Word: afar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Comets are more mysterious. Unlike asteroids, which reveal themselves in the form of meteorites that can be pried from the ground and analyzed in laboratories, comets have left no known remnants on earth; they have been studied only from afar--through telescopes. (Scientists hope to unlock more cometary secrets when Soviet, Japanese and the European Space Agency probes fly past Halley's comet in March...
...Gorbachev. While KGB disinformers spread tantalizing tales about Andropov's taste for Scotch, Benny Goodman and Western pulp fiction, the former chief of the Soviet intelligence services remained the shadowy figure he had always been. Andropov, throughout his life, never traveled to the West and was seen only from afar at Kremlin ceremonies. Gorbachev, in contrast, is responsible for creating his own image abroad. He has what one Washington Kremlinologist calls "a real sense of public relations...
Beneath these poster mirages provided by the makers of cigarettes and brandy the commuters slumber, read and reshuffle. Does a real-life Falling in Love ever happen? A pinochle player looks up with genuine tears in his eyes and says, "From afar." In the middle of the car a querulous drunk complains that his seat faces backward. His companion argues, "But you're facing west, and west is the city." The man with the clock says, "About this point, the lights usually go out." They...
...round hut, made of roughhewn wood posts and a conical thatched roof, is known as zawya. In the Afar language, that means the house of the dead. Although it is not long after dawn, 26 bodies have already been wrapped in filthy burlap shrouds on the earthen floor. The air is sickly sweet with the smell of decay. Inside, in accordance with Muslim custom, Hussein Yussuf is tenderly washing the shriveled body of a three-year-old boy. "This is the first water this child has had for a long, long time," says the 60-year...
...professors? "I see them from afar," he says...