Word: rumania
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...pencil and measuring tape, shoppers then stroll through seductively decorated settings of furniture from 1,500 worldwide suppliers. Office chairs? IKEA has 14 designs. Lamps? There are versions that stand and hang and squat, each labeled in English, Danish, German, French and Swedish. The displays include kitchen tables from Rumania, nightstands from Italy, bookshelves from West Germany, desks from Yugoslavia and mattresses (no assembly needed) from Canada...
...tension continued throughout Gorbachev's three-day trip to Rumania, the first official visit by a Soviet leader since 1976. It was also the last of a series of outings to the six East bloc countries, whose aging leaders generally regard Gorbachev's reforms with suspicion, seeing in them a subtle reproach to their policies and a threat to their power. Gorbachev had saved the toughest challenge for last. Ceausescu's Rumania is the most rigorously centralized and thoroughly policed of the Soviet satellites. The aging and bafflingly eccentric Ceausescu, 69, has spurned Gorbachev's campaign of glasnost (openness...
...warned. "Half-truth is worse than a lie." Gorbachev, 56, also spoke glowingly of Soviet attempts to bring "democracy closer to man," words that must have chilled the autocratic Ceausescu and his imperious wife Elena, 68, both of whose birthdays are national holidays. Beyond some pointed jabs at Rumania's dismal economic performance, Gorbachev avoided specific charges against the Ceausescu regime. The implicit warning, however, was clear: a recalcitrant Rumania would not be permitted to drag down the pace of Moscow's modernization drive...
Ceausescu, for his part, indicated that he would not be cowed by Moscow's new boy. The regime ordered eight Western journalists turned back at the airport. Because the international press is usually granted access to Rumania, some diplomatic observers interpreted the abrupt about-face as both a retaliation for past critical reporting and a calculated swipe at Gorbachev's beloved glasnost campaign. "This is not openness," said U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmerman. "This is closedness...
...Socialism Rules" on my gas tank and borrowed the diplomatic plates I found on a sedan at the East German border. Now all I had to worry about was not getting pulled over, since my driver's licence had been revoked for trying to run down the premier of Rumania...