Yeltsin, engineer of democracy, dies at 76

FORMER Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, has died.
Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov confirmed Mr Yeltsin's death at 76, but gave no cause or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.
Mr Yeltsin had a quintuple heart bypass operation following his re-election in 1996.
Although he pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, many of its citizens will remember him for presiding over the nation's steep decline.
He was a contradictory figure, rocketing to popularity in the Communist era on pledges to fight corruption — but proving unable, or unwilling, to prevent the looting of state industry as it moved into private hands during his nine years as Russia's first freely elected president. He steadfastly defended freedom of the press, but was a master at manipulating the media.
Mr Yeltsin's greatest moments came in bursts. He stood atop a tank to resist an attempted coup in August 1991, and spearheaded the peaceful end of the Soviet state on Christmas Day that year.
Ill with heart problems, and facing possible defeat by a Communist challenger in his 1996 re-election bid, he marshalled his energy and sprinted through the final weeks of the campaign.
But Mr Yeltsin was an inconsistent reformer who never took much interest in the mundane tasks of day-to-day government. He damaged his democratic credentials by using force to solve political disputes.
He sent tanks in October 1993 to flush armed, hardline supporters out of a hostile Russian parliament after they had sparked violence in the streets of Moscow. In December 1994, Mr Yeltsin launched an ultimately unsuccessful war against separatists in the southern republic of Chechnya.
Mr Yeltsin introduced many basics of democracy, guaranteeing the rights to free speech, private property and multiparty elections, and opening the borders to trade and travel. Though full of bluster, he revealed more of his personal life and private doubts than any previous Russian leader had.
"The debilitating bouts of depression, the grave second thoughts, the insomnia and headaches in the middle of the night, the tears and despair … the hurt from people close to me who did not support me at the last minute, who didn't hold up, who deceived me — I have had to bear all of this," he wrote in his 1994 memoir, The Struggle for Russia.
He announced his retirement on the last day of the 20th century, handing over to secret service chief Vladimir Putin.

Alan "Mo" Morris dies at 64

THE adman who told margarine-buying mums they should be congratulated, invited Americans with the promise of a shrimp on the barbie and turned a cricket ad into a national anthem, has died.

Alan "Mo" Morris, one half of the legendary advertising team of Mojo with Allan "Jo" Johnston, lost a long battle with cancer in Sydney on Sunday. He was 64.

Mo and Jo were instrumental in kickstarting the career of Paul Hogan, convincing Rothmans to use the occasional stand-up comedian and bridge painter in its commercial for the new Winfield cigarette. Hogan cut a curious figure in the ads, dressed in a tuxedo in front of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, ending with an order to the conductor: "Let her rip, Boris old son."

The pair used their unrivalled jingle-writing abilities to put brand names on the tip of Aussie tongues, getting housewives to hum the Meadow Lea jingle and rescuing the troubled Tooheys brand with the theme "I feel like a Tooheys or two".

They applied Peter Allen's I still call Australia home to Qantas ads in a campaign that continues to run. But it was for Kerry Packer's professional cricket circus that Mo and Jo worked their greatest magic, penning the anthem Come On Aussie, Come On, which had an immediate effect, drawing crowds to the rebel competition.

John Cornell, Hogan's then manager, convinced Mo and Jo to write the anthem. "They didn't get any better than Mo and Jo, and they didn't get more Australian," Cornell said.

Johnston said yesterday he had lost part of himself: "We were very close. We were closer than families in a lot of ways. We could really second-guess each other's thinking, and it was lucky we were in an era where the kind of stuff we did was acceptable."

Many of the ads proved more than acceptable, with Come on Aussie, Tooheys, Meadow Lea, Qantas and Winfield voted among the 50 best Australian advertisements of all time.

Having helped Hogan's career with Winfield, Mo and Jo then introduced him to the US as the front man for Australian tourism. This put both Australia and Hogan on the American map.

Johnston said Morris's original version had Hogan offering to "belt another banger on the barbie", before realising Americans would not have a clue what he was talking about. The pair then tried "prawn" before settling for the "shrimp" line. The ad is now in the Smithsonian Institution as an example of 20th-century advertising.

Adman John Singleton began his career working alongside Mo in the 1960s and the pair crossed paths numerous times.

Singleton visited Morris's bedside last week for a final farewell.

"There is no one, including me, who is in the class of Mo or Jo, and Mo and Jo together were just unassailable."

Meadow Lea entered legend when the pair decided people were sick of hearing about the health benefits of margarines and found the only word that rhymed with "polyunsaturated".

"We just saluted our wives in some way by saying, 'You oughta be congratulated' for looking after a stupid old arsehole like me who drinks too much and comes home and falls asleep in front of the tele," Mo told advertising historian Gawen Rudder last year. Rudder, who worked with Mojo for 20 years, said Morris's rough and irascible style - "like gravel coated in golden syrup" - was perfect for the advertising world of the time.