Word: madrid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...published in French as a third volume, Castro's Prisoner (1979). These works established his literary reputation internationally. Last October, thanks to the efforts of French President Fran&3231;ois Mitterrand and the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal, among others, Castro agreed to release Valladares. He now lives in Madrid, where he spends his time writing. He also runs Internationale de la Resistance, a Paris-based human rights organization that he helped found earlier this year. The group's purpose, he says, is to support the overthrow of all dictators. Following is Valladares' first extensive English-language account...
...prolonged Madrid meeting, which was initially slated to last no more than two or three months, fell victim to the deterioration of détente. The original Helsinki agreement was hailed as a diplomatic landmark. In essence, it traded de facto Western recognition of post-World War II boundaries in Europe for a host of cooperative understandings, and for Moscow's broad endorsement of a number of human rights concerns. Yet many Western diplomats now describe the Helsinki agreement as "a mess." Despite the restrictions contained in the accords, notably clauses respecting national sovereignty and rejecting interference...
...slow pace of the Madrid talks has provided a fairly accurate reflection of the frosty state of relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over the past three years. The conference began in a chill, eleven months after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As the deadline for beginning the meeting approached, the participants could not even agree on an agenda for their gathering. They arbitrarily stopped the conference clock at five minutes before midnight in order to continue thrashing out their differences...
Since then the Madrid meeting has followed a decidedly rambling course. When the delegates found points of agreement, they held plenary sessions several times a week; when they did not, they met only to adjourn. Deliberations were limited by the fact that the conference operated by consensus. The objections of any one country were often enough to stall negotiations. Last year the Madrid conference held no sessions between February and November because of Western concern over the imposition of martial law in Poland. As a senior U.S. diplomat put it, "It's the only kind of international court...
...viewed as part of the fun. Airports, particularly in Spain, Italy and Greece, tend to be chaotic. In Athens or Rome, it can take half a day to cash a traveler's check at a bank. Pickpockets have proliferated in most major cities, particularly in Seville, Madrid and Paris, where organized bands of small boys prey on the unwary in places like the Louvre; there local police have even enlisted American tourists to act as decoys. And travelers protest as bitterly as ever about the all too many Parisian waiters who cling to their historic tradition of rudeness, slovenliness...