MILESTONES

Died: At 101 in the National Military Hospital in Hanoi, Do Muoi, a Vietnamese communist who had naked ambition to be the country’s post-war leader for life. But he made a fatal error while trying to become the “new Ho Chi Minh”. After the 1975 communist victory, Muoi proclaimed that “Capitalists are like sewer rats”, and led sweeping campaigns against private property and enterprise — later admitting it was a mistake. He got behind the liberalisation called doi moi that regenerated Vietnamese commercialism, but was too badly tarnished politically to be able to rise to the top and stay there.

Appointed: By His Majesty the King to immediate membership of the now 16-member Privy Council, two newly retired general officers and a prominent civil servant. The military men are ex-army commander Gen Chalermchai Sitthisad, retired air force chief ACM Johm Rungswang. The third man is Ampon Kitti-ampon, who was cabinet secretary-general until his retirement on Oct 1.

Overturned: By the Court of Appeal, the conviction of Tan Thaugsuban on charges of forest encroachment. The 39-year-old son of politician and street protester Suthep “Kamnan” Thaugsuban was sentenced to three years in prison for deforestation of Koh Samui property but the judges said the prosecution and witnesses made implausible cases, which Mr Tan alleged were for political purposes.

Hacked: Your account on Facebook, if you hadn’t bothered deleting it when you switched to IG. Okay, possibly you were lucky, but Facebook admitted that its alleged so-called self-styled “security” system exposed 50 million (yes 50 million) accounts to... who knows? Facebook doesn’t; it hasn’t caught a hacker yet.

Announced: By the confessed and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski, a new movie. The unrepentant, unpunished paedophile will remake J’accuse, the true story of French Capt Alfred Dreyfuss, who was cleared of a crime (not child-raping) years after his conviction. The child-drugging Polanski has been protected by the French government since 1977.