Word: pasts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...unavoidable geopolitical fact of life for Western Europe over the past quarter-century has been the threat from the East. The Soviet Union and its satellite states have assembled one of the most powerful military juggernauts in world history, and never before has the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact loomed so menacingly as it does today. While the Soviets have been eroding the West's lead in weapons technology, in recent years the pact has enormously increased its offensive firepower by deploying the lethal SS-20 mobile missile and the Backfire bomber-intermediate-range nuclear weapons systems capable of devastating...
...needs was apparent as we drove along the road from the airport into Phnom-Penh. The broad two-lane highway was clogged with trains of bullock-drawn carts, people weaving to and fro on bicycles, and trucks, some of them inherited from the long departed U.S. During the past month, a tide of refugees from the famished countryside has swelled the permanent population of the city from about 10,000 to 30,000; approximately 70,000 others are encamped just outside...
...broad daylight." In Peking, there have been reports of small bands of young men who lie in wait in dark alleys to rob passersby. In Hangzhou (Hangchow) last month, two brothers were sentenced to death-and one of them immediately executed-for having raped 106 women over the past five years. In the southern district of Shaoguan (Shao-kuan), nine teen-agers were seized after assaulting a woman at an evening film show; their leader was sentenced to life imprisonment at a public rally of some 5,000 people. The problem, claimed the local Southern Daily, was that the nine...
...accordance with China's usually stern practice, sentences have been tough. At least five people have been executed in the past month for crimes ranging from embezzlement to murder. Even in cases involving juvenile offenders, the courts show little leniency. Rejecting arguments that teen-age criminals should be forgiven for their mistakes, the Tianjin Daily sternly warned: "All criminals must be punished according to the laws...
Tikhonov's place as one of nine non-voting alternate members of the Politburo was taken by a relatively young unknown, Mikhail Gorbachev, 48, who for the past year has been the Central Committee's secretary in charge of agriculture. Gorbachev, apparently, was not blamed for a disastrous 1979 grain harvest. Largely because of bad weather, Brezhnev announced, this year's crop amounted to only 179 million tons-47 million tons short of the target, and the worst harvest since 1975. The U.S.S.R. has already contracted to buy 25 million tons of American wheat and corn...