CONTRIBUTORS

WILLIAM SHAWCROSS, who wrote this week's cover story, first encountered George Soros in Sarajevo four years ago, as the philanthropic billionaire was being shepherded out of the line of sniper fire. Soros was on a mission to give $50 million to rebuild war-torn Bosnia, and Shawcross was researching U.N. peacekeeping for an upcoming book. Shawcross was immediately intrigued by the international money manager. "A very cool character, but quite passionate about Sarajevo," he recalls. "He called it the world's largest concentration camp."

MARGUERITE MICHAELS, our peripatetic New York bureau chief, first met Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in 1989 when she was based in Nairobi, and knew even then that "he would one day be important beyond the borders of his country." Michaels has been to Kampala many times. On two return trips this year, her conviction hadn't changed, but the country had. The potholes were fewer, Kampala's skyline and night life were impressive, and the general air of shell shock was gone. "Here," she says, "is hope that is not short term."

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, author of this week's story on the hottest new music-video directors, was struck by a coincidence while interviewing such artists as Sean ("Puffy") Combs, Missy Elliott and Erykah Badu. "They were all using the same directors," he says. "So I thought, Let's take a look at them." Farley, whose acclaimed novel, My Favorite War, is due out in paperback from Ecco, will soon be starring in a production of his own: his marriage to former TIME correspondent Sharon Epperson, now an on-air reporter for CNBC.

TAMMERLIN DRUMMOND, our Miami bureau chief, found covering the eruption on Montserrat a daunting and unpredictable assignment. A gas mask and protective eye gear at the ready, Drummond was in the middle of an interview when a warning siren went off, forcing her and her subject to jump into his car and head north to a so-called safe zone. Along the way, she watched as thick smoke spewed out of the dome of Soufriere Hills. Says Drummond: "I was amazed at the bravery and resiliency of the Montserrat residents."

ANDREW MEIER, who reported on the latest efforts to repair the Mir space station, seems to have a nose for otherworldly troubles. He joined our Moscow bureau last November--just in time to cover the crash of Russia's unmanned Mars probe. Meier's prescient reporting, including a prediction last spring that Mir was star-crossed, has won him few friends in the Russian space community. Annoyed by Meier's detailed accounts of the debacles, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov once growled at him, "The West must understand that this isn't a soap opera!"