YEAR IN REVIEW 2000: BIOGRAPHY

Abdullah II Following the death on Feb. 7, 1999, of his father, King Hussein (see Obituaries), Crown Prince Abdullah became king of Jordan at the age of 37. His succession to the throne was decided a month earlier, when the ailing Hussein named him as the new heir to the Hashimite crown in favour of the king's brother, Prince Hassan, who had been designated for several decades as the heir apparent. In his new role Abdullah II continued to follow many of his father's policies; he supported an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. He distanced himself, however, from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In an effort to bolster Jordan's weak economy, Abdullah II maintained that the new government, formed in March, would focus on economic reforms. He also pledged to secure relations with other Arab countries and improve the status of women. Abdullah ibn Hussein was born on Jan. 30, 1962, in Amman, Jordan. He was one of 12 children born to Hussein and was the son of the king's second wife, Toni Gardiner, who was British. Until the age of three, Abdullah had served as the crown prince, but the dangerous events and hostile environment in the Middle East prompted Hussein to name Abdullah's adult uncle as heir to the throne. At the age of four, Abdullah was sent to Great Britain to begin his studies. He later completed his secondary education in the U.S. at Deerfield Academy, Mass., and took courses at both the University of Oxford and Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Following in his father's footsteps, he graduated (1980) from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Eng. Abdullah served in the British Armed Forces and subsequently served in Jordan's Armed Forces in the 41st and 90th armoured brigades. In 1993 he was appointed deputy commander of the country's elite Special Forces, a post he held until assuming the throne. In June 1993 Abdullah married a Palestinian, Rania, with whom he had two children, Hussein and Imam. As king, Abdullah II vowed to continue the work begun by his father and to blend Arab traditions with the more modern ones of the West. Abdullah II socialized with other Jordanians, as his father had, and he was known to have disguised himself as a taxi driver and a television reporter so that he could remain in touch with his people and hear their views. His popularity among the armed forces, long considered a pillar of the throne, also provided some support for his new role. Because he had no government experience, however, many wondered whether Abdullah's charisma would be enough to help him rule; some Jordanians still viewed him as a military man, not a statesman. Amy Weber Agassi, Andre For the first 10 years of his professional career, American tennis player Andre Agassi was the rock star of his sport. Besides racking up three Grand Slam titles and capturing the number one player ranking on several occasions, he charmed audiences with his flashy style and unusual antics, such as grabbing a fan's umbrella during a match in the rain. By 1997, however, a recurring wrist injury had begun to hamper his performances, and he saw his ranking plummet to 141. He set his sights on a comeback, and in 1999 he capped it in stirring fashion. He won the French Open in June after being down two sets to none against Andrey Medvedev of Ukraine in the final. He roared back to upend Medvedev 16, 26, 64, 63, 64 to become only the fifth men's player in history to win all four Grand Slam events(Fred Perry of the U.K., Don Budge of the U.S., Rod Laver of Australia, and Roy Emerson, also of Australia, were the others) and the first to do it on three different surfaces. A strong showing at Wimbledon later in the yearAgassi made it to the finals, where he lost to arch rival Pete Samprasand a title at the U.S. Open confirmed that he was indeed back in top form. His number one ranking at the end of the year provided conclusive proof. Agassi also topped the list of money winners. He earned $4,269,265 during the 1999 tour. Agassi was born on April 29, 1970, in Las Vegas, Nev. By the age of two, he could serve a tennis ball on a full court. At 13 he was sent to a tennis academy in Bradenton, Fla., run by Nick Bolletieri, who later became his coach. In 1987 Agassi won his first professional tournament. With six tournament wins in 1988, the shaggy-haired right-hander with the powerful forehand began attracting attention. In 1992 he triumphed over Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia at Wimbledon to take his first Grand Slam title. In 1994, after being dropped by Bolletieriwho questioned Agassi's dedication to the sportand falling out of the top 30 in the rankings, he returned with a new coach, Brad Gilbert, and a new, more focused, game. He entered the 1994 U.S. Open unseeded; when he won there, it was the first time that an unseeded player had taken the U.S. Open since 1966. In January 1995 he claimed his third Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in his first participation in that event and held the number one ranking for 30 consecutive weeks later that