University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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WORLD In 1990, the Commu- nist party in Yugoslavia relin- quished its monopoly on politi- cal power and the country di- vided into six republics: Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Slovenia. As a result, tensions elevated and widespread fighting broke out across opposing religious and ethnic groups. Since then, wars, riots, and protests continued on as the fight for power prevailed. The Yugoslav govern- ment grew increasingly anxious due to the political unrest and heightening of political and po- lice control. In hopes of resist- ing Western pressures for demo- cratic and economic reforms, the government attempted to tighten their grip on power, of- ten with the use of violence. Recently, Kosovo, a province of Serbia which was about 90% Albanian, fell sub- On September 2 at 10:31 P.M., Swissair Flight SRI 11 crashed off the coast of Peggy ' s Cove, Nova Scotia en route from New York to Geneva. None of the 215 passengers and 14 crew members survived the crash. All 229 victims were posi- tively identified. The cause of the crash was still being investigated by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. As of December 23 about 85% of the wreckage had been recovered. At that time, roughly 19,000 kilograms of wreckage was still unrecovered. Although there were indications that the cockpit area was sub- jected to very high tempera- tures prior to the crash, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada believed that it would be up to two years before a report could be published. ject to intense war and blood- shed due to its numerous ethnic mixtures. In an eight month Serbian offensive last year against ethnic Albanian rebels seeking independence for Kosovo, tens of thousands of civilians were left homeless and more than 1,000 died. Since then, U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright warned Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic of possible ramifica- tions of his campaign of vio- lence against Albanians in Kosovo. Although the U.S. had no immediate plans for armed intervention, Albright was quite strict in her belief of the United States ' need to act quickly and efficiently. She stated that the U.S. would not make the same mistakes they made in 1991, which led to a prolonged war in Bosnia. They would not sit back, allow Serbian authorities to con- tinue killing ethnic Albanians, and let them get away with it like in Bosnia. The U.S. would not tolerate a return of the poli- tics of divide and rule any- where in the former Yugosla- via. political unrest by Jessica Lewis saint stein Pope John Paul II made a bold and ground-break- ing move this year when he can- onized Edith Stein, a person of Jewish faith; Stein was the first Jewish person to ever become sainted in the Catholic Church. This courageous move by the Pope was heavily influenced by his desire to stamp out anti- semetism everywhere, as the religious leader lost many good friends of Jewish faith to Hitler ' s tirades. Pope John Paul II de- scribed Stein as, a great daugh- final descent Canadian Coast Guard members are handed a piece of debris from the wreckage of Swissair flight SRI 11. The MD-11 plunged into the At- lantic September 3, 1998 killing all 299 passengers. 138 ' World ter of Israel and of the Carmelite Order. Despite this, Abraham Foxman, the executive director of the World Jewish Congress, implied that this canonization was a political move; he sug- gested that perhaps the Pope sainted a Jewish person in an effort to disassociate the Catho- lic Church from any anti-semetic acts. Foxman stated, If you show that everyone was a vic- tim, then the Church has no responsibility or guilt in the Holocaust. uses in Siii is Satan For da jti OUt of by Karen McQuade to Africa I bei raises I - . sDej teed with i photo courtesy of The Associated Press

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s rittedaspedi ibadreces: NATIONAL to the stars, again ' ' ...:. ives aid ;:; The; lan strait ' v aid nu::; ; . xptctedto3: averever.is- In 1962, John Glenn became the first NASA astro- naut in orbit. Who knew that 36 years later, at age 77, he would be honored as the oldest man ever to orbit the Earth? On October 29, NASA finally ful- filled Glenn ' s desire to return to space. This time his mission was to study the effects of microgravity on the aging pro- cess. His nine day mission into space on the Space Shuttle Dis- covery captured the world ' s at- tention with great admiration and pride. Upon the arrival of Glenn and his fellow astronauts from Florida ' s Kennedy Space Center, more than 1,000 people crowded Houston ' s airport to greet them. The smooth landing culminated a 3.68 million-mile journey that took the shuttle around the Earth 134 times and made Glenn an American hero no one would forget. Although Glenn promised there would be no more space flights for him, he admitted his desire to return to space might never die. by Christina Chen photo courtesy of 1 John Glenn returns to space at the age of 77, 36 years after he became the first man to orbit the earth. The mission was to study the effects of gravity on aging in the human body. Associated Press er ity that riviii hestoil-pr [be work ' furious georges allow the COM xte more ci |s ' i face of shit : Hurricane Georges left a path of death and destruction through the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast in December. After more than 380 died as it crossed the Caribbean, there were four Georges-related fatalities in the United States. Georges battered the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and the Florida Keys before it slammed into the Gulf Coast. The storm lasted two weeks after its formation west of Africa, and finally lost power and became a tropical depression, dumping rain on the Southern U.S. President Clinton declared major disas- ters or emergencies in Florida, Louisiana, Ala- bama, and Mississippi and sent federal funds to help mop up the mess. More than 3,800 National Guard troops were activated in those four states to clean up. Flooding was a major problem, as rainfall was as much as 25 inches in parts of the Gulf Coast. Mississippi and Alabama were hit the hardest in rain, while Georges also spawned tor- nadoes in Georgia and Alabama. Many homes and properties were dev- astated with floods to rooftop level, buildings blown apart by the wind and rain, and trees downed by the fierce