01|Hundreds of ethnic Albanians living in Yugoslavia's Kosovo Province flee across the border to Albania in the wake of the latest Serbian attack on members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which seeks independence for the province. Using both police and army forces, the Belgrade government of Slobodan Milosevic is attempting to retain control of the province by crushing the militants. Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2.2 million people. While casualty figures in the latest round of fighting vary, most sources within Kosovo agree that at least 200 people have died since March 1998.|
01|The party of President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro sweeps to victory in parliamentary elections. Djukanovic ran on the assurance that Montenegro would not be integrated with Serbia, and some political experts see the overwhelming victory as a possible signal that Montenegro will eventually attempt to secede from the Yugoslavia Federation, which is made up of Serbia and Montenegro.|
02|Admiral David E. Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, submits an independent report to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George J. Tenet, warning that the CIA needs to be reorganized from "top to bottom." Among other conclusions, Jeremiah notes that the agency is far too reliant on machines, as opposed to human beings, in the gathering of information worldwide. The CIA was most recently criticized for its failure to uncover India's preparations for nuclear tests, which were conducted on May 11 and 13.|
03|Ninety-eight people are killed when passenger cars from a German Railways express train, traveling at 125 miles (200 kilometers) per hour, derail near Eschede in northern Germany and crash into a concrete column supporting a highway overpass, causing it to collapse. Two of the 12 cars are crushed under tons of concrete. The engineer claims he saw nothing on the tracks that might have triggered the derailment.|
04|Russia's Central Bank lowers its interest rate on loans to other banks from 150 to 60 percent. On May 27, the bank lifted interest rates on such loans from 50 to 150 percent to encourage investment in an economy starved for capital. The interest paid on treasury bills, which rose to 90 percent on May 27, was also cut. Economic analysts see the drop in interest rates as an indication that the threat of economic crisis in Russia has waned somewhat since the International Monetary Fund promised to meet a scheduled loan payment in June.|
05|Japanese and U.S. physicists from 23 different research institutions gather in Japan to announce that they have discovered the existence of mass in the neutrino, a subatomic particle without electrical charge that is so light that scientists had assumed it was without mass. The discovery, which suggests that neutrinos may make up much of the mass of the universe, will likely force physicists to reassess theories of the composition of matter, the formation and evolution of galaxies, and the fate of the universe.|
05|Attorney General Janet Reno announces that the U.S. Justice Department will not prosecute physicians who prescribe lethal drugs to the terminally ill. While Oregon is the only U.S. state where assisted suicide is legal, Reno's announcement removes the final obstacle to the Oregon law, which political experts suggest will open the door to similar legislation in other states.|
06|Serbian forces shell the villages of Babaloc, Gramocel, and Shaptej in Yugoslavia's Kosovo Province and torch hundreds of houses in the region. Additional attacks on ethnic Albanians by government forces and police are reported near the Macedonian border. More than 10,000 residents of the Kosovo Province crossed the border to Albania during the week of June 1.|
06|A team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrives in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to aid in an investigation of a mysterious intestinal virus that has killed 30 babies. Scientists believe that as many as 200,000 island babies were infected with the virus during the week of May 31.|
07|The Press Trust of India reports that more than 2,500 Indians have died as a result of a heat wave that began on May 12. In New Delhi, the capital, temperatures have climbed as high as 124 degrees Fahrenheit (51 degrees Celsius).|
08|General Sani Abacha, dictator of Nigeria, dies of natural causes. Abacha left no clear successor, and experts on African politics believe a power struggle is likely before a clear leader emerges.|
08|Film actor Charlton Heston is elected president of the National Rifle Association, based in Fairfax, Virginia, at the gun rights organization's annual convention, held in Philadelphia. Heston promises to improve the image of the United States's largest gun lobby, which he describes as having been "demonized by the media."|
09|President Boris Yeltsin of Russia promises Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany that Yeltsin will intercede with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader of Yugoslavia, to end Serbian attacks on ethnic Albanians living in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province. Russia, historically, has been an ally of the Serbs, and Yeltsin has refused to join Western powers in their condemnation of Milosevic's policies.|
10|In the opening match of soccer's 1998 World Cup games in St.-Denis, France, 1994 champion Brazil begins the defense of its title by defeating Scotland, 2-1.|
11|The value of the Japanese yen on international markets falls to 143 to the dollar, an eight-year low. The downward slide of the yen triggers a sharp decline in stock values on Asian exchanges. In Bangkok, Thailand, where the current economic crisis began in 1997, stock values hit a 10-year low. Economic analysts believe that Asia's economic woes are worsening and will likely spread to Singapore, Taiwan, and the Philippines, where economies have remained healthy. The Asian crisis is also blamed for a sharp drop in U.S. exports in the first quarter of 1998.|
12|A Japanese government official announces that the Japanese economy, the world's second largest, is officially in recession. Economic output has declined by 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 1998 and by 0.7 percent in the last four quarters. The decline is the worst Japan has experienced since 1945 and is blamed for fueling economic problems in the rest of Asia as well as in Eastern Europe and Russia.|
13|James Kennedy, speaking for the White House council office, accuses independent council Kenneth Starr of violating grand jury secrecy laws during Starr's investigations into the public and private lives of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The release of grand jury information is unlawful by federal statute. In April, Starr revealed to a magazine interviewer, Steven Brill, that he had given information pertaining to his investigations to the press.|
14|Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls sinks an 18-foot (5.5-meter) jump shot with 5.2 seconds remaining in Game 6 of the National Basketball Association (NBA) finals, defeating the Utah Jazz 87 to 86 and handing the Bulls their third NBA championship in a row and sixth during the 1990's.|
15|Stock markets around the world respond to Japan's June 12 announcement that its economy is officially in a recession with a giant shudder. In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial average closes down 207 points. The Japanese currency, the yen, falls to another record low against the dollar, sparking new fears that the current economic crisis in Asia is spreading to the West.|
