In Passing

London

John Profumo, former minister

John Profumo, the former British Cabinet minister whose affair with a prostitute nearly brought down a government after revelations that the call girl also was involved with a Soviet spy, has died at the age of 91.

Profumo died late Thursday, surrounded by his family at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Profumo had been admitted there two days earlier after suffering a stroke.

Profumo, who spent more than 40 years redeeming himself with charity work for London’s poor, was Britain’s secretary of state for war when his involvement with Christine Keeler became public in 1963. It also came out that she had been seeing a Soviet naval attache and intelligence agent at the same time as Profumo.

Profumo first denied to the House of Commons that there had been any “impropriety whatever” in his relationship with Keeler. But after the publication of a letter he wrote her, he resigned on June 5, 1963, for having lied to Parliament.

Although there proved to be no breach of security, the scandal was a severe blow to the government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, made a celebrity of Keeler, and transfixed newspaper readers around the world.

The scandal ended Profumo’s promising political career when he was 48.

Bamako, Mali

Ali Farka Toure, Grammy winner

Two-time Grammy Award winner Ali Farka Toure, one of Africa’s best-known performers, died Tuesday in his native Mali after a long illness. He was either 66 or 67.

Mali’s Culture Ministry said Toure died at his home in the capital, Bamako, after a long struggle with an unidentified illness. His record company, World Circuit Records, said he suffered from bone cancer and died in his sleep.

Toure melded traditional Malian stringed instruments and vocals with the American blues guitarwork he considered firmly rooted in West Africa, where most North American slaves were shipped from.

One of the original progenitors of a genre known as Mali Blues, Toure played a traditional Malian stringed instrument called the gurkel.

He was best-known overseas for his 1994 collaboration with American guitarist Ry Cooder on “Talking Timbuktu,” which netted him his first Grammy.

He won his second Grammy last month, taking traditional world music album honors for his “In the Heart of the Moon” album, performed with fellow Malian Toumani Diabate.

Kingston, Jamaica

Mortimo Planno, Rastafarian teacher

Mortimo Planno, a philosopher regarded as a key figure in the development of the Rastafarian religion, has died. He was 85.

Planno died Monday at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, after suffering complications from a thyroid condition.

Planno was one of the most influential people in the development of Rastafarianism, a sect whose members mostly regard Africa as the promised land and former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as a divine figure.

“Planno was an icon in the Rasta movement,” said Barry Chevannes, a longtime friend and anthropology professor at the university.

Though rejected by mainstream Jamaican society, the movement grew into a structured religion, in large part under Planno’s influence.

Planno taught the principles of Rastafarianism at his home in the Kingston ghetto of Trench Town to students that included the late singer Bob Marley – perhaps the world’s best-known adherent of the movement.

In recent years, he lived on the campus of the University of the West Indies, where he held a fellowship in folk philosophy.