Word: centralization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Bulgaria at least 50,000 people marched peacefully through central Sofia, chanting "Democracy!" and "Free elections!" and demanding that Todor Zhivkov, the autocratic hard-liner who had been ousted only a week earlier after 35 years in power, be put on trial. Although the unthinkable has become a daily happening in Eastern Europe, there was still something astonishing in the sight of street demonstrations in this quiescent land. The marches even had the blessing of the week-old reformist government of Petar Mladenov, 53, which has been moving rapidly to harness the country's desire for change. For the first...
...overwhelm even the canniest of political manipulators. Officially sanctioned anti-Zhivkov demonstrations last week were soon overwhelmed by popularly organized protests. For the moment their prime target is the hated Zhivkov, who is widely accused of arrogance, corruption and a czarlike accumulation of personal wealth. Said Slavcho Trenski, a Central Committee member: "Bulgaria became a hunting reserve for the President." Communist leaders may buy time and cheer hearts with a modicum of reform, but it is all too possible that they also could be surprised by the chain reaction that arises from the very exhilaration of new freedoms...
...initiatives and opening of the Wall, Krenz is so widely distrusted that he stands in danger of losing his top role. Restive members demanded that an emergency party conference scheduled for mid-December be elevated into a full-scale congress that will have the power to dump the entire Central Committee...
...July 2, 1937, an aviator took off from Papua New Guinea for Howland Island in the central Pacific. She was on a round-the-world trip when she and her twin-engine Lockheed Electra lost radio contact and vanished into legend. Since that time women have become commercial pilots, paratroopers and even astronauts. Yet the name of Amelia Earhart retains the power to intrigue. Did she assume a new identity? Was she on a secret reconnaissance mission? Did she get captured by the Japanese? Mary S. Lovell shrugs off these theories; her emphasis is on Earhart's life and accomplishments...
...Archbishop was speaking of the murder of the six Jesuits, who taught at the University of Central America, one of the country's most respected ! institutions and a center for leftist theological activism. In the worst attack on Salvadoran Catholic activists since the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in 1980, they were mowed down by M-16 rifle fire at their campus residence Thursday morning; a cook at the university and her 15-year- old daughter were also cut down. The government promptly ordered an investigation, hinting that the rebels were responsible. But the brutal massacre was widely believed...