year. A gold medal at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga., marked Agassi's only notable victory in 1996. In 1997 Agassi, now sporting a shaved head, made headlines with his marriage to actress Brooke Shields, though his tennis continued to suffer. His attempt at a return to the top got a giant boost when he beat Sampras in February 1998 at a tournament in San Jose, Calif. Disappointing losses early in 1999and a widely publicized split with Shieldsfailed to shake Agassi's concentration, and a win over Boris Becker in Hong Kong shortly before the French Open set the stage for his return to glory. By the end of 1999, Agassislim, fit, and still not yet 30had amassed more than $16 million in career prize money and had won more than 40 professional titles. Anthony G. Craine Ahtisaari, Martti On June 2, 1999, the president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin met with Pres. Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and presented him with an offer he could not refuse: accept an agreement to end the conflict in Kosovo between Serbian troops and the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, or face continued NATO bombing. The next day Milosevic agreed to the conditions of the accord, which included a joint NATO-Russian peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The diplomatic skill of Ahtisaari, a veteran mediator who as senior UN envoy during the 199293 Bosnia and Herzegovina peace talks had become experienced in dealing with Milosevic, was crucial to the negotiation of a peace accord. During a 10-hour meeting in May at Finland's presidential palace, Chernomyrdin and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott had attempted to recruit Ahtisaari for the peace mission to Belgrade. Ahtisaari did not agree to participate until Russia and NATO decided on a definite plan to present to Milosevic. In Belgrade, Ahtisaari's calm insistence that the plan was a one-time-only, nonnegotiable offer forced Milosevic finally to capitulate. As a longtime UN negotiator and president of a small neutral European country, Ahtisaari had rare experience in reconciling differences. He was born on June 23, 1937, in Viipuri, Fin. (now Vyborg, Russia). He graduated from the University of Oulu, Fin., in 1959 and in the early 1960s worked in Pakistan on an educational project for the Swedish Agency for International Development. Returning to Finland, he joined the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1965 and was appointed ambassador to Tanzania in 1973, a post he held until 1976. He faced the first major test of his diplomatic skills in 197781 as UN commissioner for Namibia, where conflict between SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organization), the Namibian independence movement, and South African colonial forces had erupted into a protracted war. Ahtisaari continued to represent the UN in Namibia during the 1980s while serving in Finnish Foreign Ministry posts, and he led the UN team that supervised Namibia's transition to independence in 198990. His vision of Finland as an important player in international affairs was a large selling point in his only campaign for elective office, his successful run for the presidency in 1994. He urged his nation's entry into the European Union (EU), and for the last half of 1999, Finland assumed the EU's rotating presidency. Although he also supported NATO and favoured further expansion of the EU, a majority in Finland's Parliament preferred a more cautious policy, and Ahtisaari's own party, the Social Democrats, abandoned him, nominating his foreign minister, Tarja Halonen, as its presidential candidate in the 2000 elections. John Litweiler Armstrong, Lance On July 25, 1999, cyclist Lance Armstrong became the second American ever to win the 20-stage Tour de France, the sport's most prestigious race, and the first to win for an American team (three-time winner Greg LeMond had raced with European teams). Riding with the U.S. Postal Service team, 27-year-old Armstrong won the opening stage and all three time trials of the 3,630-km (2,254-mi), 22-day race, going on to win by 7 min 37 sec. When he crossed the finish line on the Champs-lyses, Armstrong, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, stated, My victory is a miracle, a miracle of medicine. Less than three years earlier, he had been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer. After the race, he fought allegations of doping because traces of a banned substance, corticosteroid, from a prescription skin cream he used for saddle sores, were found in his urine. The Union Cycliste Internationale cleared him, but he continued to endure accusations of doping, especially from the French press. Armstrong was born in Plano, Texas, on Sept. 18, 1971, and entered sports at a young age, excelling in both swimming and cycling. By the time he was a teenager, he was competing in triathlons and swimming competitions. Before his high-school graduation, the Junior National Cycling Team, part of the U.S. Cycling Federation, had already recruited him. Armstrong competed in Moscow at the Junior