16|Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic meets with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow and agrees to concessions that will ease his government's current military campaign against ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo. While agreeing to resume talks with the province's ethnic Albanian majority and allowing relief groups and international monitors access to Kosovo, Milosevic offers no assurances that he will remove troops from the province.|
17|The Federal Reserve Bank of New York sells dollars to buy approximately $2 billion worth of Japanese yen on international currency markets. The rare U.S. move from dollars to yen is an attempt to boost the sliding value of the yen, which declined to another record low on June 15. Japan also buys at least $2 billion in yen on international markets. The combined purchases send stocks in America and Europe soaring and forces down the value of the dollar in relation to the yen from 143 to 138, a drop of more than 5 percent in a matter of hours.|
18|President Bill Clinton appoints Richard C. Holbrooke, who was the chief American negotiator in the 1995 Bosnia peace agreement known as the Dayton Accord, to the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The position holds cabinet-level status and a seat on the U.N. General Assembly. Holbrooke replaces Bill Richardson, who President Clinton names secretary of energy.|
19|Stanley Fischer, second in command of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warns that the IMF is unlikely to loan Russia the additional $10 billion to $15 billion that the Russian government has requested. Russian officials claim they need the additional funds to stave off economic crisis by stabilizing financial markets and preventing further devaluation of the ruble.|
20|Ambassadors representing European Union countries in Belarus announce jointly that they plan to withdraw from the country on June 22 in protest of recent actions by the Belarus government in regard to dipilomatic residences in Minsk, the capital. After shutting off water and gas, the Belarus government refused the diplomatic community access to a closed compound where they lived alongside the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko claimed he asked the ambassadors to vacate their residences so that repairs might be made. The ambassadors asserted that Lukashenko wants sole possession of the quiet, leafy area for his own use.|
21|The Israeli Cabinet unanimously approves a plan to expand the city of Jerusalem outward toward Jewish settlements to the east, an area conquered in the 1967 War, and toward towns to the west with wealthy, secular populations. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes the expansion as without political ramifications, the move is met with protests by angry Palestinians who claim it is an act of war.|
21|Lee Janzen defeats Payne Stewart by one stroke to win the U.S. Open golf championship for the second time.|
21|Andres Pastrana is elected president of Colombia over Horacio Seerpa.|
22|A team of astronomers led by Geoffrey W. Marcy, of San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley, announce the discovery of a planet about the size of Jupiter, but twice its mass, orbiting Gliese 876, a sun only 15 lights-years from our Sun. It is the first discovery of a planet orbiting a low-mass star, the most common star type in the Milky Way, leading to speculation that planetary systems similar to our own may be a common feature of the galaxy.|
22|The government of Hong Kong announces that it has suspended the sale of government-owned land until March 1999 in response to the rapid decline of real estate prices. The government sells about half of all new residential property via public auction. Economic experts consider the suspension official recognition that Hong Kong is headed for recession.|
23|In its first country-by-country analysis of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the United Nations reports that 30 million people worldwide at the end of 1997 were infected with the virus. Twenty-one of those 30 million people lived in Africa. In 13 African countries south of the Sahara, at least 10 percent of the entire adult population was infected. In Botswana and Zimbabwe, more than 25 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 49 was infected.|
24|Negotiations between General Motors (GM) and striking members of the United Auto Workers in two parts factories in Flint, Michigan, remain deadlocked over such issues as increased job security, renewed investment in existing plants, and the transfer of GM production into low-wage countries. The strike, which began more than two weeks ago, has affected 142,600 workers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and resulted in the shutdown of 26 of GM's 20 North American assembly plants and nearly 100 parts plants.|
25|President Bill Clinton arrives in Xian, China's ancient former capital, to begin a nine-day, five-city state visit that will include a June 27 summit in Beijing with President Jiang Zemin. The president is accompanied by the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and by their daughter, Chelsea.|
26|President Jiang Zemin of China receives President Bill Clinton of the United States at a military ceremony near the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square, the vast public plaza in Beijing where Mao Zedong proclaimed a Communist state in 1949 and where the state crushed public demonstrations for democracy in 1989. Civilian spectators are kept behind barricades at the north entrances of the square, which remains empty, except for security guards, throughout the military review.|
27|President Bill Clinton, in China on a state visit, and Chinese President Jiang Zemin engage in a debate over human rights, including China's crackdown on dissidents during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, during a news conference. The Chinese government allows the debate to be broadcast nationally on Chinese television. The American president forcefully condemns the killing in 1989 of demonstrators and the repression of human rights in Tibet, which China has held since 1950.|
28|More than 100 people die when flimsily constructed apartment buildings in Adana, Ceyhan, and other towns in southern Turkey collapse during an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3.|
29|Serbian police and army troops numbering in the thousands attack separatist rebels in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where as many as 90 percent of the people are ethnic Albanians. North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials have threatened to carry out air strikes against the Belgrade government if Serbian forces do not withdraw from Kosovo, where the fighting has left hundreds dead and at least 80,000 people homeless.|
30|The remains of the Vietnam War veteran interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C., are officially identified as Lieutenant Michael J. Blassie, an Air Force pilot whose plane crashed in South Vietnam on May 11, 1972. DNA tests, not yet invented in 1984 when the body was interred at Arlington, made the identification possible. Blassie's family, who requested the disinterment and testing after the defense department concluded that the remains were likely those of Blassie, said that they would remove the body to a suburban St. Louis cemetery near Blassie's childhood home.|
