Word: podium
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Apparently determined to put the idea to a test, a communist hard-liner named Sazhi Umalatova stepped to the podium almost as soon as the Congress of People's Deputies opened last week. Charging that Gorbachev had lost the "moral right to lead the country," she moved a vote of no confidence in him. It failed, 1,288 to 426, but the spectacle was deeply unsettling to Eduard Shevardnadze, who asked in his resignation speech, "Is this normal...
...after hearing successive speakers, including Yeltsin, agitate for resolute action, Gorbachev returned to the podium Saturday morning. In a brusque 15-minute speech, he proposed "an urgent, fundamental reorganization of executive power in the center by subordinating it to the President." Gorbachev called for vesting the Federation Council, an advisory body made up of republican heads of state, with broad powers to coordinate relations between the Kremlin and the republics. Citing a nationwide disintegration of law-and-order, he suggested creating both a Presidential Security Council to oversee law enforcement and an executive task force to combat organized crime...
Gorbachev left legislators to speculate whether Yeltsin's influence in the new executive branch would be limited to his seat on the enhanced Federation Council or would include some greater form of power sharing. On Friday Yeltsin displayed little tolerance for waiting games. He followed Gorbachev to the podium and warned that the President "must stop making mistakes and clinging to the old system . . . the economic and political crisis in the country has come to a head, the people's patience is coming to an end, and an explosion could occur at any time...
...resistant to second-guessing that such consultations are likely to take place only in secret. Meanwhile, Sununu is trying to soften his public image. As Bush barnstormed the country in search of Republican votes, Sununu haunted the so-called buffer zone, the narrow secure area between the podium and the audience, scanning the crowd for a small child. Finding one, he would take the tot by the hand and lead his little hostage off to meet the President, who on at least one occasion tripped over the toddler...
Quoting a critic's reaction to gender-blind casting in an 1895 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Rigg leaned over the podium and bellowed, "The only reason the director made that choice is because it is wrong. There is no other reason...