World Championships and in 1990 won the U.S. Amateur Championships. In 1992 he turned professional, when he joined the Motorola team, and one year later he became the second youngest champion in world road racing, ranking fifth in world standings. Armstrong won legs of the Tour de France in both 1993 and 1995 but withdrew from three of four Tours he attempted from 1993 to 1996. After the 1996 Tour de France, Armstrong fell ill, and in October doctors diagnosed him with testicular cancer, which had by that time also spread to his lungs and brain. He chose to take the risks of chemotherapy and surgery, as doctors felt these were his best chances for survival. Between chemotherapy sessions, Armstrong still took rides of 48 km (30 mi). By April 1997 the tumours had disappeared, and by October he was in the clear. In September 1997 an unranked Armstrong, riding with the French Cofidis team, finished a respectable fourth in the Tour de Spain. After his contract was terminated by Cofidis, he joined the U.S. Postal Service team in October and began preparing for the 1999 Tour de France. After his victory, Armstrong, who had established the Lance Armstrong Foundation to provide support for cancer patients and fund research for testicular cancer, made numerous appearances on television, where he gave some advice, If you ever get a second chance in life, you've got to go all the way. On October 12 medicine came through for Armstrong once again, when his wife gave birth to a son conceived by in-vitro fertilization from sperm frozen before the cyclist began his cancer treatments. Amy Weber Barak, Ehud On May 17, 1999, Ehud Barak won a commanding victory in Israeli national elections to become the country's new prime minister. At the head of a Labor-dominated coalition, he defeated ruling Likud prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, centrist parties increased their seats in the Knesset. The election results were seen as a turning away from the hard-line policies, particularly in relations with the Palestinians, pursued by Netanyahu. Ehud Brog (he changed his name when he entered the army) was born on Feb. 12, 1942, in the Mishmar Hasharon kibbutz. His father, who had emigrated from Lithuania, had founded the settlement in 1932. The son was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1959, thus beginning a distinguished military career. He was a commander in battles in the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) but became known especially as the leader of special forces units that conducted commando raids. These included a group of soldiers (with Netanyahu among them) who stormed an airliner hijacked by Palestinian guerrillas at Lod International Airport in 1972. Barak served as head of military intelligence, and he became chief of General Staff in 1991. When he retired in 1995 as a lieutenant general, the highest rank, he was the most decorated soldier in the history of Israel's military. Barak received a B.Sc. degree in physics and mathematics in 1968 from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.Sc. degree in 1978 in economic engineering systems from Stanford University in California. While in the military he played a part in negotiations that resulted in the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan. Under Labor governments he was minister of the interior in 1995 and of foreign affairs in 199596. In June 1997 he became head of the Labor Party. Barak ran under the coalition One Israel, which included Labor as well as the Gesher Party and Meimad, the latter a spin-off of the National Religious Party. In the campaign, which employed a number of American political consultants, Barak emphasized economic and other domestic issues, including education and health services, as well as relations with the Palestinians and with Syria and Lebanon. His comment If I had been born a Palestinian, I would have joined a terrorist organization and have fought from there was seen as an indication of his character. The withdrawal of minor candidates late in the campaign allowed a face-off between Netanyahu and Barak, who won just over 56% of the popular vote. His Cabinet, announced in July, was extraordinarily diverse and seemed especially designed for political purposes. In August Barak announced that Israel would resume implementation of the 1998 Wye Memorandum, which called for withdrawal from parts of the West Bank in return for Palestinian guarantees of security, although on a revised schedule. In December Barak met in Washington D.C., with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk ash-Shara to discuss the Golan Heights issue. Robert Rauch Barbour, Ian On May 11, 1999, American theologian and physicist Ian Barbour was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest annual monetary award$1,240,000for his deep and lasting contribution toward the needed integration of scientific and religious knowledge and values. The prize was established by Sir John Templeton in 1972 to honour individuals who display extraordinary originality in advancing humankind's understanding of God and/or spirituality. When the award