Word: chernobyls
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...horror story after another of skies blackened by smokestacks, rivers ruined by toxic wastes and fields flooded by ill- conceived dams. "Farmers rebelled against these outrages," he said, "but because of the command system, their revolt was not heard." Then came the explosion of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, which "was the final argument. All of us then understood the kind of monster we had created...
Though the Security Council could authorize military means to disarm or punish Pyongyang, any attempt to use force would be extremely tricky. Bombing a functioning nuclear facility could produce an instant Chernobyl and, probably, retaliation. "We might try to take out their nuclear capability with a scalpel," says a Western analyst in Seoul, "but they would respond with a chain...
Piers Paul Read brings alive the Chernobyl saga...
...like it, should have been predictable. Indeed, the Soviet nuclear industry had already had a long history of accidents. Because those were considered state secrets, though, most people -- including many in the industry -- had never heard of them. Read uncovers the startling fact that some critical aspects of the Chernobyl reactor's behavior that were known to its designers were never passed along to the operators. Perversely, the operators and their bosses were tried and jailed for the accident, while political higher-ups mostly avoided punishment...
Ultimately, the Soviet system paid for its sins. Only a few months before % the disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev had unveiled his new policy of glasnost, or openness. His idea was simply to expose the corruption of old-line communists and revitalize the party; the fear and anger triggered by Chernobyl, though, wedged that small crack of openness into a rift that eventually destroyed Gorbachev's power and the country itself...