Word: romania
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...SOUTHERN TIER. The government of Romania looks to many critics like a continuation of communism without Nicolae Ceausescu, the dictator executed in 1989. Not much has changed for the better in this benighted land. The government has passed some privatization laws, but quasi-communists within the ruling National Salvation Front have blocked any deeper reform. The moves so far have served mainly to spur inflation and unemployment without easing the severe shortages of all consumer goods, including food. Bulgaria at least has enough to eat, thanks largely to the fertility of its soil and the skill of its farmers...
...Romania several extreme nationalist parties blame ethnic minorities ( -- Hungarians, Jews and gypsies -- for the country's severe economic troubles. Though these parties do not yet exercise any real power, President Ion Iliescu has felt obliged to court their support...
Upset about skyrocketing marijuana prices in the U.S., which range to $800 per oz.? Then book a flight to Czechoslovakia. A garden-supply chain in Prague is selling 1-lb. packages of pot imported from neighboring Romania for the equivalent of just 85 cents. According to the manager of the state-owned company, the weed is an effective "fertilizer." Thanks to the country's confused postcommunist legal system, it is not against the law just to purchase the "fertilizer." When the product's availability was disclosed in the Czechoslovak weekly Mlady Svet, dozens of Prague teenagers developed a sudden interest...
Those defeats were followed by two other stunning losses. On June 7 German forces supplemented by troops from Romania began a monthlong final offensive against the great Crimean port of Sevastopol, pounding it with Luftwaffe raids before sending infantry units to wage bloody street battles. By the beginning of July, the city collapsed. The fall of Rostov-on-Don, the so-called gateway to the Caucasus, was even more ominous. The siege was embarrassingly brief, and whole Soviet units reportedly fled in panic. Suddenly the way south to the oil fields of Baku was open. With German armies simultaneously dashing...
Well, the abduction was apparently a retaliation for the death of a Sikh extremist and the arrest of two others in the attempted assassination of Julio Ribeiro, 62, the Indian ambassador to Romania, in Bucharest two months ago. Ribeiro, who was shot while walking with his wife in a suburb of the Romanian capital, has long been a target because of his get-tough "bullet-for-bullet" policy toward Sikh separatists during his two-year tenure as police chief of Punjab. The kidnappers' current demands, however, strike much closer to home. They are seeking the release of three Sikhs...