was announced, Barbour promptly pledged $1 million of the prize money to the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, an educational organization affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif. Barbour was born on Oct. 5, 1923, in Beijing, where his Scottish father and American mother both taught at Yanjing University. His family settled in the U.S. when he was 14 years old. He earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Swarthmore (Pa.) College in 1943 and received his M.A. from Duke University, Durham, N.C., in 1946. After studying with Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1949, he began teaching at Kalamazoo (Mich.) College, becoming chairman of the physics department in 1951. Despite his success as a physics professor, Barbour chose to move in a new direction in 1953, enrolling at Yale Divinity School to study theology and ethics. Even before completing his divinity degree in 1956, he was appointed to teach in both the religion and physics departments of Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., in 1955. Committed to exploring the relationship between science and religion, Barbour initiated an interdisciplinary program at Carleton in 1972 that promoted study in both fields. He became Carleton's first professor of science, technology, and society in 1981. Barbour wrote numerous books and articles on the interaction between science and religion. His Issues in Science and Religion, first published in 1966, was one of the first books to treat the fields as two disciplines that shared a common ground rather than as two completely separate or conflicting spheres of study. The publication, which many credited with having created the interdisciplinary field of science and religion, was widely used as a college textbook. Barbour's other notable works included Myths, Models, and Paradigms (1974), which compared concepts and methods of inquiry in science and religion and was nominated for a National Book Award. Religion in an Age of Science (1990) and Ethics in an Age of Technology (1993), a two-volume set based on a series of lectures he presented in Scotland, received the 1993 book award from the American Academy of Religion. Among the topics Barbour had examined were religion's role in the treatment and development of the environment, the impact of the theory of evolution and big bang cosmology on religious thought, and the influence of religion on ethical issues raised by rapid advances in such fields as medicine, genetic engineering, agriculture, and computer technology. Amy R. Tao Beckett, Sister Wendy A habit-wearing Consecrated Virgin with a speech impediment seemed an unlikely television star, but, in a story that could have been written for the small screen, Sister Wendy Beckett turned a passion for art into a popular television series. The British nun, who had lived as a hermit for more than 20 years, traveled around the world discussing works of art before the camera. Her eloquent and down-to-earth commentary made art accessible to everyone and endeared her to television audiences. Nicknamed the Art Nun, she quickly developed a loyal following throughout Europe and the U.S. Beckett was born in South Africa in 1930 and moved to Scotland while still a child. From an early age she wanted to be a nun, and at 16 she joined the Sisters of Notre Dame. In 1950 she enrolled at the University of Oxford, and in 1954 she graduated with top honours in English. After attending a teacher's college in Liverpool, Eng., she returned to South Africa, where she taught for 15 years. Faced with poor health, Sister Wendy asked to pursue a life of solitude. Her request was granted, and in 1970 she moved back to England, settling on the grounds of a Carmelite monastery in Quidenham, Norfolk. There she lived in a house trailer with only the most basic amenities, working only two hours a day. In 1980 she became interested in art. With postcards and books as her primary reference material, she began writing essays for British journals in the mid-1980s, and her first book, Contemporary Women Artists, appeared in 1988. It was while attending an art exhibit that Sister Wendy received her television break. A film crew overheard her comments and asked to videotape her. The piece caught the eye of a BBC producer, and Sister Wendy's Odyssey began. First airing in 1992, the BBC series had a simple format. Sister Wendy stood next to an artwork and gave her reaction to the piece. With humour and a gift for storytelling, she brought life and drama to the work. The huge popularity of the series led to two other programs on art, Sister Wendy's Grand Tour (1994) and Sister Wendy's Story of Painting (1997), which were soon shown in other European countries. In 1997 she made her debut in the U.S., becoming a fixture on public television. In 1999 she undertook her largest North American project, profiling six notable museums. In addition to her work on the small screen, Sister Wendy continued to write art books, including The Story of Painting (1994). Maintaining her vow of poverty, she donated all her earnings to the Carmelite order. Amy