and as an agricultural administrator in Netanya. In 1945 he served in the Irgun underground military group, and afterwards, from 1946 until 1948 in he served in the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah, which soon afterwards became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.^[1]
During the next several decades Ben-Artzi worked as a teacher, raised a family and earning a bachelor's and a master's degree in Bible, literature and Hebrew language from the University of Haifa. In addition, through the years Ben-Artzi also published several books, including poetry books, children's books and a novel.
Ben-Artzi began his career in teaching at 1946 in the school in Tiberias.^[2] In 1950 he began teaching at Kibbutz Mahanayim. After two years the family moved to Kfar Hittim. Afterwards the family moved to Kiryat Tiv'on. From 1967 Ben-Artzi began teaching in a seminar for teachers at Nahalal, and afterwards he also worked as the school principal of this seminar for a decade.
After many years in which he lived a secular lifestyle, during his last years Ben-Artzi returned to maintain a religious lifestyle.
During 2010 Ben-Artzi helped his 15-year-old grandson Avner Netanyahu, prepare for the International Bible Contest, which Avner won.
During the last months of his life, after his health deteriorated, Ben-Artzi was cared for by Sara Netanyahu at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem.^[3]
Ben-Artzi died at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem on November 9, 2011 at the age of 96.^[4]

Personal life^[5]

Ben-Artzi married Chava (née Paritzky), sixth generations in Jerusalem end a descendant of the Vilna Gaon's students. The couple had four children:

• Matanya Ben-Artzi- professor of mathematics
• Hagai Ben-Artzi- professor of Talmud and Jewish Thought
• Amaziah Ben-Artzi- pilot and hi-tech entrepreneur
• Sarah Netanyahu- educational psychologist and the wife of the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

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Herbert S. Okun, 80, American diplomat, died he was 80.

Herbert Stuart Okun ^[1] was a United States Ambassador to East Germany (1980–1983) and the Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1985–1989) died he was 80.. He was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and after his retirement from the State Department he played a key role in unsuccessful efforts to halt the Balkan wars in the early 1990s.

(November 27, 1930 – November 8, 2011)

Born in Brooklyn, Okun earned his A.B. in history from Stanford University in 1951, and his Master of Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1959. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Minsk, became a wholesale vegetable vendor in New York.
Okun decided to become a diplomat at 16 after reading 1947 Foreign Affairs article in which scholar George F. Kennan (writing under the pseudonym "X") offered a strategy for Western resistance to Soviet expansionism. The policy was known as "containment" and served as the intellectual blueprint for American foreign policy during the Cold War. "I read it and said, 'That's what I want to do,'" Okun told the New York Times in 1993.^[2]
As a young foreign service officer, Okun translated the correspondence between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Okun recalled that Khrushchev nicknamed him "ryzhyi" — redhead — because of his hair color.^[1]
Okun also was the chief State Department negotiator for the SALT Treaty. While at the United Nations, Okun led a walkout of the U.S. delegation during a speech by Iranian President Ali Khamenei. "The false accusations that he made against our country distort the facts and totally misrepresent our policy," Okun told reporters. "I do not intend to sit by passively when our country is insulted, our President is pilloried and the truth is trampled."^[3]
After retiring from the foreign service, he served as chief aide to former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen in the talks to end the slaughter resulting from the break-up of Yugoslavia. Okun was "extraordinarily ready to listen to and to give credit to the opposing views," recalled Owen. "He was a person who did manage to build a measure of trust from the Serbians, which is not easy to do."^[1]
Okun testified against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. In an interview, Okun recalled: "Observing how he talked and acted I could not come to any other conclusion than Milosevic being a common gangster. You know, those types from Mafia movies with cigars in their mouths, who try to express themselves very theatrically but in reality are selling fog."^[4]
While serving as Vance and Okun's aide, Okun warned Serb leader Radovan Karadzic before the fighting started: "If you continue to talk about the mortal danger that Serbs are under in Bosnia, you will end up committing preemptive genocide." Karadzic later was charged with war crimes in the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed, and Okun also testified against him in The Hague.^[5]
"Diplomacy without force is like baseball without a bat," Okun famously said.^[2][6]