Word: direness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Beyond their fears that the presence of U.S. troops could actually incite Sandinista attacks, both countries fear that a military buildup could drain money from civilian economies that are already in dire straits. Honduras has virtually ceased payment on its $2 billion debt to foreign Danks and international organizations, a move almost unnoticed during the Argentine debt crisis. Capital flight in the past two years alone has been estimated at $1 billion. Although Costa Rica is substantially better off (it receives more U.S. aid per capita than any other country except Israel), it can barely meet the interest payments...
Concerned about the increasingly dire financial straits of the Federal Medicare program, a private foundation has donated $45,000 to a group of Harvard faculty to study how to save Medicare, expected to go bankrupt...
...incredible. After his election, John Paul I reconfirmed all Vatican officials for five years, including Villot and Marcinkus. Sindona, who is serving a 25-year jail term in a New York prison for fraud, and Calvi, who was found hanging from a London bridge in 1982, had dire financial problems, but none that a papal murder would alleviate. News about Gelli's P-2 lodge did help topple the Italian government of Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani in 1981, but only because so many government officials belonged to the illegal organization; no Vatican prelate was ever proved...
April 11--Pusey issues a statement justifying the police action as "the only possible alternative" and attacking the University Hall occupies for their "dire assault upon the authority of the University and upon rational processes and accepted procedures...
...picture is gleaming. But the city, usually deep in snow long before now, is mired in mud. Central Yugoslavia has melted practically into spring. On the Mount Igman plateau, where the cross-country skiers will stride and slide through the forest, their trail is streaked with patches of dire brown. A small battalion of soldiers is scattered in the woods prospecting for snow by the clump, hauling it out in what appear to be orange parachutes, dumping it down orange funnels, stomping it into the bad spots. They are sweating, if no one else is. "I can assure you, there...