Word: torpor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Burkina Faso's Sankara has also inherited a country in economic torpor, and one that because of a chronic drought has actually become poorer since he took over in a coup in August 1983. Sankara has cut civil servants' wages and raised taxes. One problem is that his regime's inflammatory rhetoric keeps bubbling to the surface, making some countries hesitant to offer economic aid. Last month, for example, a government-run newspaper compared President Reagan to Hitler, prompting the U.S. to cut back its commitment to two development projects in forestry and agriculture. France, which in 1984 contributed...
Other U.S. officials pointed out that President Reagan, in the heat of his own reelection battle, would not welcome any new Middle East peace initiatives before November. Until then, said a State Department aide, "torpor is best...
...time to study the turkey vulture, especially in the tiny hamlet of Hinckley, Ohio, to which, like the swallows that regularly come back to Capistrano, the scavenging birds return every year. February, however, is not the ideal time to look for groundhogs. The woodchuck does awaken from his winter torpor earlier than most other ground animals but rarely as early as Feb. 2-unless roused from its den by meteorologists...
...Located in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, it is a sleepy little community whose most notable claim to fame is its unusual name, a garbled version of its early designation as a railroad's "Coaling Station A." Last week Coalinga (pronounced Clinga) was jolted out of its torpor, adding a puzzling footnote to California's seismic history...
Andropov has persistently worked to shake up the torpor that afflicts Soviet institutions. While what Soviet citizens are calling Operation Trawl tracks down truant workers who show up late at the factory, Andropov is seeking to free his creaking bureaucracy of its habitual corruption. Since assuming office, he has reshuffled some 20 top officials and summarily dismissed six others. He pointedly chose Crime Buster Geidar Aliyev, 59, former party boss and KGB chief in Azerbaijan, as Deputy Premier. He also fired Leonid Brezhnev's crony and Interior Minister, Nikolai Shchelokov, and replaced him as head of the bribe-prone...