Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, ex-leader of Biafra, dies at 78; Jeno Paulucci, 93, a food entrepreneur; Walter Doniger, 94, a TV director; Lynn Margulis, 73, a biologist; Irving Elman, 96, a TV producer
 Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, seen in 1966 when he was the military governor of east Nigeria, led the breakaway republic of Biafra during the country's civil war in the 1960s that left about one million people dead. (Associated Press) |
Nigerian secessionist leader in '60s
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, 78, a millionaire's son who led Nigeria's breakaway republic of Biafra during the country's civil war that left 1 million dead, died Saturday in a London hospital after a long illness following a stroke, a Nigerian spokesman said.
When a 1966 coup failed, the country still fell under military control, and Ojukwu served as military governor for the southeast. In 1967, he declared the region — including part of the oil-rich Niger Delta — the Republic of Biafra. The announcement sparked fierce fighting as Nigerian forces slowly strangled Biafra into submission.
The Biafran war brought the first televised and haunting images of skeletal, starving African children to the Western world. Long reliant on other areas of Nigeria for food, the region experienced massive shortages. Despite the efforts of humanitarian groups, many died as hunger became a weapon wielded by both sides.
Shortly before Biafra collapsed, Ojukwu and his aides escaped Biafra by airplane in January 1970.
Ojukwu was born in 1933 in Nigeria to a businessman who made his money from the transport industry, according to media reports. Ojukwu attended military officer school in Britain, studied history at the University of Oxford and returned to Nigeria in 1956.
After fleeing in 1970, he spent a dozen years in exile and reentered politics after he came home. He lost a senate race and spent a year in prison when the country suffered yet another military coup.
Ojukwu later wrote his memoirs and lived the quiet life of an elder statesman until unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Coliseum Obasanjo for the presidency in 2003.
Jeno Paulucci
Food entrepreneur popularized pizza rolls
Jeno Paulucci, 93, a Minnesota business icon whose ventures included a company that popularized the finger food known as pizza rolls, died Thursday at his home in Duluth, Minn., just four days after his wife of nearly 65 years, Lois, died.
"Once my mother passed, my father was determined to be with her," their daughter Cindy Paulucci Selton told the Duluth News Tribune. "That was his wish, to be with Lois."
In 1944, Paulucci founded Duluth-based Chun King, which sold a line of canned Chinese food. He eventually sold that company to R.J. Reynolds Food Inc.
He would become the first chairman of R.J. Reynolds Food Co. before establishing Jeno's Inc., which specialized in the finger-food snacks called pizza rolls. It grew to be Duluth's largest employer and was sold to Pillsbury in 1985.
Paulucci was born July 7, 1918, in Aurora, Minn., to Italian immigrant parents. His father was an iron miner until an injury left him unable to work.
The family later moved to Hibbing, Minn., and at age 12 he began working at a food market. After high school, Paulucci became a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocer. He later began growing bean sprouts in Duluth, and then founded Chun King.
Walter Doniger
Prolific screenwriter and TV director
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