Word: mountainous
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...jewelry on shopping sprees to France. In a country with a tropical climate, she has a collection of designer furs worth a fortune. Some Haitians explain the country's depleted foreign-exchange reserves with a shrug: "Michele took them to Paris." Two villas are being built in the mountains above Port-au-Prince for members of her family. The First Couple themselves own a ranch, two villas and a new mountain retreat...
American Naturalist Dian Fossey often said that she preferred the gentle mountain gorillas she studied and lived among to the people who have made the creatures an endangered species. Perhaps fittingly, she was buried last week in the gorilla graveyard she had carved out of a lush, misty hillside in Rwanda, the central African country where the last of the mountain gorillas live...
Fossey, 53, was found hacked to death by a machete at her isolated camp in the Virunga Mountains, where she had lived on and off since 1967. No arrests have been made, but authorities believe the killer was someone who knew her. Fossey was often at odds with the local population, especially poachers, who sell the heads, hands and feet of mountain gorillas as curios and ashtrays. The rare primates, which have not been able to survive in captivity, now number only about 240. Fossey was a vigilant protector of her research subjects; in 1980 she reportedly abducted the child...
...series of crashes has raised new concerns about safety in the skies. Nearly 2,000 people died around the world in commercial air accidents in 1985, making it aviation's deadliest year. The worst crash occurred when a Japan Air Lines 747 slammed into a mountain last August, killing 520 people in history's largest single-plane accident. In Dallas 134 died when a Delta L-1011 crashed trying to land in bad weather. Another 329 people lost their lives in the midair breakup of an Air-India 747 off Ireland. In December a DC-8 military charter crashed...
Even the newest equipment can fail, however, if it is not properly repaired and maintained. The 747 that struck a mountain in Japan apparently lost control of its rear navigation system. Boeing has since acknowledged that a repair of the back hull, which it performed seven years before the accident, was improperly done. In view of that, the FAA ordered immediate reinspection of all similar repairs. The agency has been cracking down on improper maintenance practices. Says Engen: "In the past two years, we have put on the ground, or severely restrained, 52 airlines." A grounded carrier may not legally...