Tikkanen Benigni, Roberto At the 1999 Academy Awards ceremony, Italian actor and film director Roberto Benigni displayed the charm and gift for frenetic comedy that had endeared him to fans around the world and made La vita bella (Life Is Beautiful)which he co-wrote, directed, and starred inone of the most acclaimed movies of the previous year. After receiving an Oscar for best actorbecoming only the second performer in a foreign-language film to win the honourBenigni, delirious with happiness, made his way to the stage by walking nimbly atop the backs of chairs and proclaiming in broken English that he wanted to make love to everyone. In addition, Life Is Beautiful was named best foreign film, which added to the movie's more than 30 international awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes (1998). The tragicomedy follows Guido Orefice, an Italian Jew who falls in love and marries before his life is brutally interrupted by World War II. Interned in a Nazi concentration camp, he turns the experience into a humorous game in order to protect his young son. Although some critics charged that the film made light of the Holocaust, Benigni's aim was to offer a touching account of hope amid desperation. Already Italy's biggest movie star, he established himself as one of the world's most beloved performers. Born on Oct. 27, 1952, in Misericordia, Arezzo, Benigni was the son of a poor tenant farmer who had worked in a German labour camp during World War II. The elder Benigni used humour in retelling his experiences, which helped shape his son's comedic skill and served as the impetus for Life Is Beautiful. Benigni briefly attended a Jesuit seminary in Florence, and after a stint as a magician's assistant, he joined an underground theatre in the late 1960s. There he co-wrote a semiautobiographical monologue that led to a tour of Italy and thefilm Berlinguer, ti voglio bene (1977). A string of movies followed, and in 1983 he made his directorial debut with Tu mi turbi, which he also wrote and starred in. The film featured his wife, actress Nicoletta Braschi, who frequently appeared in his work and played his onscreen spouse in Life Is Beautiful. Benigni performed triple duties in Il piccolo diavolo (1988) and Il Mostro (1994). His fourth film as director, writer, and actor, Johnny Stecchino (1991), was a Mafia farce that set box-office records in Italy. By the mid-1990s Benigni had won over European audiences with his mimicry and exaggerated facial expressionsgestures that were reminiscent of his idol, Charlie Chaplin. In the United States, however, the filmmaker was relatively unknown. His appearance in such American movies as avant- garde filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986) and Blake Edwards's Son of the Pink Panther (1993) had garnered little attention. With Life Is Beautiful, however, American moviegoers crowded theatres, and the movie became the highest-grossing foreign film in the country. In August the film, now dubbed in English, was released again in the U.S.with expectations of another round of fame for Benigni. Meanwhile, the multitalented actor was busy at work in France on an action film entitled Asterix & Obelix v. Caesarbased on the popular European cartoon series. Amy Tikkanen Berezovsky, Boris When Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin resigned, Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky lost his status as a Kremlin insider and one of Russia's most powerful men. Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin, came to power in 2000 promising to liquidate the oligarchs as a class. By year's end Berezovsky had been ousted from Kremlin circles and was facing a criminal investigation into his business affairs. Berezovsky had epitomized the oligarchs, the small group of Russians who had made their fortunes in the chaotic last years of the U.S.S.R. and parlayed their wealth into political power in the new, capitalist Russia. In 1996 Berezovsky had boasted that he and six other financiers controlled 50% of the Russian economy. Boris Abramovich Berezovsky was born Jan. 23, 1946, in Moscow and was the only son of a nurse and a builder. He studied electronics and computer science; completed his postgraduate studies in 1975, and earned his doctorate in decision-making theory in 1983. Thereafter he worked on information management at an institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. In 1991 he became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Berezovsky founded his business empire in the last years of the Soviet Union. The economic liberalization launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev legalized small-scale private enterprise and made it possible for enterprising Soviet businessmen to privatize the profitable parts of their state-owned businesses. They could also exploit the gap between the controlled prices set by the state and the prices Soviet-produced goods could fetch on the free market. Berezovsky typified these new Russians. He had worked as a consultant on information management to AvtoVaz, Inc., the largest Soviet car producer. In 1989 Berezovsky