Word: opened
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Instead, what transpired was this: as army convoys moved toward Tiananmen in the early-morning hours of June 4, troops were viciously attacked by rioters brandishing fire bombs and guns financed by "overseas reactionary political forces." The reluctant soldiers exercised maximum self-restraint, but were finally compelled to open fire. Even then, General Li Zhiyun insisted last week at a press conference, "it never happened that soldiers fired directly at the people." In the end, nearly 100 soldiers and policemen were killed putting down the "counterrevolutionaries." Civilian casualties totaled no more than 100 dead, perhaps a thousand wounded. That...
...still groping for a way out of the political morass. The desire to grind out all traces of the democracy movement takes precedence. A court in Shanghai accused three people of burning a train that ran over a human barricade, and quickly sentenced them to death. The harsh actions open the door to a wave of execution orders. Such a move would be tragic for China's psychic well-being and potentially fatal for its economic health, and it was unthinkable just a few weeks ago. But if China's leaders can get away with rewriting so recent a past...
...news conference shortly before he left, Gorbachev responded somewhat evasively to a question about the Berlin Wall, calling it "no great problem." He repeated the standard East German position that the Wall could be torn down when the conditions that created it have disappeared. But even if Gorbachev were open to discussion on that matter, he would face certain resistance from East Germany, which opposes most of his liberal reforms. One measure of Gorbachev's standing in East Berlin: press coverage of his trip was consistently minimal...
SPORT: Youth is served at the French Open...
...French Open was a triumph. To do it at 17 was a wonder. But Michael Chang seemed to grasp more than just the moment when he beat Ivan Lendl and Stefan Edberg in Paris to join the company of world-champion tennis players. Chang was wise enough to understand, "These two weeks are going to stay with me the rest of my life," but excited enough to imagine, "Maybe someday I'll be able to achieve something greater." More than a few days later, the sport is still tingling with his possibilities...