Word: ago
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Unseasonably warm weather in Warsaw, 340 miles to the north, brought more political change into bloom. Two weeks ago, the Jaruzelski government and the Solidarity-led opposition agreed to hold elections for a second chamber of parliament, a revived senate that would include non-Communist candidates. Party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, who presided over the crackdown outlawing Solidarity in 1981, was uncharacteristically exuberant: "Significant progress is being made to construct parliamentary democracy in Poland." In a church basement across the city, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told his supporters that Poland was entering a decisive stage "we hope will lead to democracy...
...even in these nations, cowed populations are beginning to waken to the possibility of change. Just over a year ago, the worst riots in the history of the regime broke out in Brasov, Rumania. And beginning last August, Czechs have taken to the streets to protest the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion and the continuing Soviet military presence in their country...
...since Stalin slammed down the Iron Curtain four decades ago has Europe witnessed such ferment east of the Elbe as that unleashed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's campaign to reshape socialist politics and economics. In the past, when opposition escalated, the Kremlin dispatched tanks and troops to crush dissent. But since coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev himself has been the chief dissident, leading the assault on the status quo. Acknowledging that there is no "binding model" for socialism, he has encouraged pluri- Communism in Eastern Europe...
...Chinese-American culture is only beginning to throw off such literary sparks, and Amy Tan's bright, sharp-flavored first novel belongs on a short shelf dominated by Maxine Hong Kingston's remarkable works of a decade or so ago, The Woman Warrior and China Men. Tan's book is a wry group portrait of four elderly and feisty women who emigrated from China to the U.S., and their grown, very Americanized daughters. "A girl is like a young tree," says one of the stern mothers, who explains to her daughter that she lacks the necessary wood in her character...
...expulsions that left officials on both sides of the superpower divide grumbling, the Soviets and the Americans each ousted a military attache on charges of espionage. The first blow was struck by the U.S. two weeks ago, when it expelled Lieut. Colonel Yuri Pakhtusov from the Soviet embassy in Washington. State Department and FBI officials accused Pakhtusov of having received classified information about computer-security programs. Pakhtusov allegedly got the documents from an American employee of a U.S. company that does business with the Government...