used these contacts to set up LogoVaz, the U.S.S.R.'s first capitalist car dealership. LogoVaz bought cars at the state-set price for cars intended for export and sold them at the much higher price such cars could fetch inside Russia. The profits enabled Berezovsky to expand his interests into oil and banking. His cultivation of Yeltsin's bodyguard and of Yeltsin's daughter gave Berezovsky an entre into the Kremlin. As a result, he won financial control of the former Soviet state airline, Aeroflot, and of Russian Public Television (ORT), Russia's main television channel. In 1996 Berezovsky helped bankroll Yeltsin's reelection as president. He was rewarded with political appointments, first as deputy secretary of the Security Council in 1996 and then in 1998 as executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Under his management, ORT supported first Yeltsin and then Yeltsin's designated successor, Vladimir Putin. Putin's determination to reassert state control soon brought him into conflict with Berezovsky. Accusing Putin of returning to totalitarianism, Berezovsky announced the formation of a constructive opposition. He complained that the Kremlin had threatened him with imprisonment unless he surrendered control of ORT. Instead, Berezovsky transferred his shares to a handpicked group of writers and journalists. During the summer a long-standing investigation into Berezovsky's handling of Aeroflot's finances was revived. In December, Berezovsky announced that he was establishing a multimillion-dollar foundation to promote the development of civil society in Russia. At year's end observers were divided. Though some saw Berezovsky's fall from power as permanent, others warned that it was too early to rule him out, since he would retain his influence in Russian politics through his shareholders at ORT. Editor Bezos, Jeffrey P. With a click of the mouse, American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos revolutionized the world of retailing. As the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, an on-line merchant of books (and later of videos and CDs as well), he played a key role in the growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce), an industry in which shopping carts and checkout lines were obsolete and prime real estate was an address on the Internet. Under his guidance, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for cyberspace sales. In 1999 Bezos added auctions to the site and had the company invest in several virtual stores, including drugstore.com and pets.com. Such moves were part of his goal to reinvent the future of e-commerce. Born on Jan. 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, N.M., Bezos early displayed an entrepreneurial and inventive bent when, while still in high school, he developed the Dream Institute, a centre that promoted creative thinking in young students. In 1982 he entered Princeton University, where he became interested in computers. After graduating summa cum laude in 1986 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, he undertook a series of jobs before joining the New York investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co. in 1990. Soon named senior vice presidentthe firm's youngest everhe was in charge of examining the investment possibilities of the Internet. Its enormous potentialWeb usage was growing by more than 2,000% a yearsparked his entrepreneurial imagination. In 1994 he quit D.E. Shaw and moved to Seattle, Wash., to open a virtual bookstore. Working out of his garage with a handful of employees, Bezos began developing the software for the site. Named after the longest river in the world, Amazon.com sold its first book in July 1995. Amazon.com quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the site was extremely user-friendly, encouraging browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. Amazon.com had some 10 million customers around the world; yearly net sales increased from $510,000 in 1995 to more than $600,000,000 in 1998. Though it had yet to earn a profit, the company's stock, which at one point was offered at $9 per share, had risen to nearly $120 by mid-1999. Bezos's 41% share was worth nearly $1 billion. The success of Amazon.com encouraged other retailers, including the major book chains Barnes and Noble and Borders, to open shop on the Internet. As more companies battled for Internet dollars, Bezos looked to diversify, exploring such markets as flowers and software. Whatever course he pursued, it was certain that Time magazine's Person of the Year and Amazon.com would continue to redefine retailing. Amy Tikkanen Bocelli, Andrea By 1999, in a feat not often achieved by classical musicians, Italian opera tenor Andrea Bocelli had attained phenomenal international success both in opera and in pop music. With a voice that was described as the most beautiful in the world, Bocelli enthralled album listeners with the 1997 release of Romanza, which sold at least 15 million copies, and the 1999 introduction of Sogno, which, after selling some 3 million copies in less than two months, made Bocelli the first classical