Word: thaws
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...illicit trade was spurred by a political event in 1987: the lifting of martial law in Taiwan. The result was a thaw in relations between wealthy Taiwan and struggling China. While the two countries remain officially estranged, more than 1 million Taiwanese have visited China, while 50,000 Chinese have sneaked into Taiwan for jobs. Such exchanges create opportunities for black marketeers, who have taken advantage of the new "mainland fever" sweeping the acquisitive Taiwanese. Black-market deals, particularly for pelts, can be conducted only through a series of middlemen. Each person provides an introduction to the next link...
...depressed real estate market. But a consensus holds that peace and national pride will at least erase the preoccupation with war and TV bulletins that has turned the slush of a winter's recession into a frozen economic tundra. Among the areas showing signs of a peace-prompted thaw...
Meanwhile, Mt. Graham and its population of red squirels waits. Some of the land has already been cleared, and Arizona is ready to finish the job when the spring thaw comes...
Last week the renewed religious freedom that Alexi had so publicly celebrated finally became official. Culminating a two-year thaw, the Soviet parliament passed a new Law on Freedom of Conscience by a vote of 341 to 2. The statute bestowed great opportunities on believers, estimated to number as many as 131 million, who have maintained their faith despite the oppression of Lenin and his successors. But with freedom come some grievous problems, principally shortages of money, trained clergy and just about everything else needed for religious restoration. At the same time, ugly sectarian conflicts, also long repressed, are boiling...
There is also a thaw for Soviet Jews, who have long suffered a double burden of religious suppression and persecution as suspected "agents of Zionism." They are now able to take Hebrew lessons. The state has given back a number of synagogues, but few Soviet Jews remain regular worshipers. Numbers will dwindle further because of emigration, which reached an all-time high last month. Moscow's Chief Rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, says Jews no longer leave because of religious restrictions but because of economic decline and fear of anti-Semitism...