Word: tinderboxes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Israeli soldiers," cries of outrage erupted in the audience. When he claimed further that the Jewish concern for women and children is something that "is not known in, maybe, your circles," the comment was hotly denounced by the Palestinians as an "outright racist statement." In the midst of this tinderbox, Koppel handled himself with poise / and scrupulous fairness, trying his best (not always successfully) to cut short rambling speeches and keeping emotions under control by the sheer force of his calming intellect...
...recalls Lord of the Flies. Her schoolboys and -girls are not washed up on some island but housed in upper-middle-class comfort. Yet mentally they inhabit an unseen world where they play an elaborate game of spy and counterspy, conducted with high solemnity and utter ruthlessness. This emotional tinderbox is ignited when the espionage is discovered by an unstable outsider who believes he has found evidence of treason. Rendell's trademark is to invert the classic adventure story: rather than transmute ordinary men into heroes, exceptional events crush them into madness...
...hunt down the bad guy, gets hassled by the local police and, O.C., falls in love with the moll while they dodge crackers and crocodiles in bayou country. Bullets perforate every bit player in the Vieux Carre, O.C., but keep missing the star. Floorboards creak at propitious moments; tinderbox hotels refuse to go up in flames; heroine watches helplessly as hero and villain fight to the death...
...tinderbox atmosphere drew increasing international attention. At his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II asked for prayers "for the true temporal and spiritual well-being of the Chilean people." He also appealed to the demonstrators "not to take the road of violence but of dialogue...
...that began modestly enough as an effort to cut off the arms flowing through Nicaragua to leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, but that now appears to have grown into an attempt to topple the Sandinista government. As a result, the border between Honduras and Nicaragua has suddenly become a tinderbox where a few skirmishes could easily erupt into a full-scale shooting war. Even if war does not break out, critics contend, not only have the U.S. activities strengthened the resolve of the Sandinistas in Managua but the operations now threaten to destabilize Honduras itself...