artist to have an album top the pop charts. The fact that Bocelli was blind made it difficult for him to star on the operatic stage. He performed mostly in concert. In 1999 he was featured at both the Grammy Awards (he had been nominated for a Grammy as best new artist) and the Academy Awards, where his duet on The Prayer (nominated as best song) with pop star Celine Dion was rewarded with a standing ovation. By 1999 Bocellimania had spread from Italy and throughout Europe to the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Bocelli, born on Sept. 22, 1958, in the farming town of Lajatico, just outside Pisa, was afflicted with congenital glaucoma. His parents sold farm equipment and grew olives and grapes and were not particularly musical. Bocelli began taking piano lessons at the age of six, later played flute and saxophone, and sang along to family recordings of Italian tenors. At the age of 12, having suffered a brain hemorrhage as a result of a head injury sustained in a soccer game, Bocelli became totally blind. Undeterred by his lack of sight, he studied law at the University of Pisa while singing at piano bars and nightclubs to finance his education. After obtaining his degree, he practiced law for a year before deciding on a musical career and studying voice with tenor Franco Corelli. Bocelli's breakthrough came when in 1992, he was asked by Italian pop star Zucchero Fornaciari to record a demo of Miserere, a song intended for renowned vocalist Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti was highly impressed with Bocelli's voice, the two became friends, and the next year Bocelli signed a recording contract; his debut album went platinum in Europe. In 1995 the single Con te partir (Time to Say Goodbye) was released. It later became a duet in English with Sarah Brightman, and both versions became smash hits. Bocelli's popularity soared in 1997 after repeated PBS airings of his live show Romanza in Concert: A Night in Tuscany. Though he claimed opera as his first love, Bocelli mixed arias with popular music on his recordings (a genre referred to by the press as popera) in an effort to expand his audience base. Criticized by some reviewers as being too lightweight to be taken seriously by the opera world, Bocelli nevertheless opened in July in The Merry Widow, singing three arias, and made his U.S. operatic debut in November in the title role of Jules Massenet's Werther at the Michigan Opera Theatre. As 1999 drew to a close, Bocelli was preparing for his performance at the Party of the Century, a millennium concert to be held on New Year's Eve in New York City. Anthony L. Green Chang, Morris While the Asian economic crisis battered such regional powerhouses as Japan, South Korea, and China in the late 1990s, the economy of tiny Taiwan remained relatively stable, owing largely to the island's solid footing in the high-technology industry. Perhaps no one was more responsible for Taiwan's emergence as a high-tech leader than Morris Chang, the Chinese-born chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). In the mid-1980s Chang realized that electronics firms increasingly would need to outsource in order to cut costs, so he decided to create a company that would work under contract to meet the design needs of such firms by making chips and other electronic devices. With help from the Taiwanese government, he founded TSMC and built it into one of the world's most profitable chip makers. By 1999 TSMC counted among its clients corporations around the globe, including Motorola, Siemens, and Texas Instruments, and enjoyed net sales of more than $1.5 billion annually. Chang was born on July 10, 1931, in Ningpo, Chekiang province, China. His first ambition was to become a writer, but his father dissuaded him from the idea. In 1949 Chang moved to the U.S. to attend Harvard University. He later transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned B.S. (1952) and M.S. (1953) degrees in mechanical engineering. Chang landed a job at Texas Instruments as an engineering manager in 1958. He received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1964. In his 25 years at Texas Instruments, Chang moved up steadily, eventually becoming senior vice president in charge of the company's global semiconductor business. He left Texas Instruments in 1984 to become president of General Instrument Co., but a year later the Taiwanese government recruited him to take over as president of its Industrial Technology Research Institute. Charged with developing Taiwan's fledgling semiconductor industry, Chang came up with the idea for TSMC. He later became a leading promoter of e-commerce, placing a technology library on the Internet that allowed users to access information on TSMC's products and designs. Despite his busy schedule as CEO, Chang still found time to pursue his original passion for writing. The Autobiography of Morris C.M. ChangVolume I (19311964) appeared in 1998. A beloved figure in Taiwan, Chang was revered not only for his business acumen but for the concern he showed for his customers and for the island itself. In the wake of the deadly