Word: optional
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When, at the Washington summit in December, Gorbachev signed the treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles, he received more credit for accepting the zero option than Reagan got for having proposed it in 1981. Gorbachev achieved, as part of the deal, the long-standing Soviet aim of forcing the removal of all U.S. missiles from Europe. Congressional concerns about some details of that treaty led the Senate last week to postpone ratification, but in Geneva last Thursday, Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze seemed to have cleared up the remaining points of ambiguity. There is still deep suspicion...
Mitterrand's 54%-to-46% win over Chirac was not just decisive, but daunting. It left him holding most of the cards -- including the ace-in-the-hole option of calling a snap parliamentary election. Polls show that the Socialists stand to win 37% in the new parliamentary vote. Under the current majority voting system, that translates to more than half of the 577 seats in the National Assembly. Accordingly, many old-line Socialists urged Mitterrand to capitalize on his momentum by holding a new vote that could overturn Chirac's 1986 parliamentary majority...
...fraternities and sororities are completely voluntary, very much like Harvard final clubs. Thus, it is quite difficult to see where any activity they engage in can be the cause of extreme mental stress--anyone has the option to terminate their relations with the fraternity or sorority at any time...
...just as Sassy and the new Ms. were hitting the newsstands, Warwick Fairfax, the company's 27-year-old chief, decided to sell his fledgling American subdivision. At that point, Yates exercised an option to buy the two magazines. Yates and Summers are reluctant to disclose details of the purchase, but they insist that their backers, which include the State Bank of New South Wales and a major U.S. bank, have provided their new company, Matilda Publishing, with enough cash to get through the start-up period...
...check. With the unemployment rate for black teenagers at 37%, little work is available to unskilled, poorly educated youths. The handful of jobs that are open -- flipping burgers, packing groceries -- pay only minimum wages or "chump change," in the street vernacular. So these youngsters turn to the most lucrative option they can find. In rapidly growing numbers, they are becoming the new criminal recruits of the inner city, the children who deal crack...