Word: 1990s
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Fittingly, the initial discovery of the potentially neurotoxic effect of anesthesia occurred by accident. In the 1990s, scientists discovered that the brain cells of patients in the midst of a stroke were flooded with calcium. Doctors wishing to treat these patients hypothesized that blocking the receptor that enables calcium to enter cells could protect stroke patients from severe brain damage. But in the course of researching this possibility, they found that switching off the receptor in a healthy brain cell led to the death of that cell - an unexpected and troubling result, given that many common anesthetics block the same...
Even FARC higher-ups are throwing in the towel. Perhaps the most high-profile deserter was Elda Mosquera, a one-eyed female comandante better known as Karina, who led a series of devastating guerrilla attacks in the late 1990s. Hemmed in by soldiers last year, Karina cut a deal for herself and her rebel boyfriend. Now she appears on armed forces radio to urge her former comrades-in-arms to give up. "For us, it's much better for these terrorists to turn in their weapons than to die on the battlefield," says General Miguel Pérez, commander...
...called for the resignation of the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, who, in their view, epitomizes all that is wrong with Russia's electoral system. A bearded apparatchik with Coke-bottle glasses, Churov served under Putin in the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the early 1990s. After Putin became President, he paved the way for Churov to lead the election commission, and Churov has since repaid the favor by deflecting the fraud allegations that mar every election in Russia...
...discredited if too many old corruption cases are dredged up now. Earlier this week, several public figures - including former Interior Minister and Chirac confidant Charles Pasqua and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand - were convicted of illegally supplying arms to Angolan rebels in the 1990s. In responding to his guilty verdict and one-year prison sentence, Pasqua said that many former and current members of government knew about the arms sales, as well as several other illegal schemes. The comments suggested that Pasqua expected political help in the case - or he was prepared to take...
...collective shrugging in France at the charges? Part of the reason may be that other illegal political funding schemes were commonplace in France from the 1970s to the early 1990s when a series of laws were passed to crack down on the practice. The French also tend to be more scornful of public officials who use corruption to enrich themselves personally, which Chirac isn't accused of doing in this case...