earthquake that hit Taiwan in September 1999, Chang pushed his managers to restore the company's production to 90% of capacity within days of the disaster, and TSMC donated $6.3 million in relief funds to the Red Cross. Sherman Hollar Chvez, Hugo On Feb. 2, 1999, Hugo Chvez, the man who had staged a bloody, unsuccessful coup in 1992, took the oath of office as president of Venezuela after scoring a landslide victory in the December 1998 elections. Chvez, who had campaigned for sweeping political change on an anticorruption platform, led the radical left-wing Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) to victory, capturing more than 56% of the vote. During his four-year term as president, Chvez vowed to transform Venezuela completely by rooting out old-style Latin American politics as well as reviving the country's stagnant economy. His popularity among the nation's nearly 23 million citizens worried critics who feared that Chvez's calls for a true democracy camouflaged his thirst for power and, ultimately, unchallenged authority. Others, remembering his coup attempt, mistrusted him. Hugo Chvez Fraz was born on July 28, 1954, in Sabaneta, Venez. As a youth, he had aspirations to join the military and later completed his college degree in military sciences and arts at a Venezuelan military academy. In 1975 he graduated as a second lieutenant and became a paratrooper in the army. By 1990 he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Fascinated by the ideas of Simn Bolvar, the Liberator, Chvez took political science classes at Simn Bolvar University in Caracas. Following the 1992 coup attempt, Chvez was imprisoned and exiled from political life until 1994, when Pres. Rafael Caldera pardoned him in a gesture of goodwill and in response to cries of the Venezuelan people for his freedom. Upon his release, Chvez, together with allies from the army, established the MVR, intending to rid the country of corrupt government officials and policies. Traveling throughout the country, he promised to transform the democratic constitution, making it the centrepiece of his presidency. In December voters overwhelmingly approved Chvez's new constitution that gave him sweeping powers and a license to refashion the country's political and social structure. Amy Weber Clarkson, Adrienne Allow me a moment of personal reflection. The Poy family, arriving here as refugees in 1942 ... did not arrive as part of a regular immigration procedure. There was no such thing for a Chinese family at that time in Canadian history. ... I learned to be Canadian through a series of teachers, who treated me only as brightand not bright yellow. So stated Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson during her installation ceremony on Oct. 7, 1999, as Canada's first immigrant and second woman governor-general. Her appointment to the largely ceremonial position by Prime Minister Jean Chrtien climaxed a career in broadcasting, journalism, the arts, and public service. Born in Hong Kong in 1939, Clarkson fled the British colony with her family in 1942, after the Japanese occupied the island. The family settled in Ottawa, where Clarkson attended public schools. She then gained an Honours B.A. in English literature and language at the University of Toronto's Trinity College and an M.A. in English literature at the University of Toronto. From 1962 to 1964 she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Clarkson returned to Canada and from 1965 to 1982 was a host, writer, and producer of several programs on CBC Television, including Take Thirty, Adrienne at Large, and The Fifth Estate. During this time she also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines in Canada and was the author of two novels. From 1982 to 1987 she served as the first agent-general for Ontario in Paris, promoting the business and cultural interests of Ontario in France. Clarkson was president and publisher of McClelland & Stewart in 198788, and from 1988 until her appointment as governor-general, she served as chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que., executive producer and host of the CBC Television program Something Special, and president of the Executive Board of IMZ, an international audiovisual association of music, dance, and cultural programmers based in Vienna. Her many awards include Officer of the Order of Canada and honorary doctorates from four Canadian universities. Clarkson's appointment generated some controversy. The National Post echoed many conservatives by stating, Ms. Clarkson emerged as a spokesperson for cultural and economic nationalism and for the left in general. For her part, Clarkson commented that, even in this ceremonial office, standing apart from the everyday political fray does not mean not having ideas. David R. Calhoun Clinton, Hillary Rodham On Nov. 23, 1999, ending months of speculation, Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that she would be a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. She had made several trips to the state, what she called listening tours, to test the sentiment for her candidacy, and it was announced i