winds as the storm blew ashore with 172 mph gusts and 110 mph sus- tained winds. In the Dominican Republic alone, 283 died, 300,000 were left homeless, and there was $1.7 billion in damage. New Orleans, a city mostly below sea level, had feared catastrophic flooding but was spared as the storm shifted slightly to the east. Thousands were evacuated from their homes throughout the course of Hur- ricane Georges, one of the worst storms of the century. by Lisa Grubk ,oilreser 8 ,at Exxon il own about ft windows anti-trust Since Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1976, the small software com- Dany grew into a Sll billion a ear giant. Microsoft employed nore than 22 thousand people world wide and had offices in 54 countries. According to TIME magazine, the company ' s core business was in operating sys- tems and office software, which together accounted for more than 65 percent of revenues. Trouble began for Microsoft when the company packaged its browser, Internet Explorer, with its operating sys- tems, Windows 95 and 98. The company was accused of using its monopoly on the operating systems market to corner the browser market. These accusa- tions launched into an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft and the ultra-successful company found itself embroiled in a ma- jor legal battle. According to the De- partment of Justice, the historic goal of the anti-trust laws was to protect economic freedom and opportunity by promoting com- petition in the marketplace. Competition in a free market benefited American consumers through lower prices, better quality and greater choice. by Jamie Weitzel Retrospect 137

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V- embassy attacks Q On Auqi WtheCamdiit itethiubrik rativedirea lewshConjrfs iis QDOEiaai lnove; heaif erliaps ik Pope ish person inn wale the Catifr i any anti-semi stated, If j ryonewasavk- Ctech has igust 7, terror- ist bombs exploded at U.S. em- bassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, taking the world by surprise. For days following the .tragedy, rescuers tried to pull victims out of the rubble, but ;the lives of at least 180 victims .in Nairobi and ten in Dar es Salaam, including 12 Americans, were eventually lost. The in- jured list totaled more than 5,000 in the two cites combined. In January, exiled Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden told ABC News that the African embassy bombings may have resulted from his call to his followers for a holy war against the United States and Israel, but the major suspect in the bomb- ings continued to deny that he ordered the bombings or played a personal role in the organiza- tion of them. In December, he told Newsweek, I did not order them but was very glad for what happened to the Americans there, CNN reported. The U.S. followed the alleged bin Laden attacks by conducting a missile attack on his Afghanistan bases. Bin Laden was indicted by U.S. officials for planning the bomb- ings. The purported terror- ist continued his anger toward Americans, and said that this hostility was a religious duty. by Kristin Long tnMcQuade photo courtesy of The Associated Press A suspect in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, Osama bin Laden denied responsibility for the acts of terrorism. The attacks were made on the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania leaving nearly 200 dead and over 5,000 injured. photo courtesy of The Associated Press South Africa President Nelson Mandela raises his honorary Doc- tor of Laws Degree. Mandela was presented with the honor on Sep- tember 18, 1998 at Harvard Uni- versity. Nelson Mandela was born into a royal family in Africa on July 18th, 1918. He attended the Healdtown Methodist Boarding School and, later, the Fort Hare University College. Mandela later received his law degree and began a prac- tice. However, political activism was his true calling, and he soon began campaigns to help stamp out apartheid in Africa. He was arrested in 1952 under the Suppression of Communism Amendment Act; this was the first of many ar- rests during his career in political activism. Fi- nally, in May of 1994, Mandela was elected the President of the Republic of South Africa. During this past year, Mandela ' s career culminated as he received well-deserved awards for his heroic acts. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor in September. The leader also received an honorary degree from Harvard Uni- versity; having received this degree, Mandela joined the ranks of George Washington and Win- ston Churchill as the only other out-of-season recipients. by Karen McQuade mandela honored srous explosions shook Iraq for three straight nights in December, as U.S. and British forces acted on Saddam Hussein ' s defiance against U.N. weapons inspectors. Operation Desert Fox was launched on the grounds that Iraq was obstructing the work of the weapons inspectors of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM). The alleged obstructions included charges of hiding Iraq ' s weapons of mass destruction: chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. Al- most all potential weapons sites that U.N. inspec- tors were monitoring were hit in the raids. In announcing the start of the strikes, President Clinton recognized that it would offend the United States ' Arab allies if the attacks began during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The attacks ended before the holy period began. At least 42 Iraqis were killed and 96 wounded in the strikes, which unleashed the most severe fire- power since the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi forces offered little resistance, other than anti-aircraft fire. In halting the strikes, President Clinton said the 70 hour assault severely damaged Iraq ' s ability to build weapons of mass destruction, and declared the attacks to be successful. Operation Desert Fox involved more than 30,000 troops di- rectly, and 10,000 more who provided support from bases around the world. A spokesman from the U.S. State Depart- ment said the U.S. and British attacks against Iraq could well hasten Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ' s demise. However, Saddam remained defiant, call- ing the U.S. and Britain the enemies of God. The Iraqi leader declared he would not compromise or kneel in the showdown over arms inspections. iraqi defiance Saddam Hussein ' s lack of cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors is met by Lisa Grubka with force Retrospect 139