Word: westerners
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Western eyes, the lot of a Soviet woman may seem outrageously unfair. Yet Soviet women find Western attitudes toward marriage and family alien, if not laughable. "Your ideas of independence are a luxury," says Tanya, the English teacher. A small minority speak longingly of organized action to press for women's rights but are afraid that officials would crack down on any such effort. Most, however, are too overwhelmed by the hardships of day-to-day living to squander energy on political and personal issues that for more than two decades have enlivened Western debate about the woman's role...
Days after Janos Kadar's replacement as Communist Party leader by Prime Minister Karoly Grosz, the mood in Budapest was still euphoric. "We won," exulted one party member last week. "It went beyond our expectations," said a high-ranking government figure. Agreed a Western diplomat: "The change is unprecedented in the Soviet bloc...
...East bloc's chief reformer, Kadar had run Hungary since Moscow installed him in power in 1956. Now he has the largely ceremonial post of party president. Few Hungarians seemed to care; all eyes were on his successor. "This is a talented and politically skilled crowd," said a senior Western diplomat in Budapest of the country's new power elite. "What they might do now is wide open...
...extending Syria's security role beyond the western part of Beirut, Assad reinforced his position as Lebanon's leading power broker. At the same time, he managed to preserve a relatively cordial relationship with Iran, which had given its blessing to Hizballah's negotiators. Iran's cooperation may have been motivated in part by the battlefield losses it has suffered recently in the eight-year-old gulf war with Iraq. Last week Iraqi troops recaptured Iranian-occupied territory east of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, beyond the battered southern port city of Basra...
Some diplomats suggested that the Syrians' expanded security role in Beirut could improve prospects for the release of foreign hostages, including nine Americans, believed held by pro-Iranian militants in the Shi'ite neighborhoods. In his desire to regain respectability following Western charges of Syrian involvement in international terrorism, Assad would like to reap credit for seeing the hostages freed. A Western diplomat in Damascus described the security plan for the suburbs as "a move in the right direction...