Word: settings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...confrontation between the people of the People's Republic of China and the government created a surreal deadlock -- chaotic yet tranquil, jubilant but darkly ominous. Using lampposts and bicycle racks, bands set up barricades on the avenues leading into the heart of the city. Word spread of a military plot to deploy forces via the Beijing subway system, but the plan went awry when transit workers decided to back the striking students and shut down the power supply. "The people will win!" many exclaimed. Still, the presentiment of danger always lurked, and several dozen people reportedly were injured in clashes...
What most hurts the average Chinese is an inflation rate of around 30%. Expectations developed over years of growing personal income have suddenly been sharply set back. Prosperity, instead of being around the corner, looks out of reach. Such economic dips happen frequently in history and rarely cause revolutions. But almost all revolutions follow economic downturns. France in 1778 entered a lengthy depression; the tremendous damage done to the Russian economy by World War I helped precipitate that country's revolution...
...kind of risky triage, releasing less dangerous inmates to make room for muggers, rapists and other violent criminals. Sometimes their judgment goes awry. Ronnie Fisher was sprung from Fulton County Jail last month while awaiting trial on car-theft and drug charges. Barely an hour after he was set free, police caught him apparently trying to rob a man on an Atlanta street. Georgia still plans to release 3,000 inmates by July...
...sight was enough to give a Soviet advanceman heartburn. There, in the Great Hall of the People, was a long table set up with microphones and teacups. The rows of chairs were filled with hundreds of journalists, all of whom had to dodge banner-waving marchers, speeding ambulances and mazes of bicycles in Tiananmen Square to make what was supposed to be a 5:45 p.m. press conference by Mikhail Gorbachev. Then, just at showtime, came the news: the session was being moved five miles away to the state guesthouse where Gorbachev was staying in the Diaoyutai compound...
...West German marks. That pierced the 1.90-mark ceiling that the U.S. and its trading partners reportedly agreed to in a 1987 accord. In Tokyo the dollar's high reached 139.88 yen, its loftiest level in 16 months and just below the 140-yen ceiling that the allies set. The U.S. and its partners are determined to do what they can to slam on the brakes -- but whether their efforts would slow down the runaway dollar remained an open question...