Word: grips
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Arab capitals, aware of the implications of the new statistics, are warning of higher tension and instability in the Middle East. Some of them hint at Soviet-American collusion; most assume that Israeli hard-liners will count on immigrants to help tighten their grip on the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq called the arrivals "a catastrophe befalling the Arab world." The government-run Egyptian daily al-Ahram was equally impassioned. "This is a blatant invasion," one of the paper's columnists said, blaming "American and Soviet strategies" that...
Just before Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston fought for the heavyweight boxing crown in 1965, baritone Robert Goulet lost his preliminary bout with The Star- Spangled Banner. He made it flawlessly through the first several lines before losing his grip on the lyrics. He later blamed his Canadian upbringing for having to hum the remainder before thousands of fight fans and a closed- circuit television audience...
...streets of Pristina, Kosovo's capital, demanding the resignation of local leaders, free elections and the release of political prisoners. Kosovo's 1.7 million Albanians, who out-number Serbs and Montenegrins in the region almost 10 to 1, last flooded the streets eleven months ago, when Serbia tightened its grip on the nominally autonomous province. That decision triggered riots that left 28 dead...
...afternoon, the entire city closed down. Some Haitians wondered whether Avril was trying to pre-empt a revolution in the Palace Guard. Others were certain that Avril never intended to relinquish the presidency in the first place, and was consolidating his power for a long rule. But Avril's grip over his country is not as strong as that of Haiti's greatest dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier, and by week's end the President, showing signs of succumbing to diplomatic and internal pressure, renewed his promise to hold elections. Given the history of democracy in Haiti, such promises are hard...
Most Western diplomats and scholars have long believed that Gorbachev's grip on power was solid because of his political skills: he purged large numbers of his political opponents, as well as the deadwood, at the top of the party. After more than four years of such culling, it seemed to Sovietologists that Gorbachev could not be toppled by traditional Kremlin plotting of the type that ended Nikita Khrushchev's reign in 1964. That analysis leaves open the question of a coup by the security forces, the army and the KGB. There has never been an army coup in Russia...