Word: various
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Guevara, a political moderate who once served as Bolivia's Ambassador to the United Nations, seemed doomed from the moment he was sworn in three months ago. Various plotters began planning at least three separate coups after Bolivia's Congress chose Guevara to serve as interim President until an election next May. Natusch, 46, the commander of the military training school, struck first. Backed by junior officers, he dispatched a force to surround the palace, dissolved Congress and declared himself President...
...Charter 77, a human rights manifesto signed by 1,000 people. Last month six Charter 77 organizers, among them Playwright Vaclav Havel, received sentences of up to five years for "subversion of the republic." Since then more than 25 Charter 77 signers have been hauled in for questioning on various trumped-up charges, including attempts to blow up a Prague bridge and to assassinate Husak...
...downfall of the Third Reich, however, did not halt the devaluation of gypsy lives. Though West Germany paid nearly $715 million in reparations to Israel and various Jewish organizations, gypsies as a group received nothing. In 1952, when the new West German government offered to pay survivors five deutsche marks (worth roughly $1.20) for each day they had spent in the camps, many illiterate gypsies simply signed away their claims for compensation in exchange for trifling sums. Gypsy activists have uncovered a case of a woman who received $10 for the death of her baby in Auschwitz...
...Curia, the Pope asked the Cardinals for proposals to improve its efficiency and harmony vis-á-vis the church in various nations. Despite rumors to the contrary, John Paul plans no big shake-up in structure like that by Paul VI in 1967, and he has kept incumbent officials in place. The secrecy of last week's meeting made it unclear what reforms the Cardinals proposed. Even so, the assembly was the clearest indication yet that the Pope from Poland intends to change the way the Vatican does business...
...week's "plenary meeting" in fact restored an ancient practice. Under Pope Leo IV (847-855), Cardinals began frequent administrative sessions that grew more important in church government. Then, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V, to increase his personal power and cope with a growing work load, established the various departments of the Vatican Curia. Meetings of all the Cardinals soon died out-except for papal elections and ceremonial occasions, known as "consistories," to install Cardinals and name new saints...