The World in Music

[Huojin]

(Lovingly maintained by Gesar - this thread is compulsory listening.)

[Gesar]

[Gesar]

Early 1986

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*Late in the night of 25 April, Soviet engineers shut off the safety systems of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant during a test, with the procedures unintentionally sending the graphite modified reactor into a near-shutdown state. In an attempt to maintain power for the experiment, the night staff bypasses most of the reactor's safety features and overheats the reactor core. Within minutes, employees note two steam explosions and then an open-air graphite fire that wafts harmful radiation into the air ... Over the coming months, hundreds of people will suffer from acute radiation sickness in the worst nuclear accident in history and Ukraine's river systems and nearby forests suffer untold damage, with future environmental and health effects remaining anybody's guess.

*As controversy over the Westland Affair reaches an all-time high, Leon Brittan and Michael Heseltine resign from their positions in the Thatcher cabinet.

*Riots erupt in prisons across the United Kingdom, allowing dozens of prisoners to escape. In Stafford, prisoners set fire to their canteen, while Northeye Prison in Sussex sees the worst of the violence, with upwards of 70 prisoners take over the jail.

*The UK passes laws to reduce football violence and hooliganism, as well as to require vaccinations in schools.

*Crack cocaine, as the free base, smoke-able version of the popular drug is coming to be called, is now said to be available in nearly every major American city. With rates of cocaine-related hospitalization almost double that of last year, Legislators are said to be proposing a bill that will create a 100:1 disparity in the distribution and possession of crack as opposed to powder-based cocaine, a move sharply criticized by black leaders as inherently racist.

*The sun settles into the early morning sky. A hot summer's day on the North African coastline begins, the Mediterranean glistening in the morning rays. In the distance, the city of Tunis stirs and begins its day. The strike comes without warning. Out of that empty sky, the roaring of fighter jets streaking low over the ground eviscerates all illusions of calm. The munitions do their quick and bloody work, but all sights are lost in the thudding, roaring, screaming, shattering sound. It lasts an age. It lasts but a moment. The Israeli Air Force has emerged once more, stretching out its white and blue hand in retaliation for Palestinian terror attacks over the past 12 months. More than a hundred are injured, with nearly as many dead. And amongst them, crushed amongst the rubble - the man who once was Yasser Arafat.

[Gesar]

Late 1986

*The issue of family farming in the United States continues to gain public attention as Willie Nelson, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Neil Young organize the second Farm Aid benefit concert. With a grant from Farm Aid, representatives of several leading farmer organizations (but not the pro-Reagan American Farm Bureau Federation) shortly thereafter hold a congress in St. Louis, where they express anger at the increasing amount of foreclosures on family farms and the growing agriculture trade deficit.

*Scandal strikes the Reagan government as news sources in the Arab Gulf break the story that in violation of laws passed by the US Congress prohibiting funding of the Nicaraguan contras by the US, as well as going against its statements and commitments not to arm the Iraqi government following its use of chemical weapons, the US government has been supply arms and dual-use technology to Saudi Arabia for sale to the internationally-condemned government of Saddam Hussein, and using the funds recovered to fund contras in Nicaragua.

*The UK provides a significant shipment of relief aid to the Bahraini government for distribution to the population, as well as engaging in discussions with the royal family and government to urge reforms. However it is widely regarded as too little, too late.

*Ayatollah Hadi al-Modarresi, a Shi'a scholar and focal point of an attempted coup in Bahrain in 1981, is revealed to have returned to the country secretly. Calls for the dismantlement of the monarchy and the creation of a republic soon overtake the protests, with the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain utilising the momentum of the civil unrest to launch an assault against the state itself. The streets of Manama are quickly filled with gunfire, while the Bahraini government calls for help from GCC nations and accuses Iran of deploying troops to support the uprising. It quickly becomes irrelevant, when the government flees to neighbouring Qatar and al-Modarresi declares the end of the Kingdom of Bahrain and the establishment of an Islamic Republic.

*The South African Defense Force makes a push for the Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale. Defeated at first in July, they move on the MPLA again in August, this time with the promised support of UNITA. Unfortunately for the South Africans, the anti-communist forces end up being nearly two weeks behind schedule for the plan of attack, forcing South Africa to rely on artillery strikes for most of the battle. The city eventually falls, only to be retaken almost immediately; even with the Cuban-Angolan offensive ground to a halt, South Africa's faith in the forces under Savimbi is increasingly low.

[Gesar]

EARLY 1987

*The effects of the Trial of the Juntas continue to be felt in Argentina when a group of mutineers called “Carapintadas” seize an infantry school in Buenos Aires. Demanding an end to the trials and greater respect for the armed forces, President Alfonsín promises to end the conflict in front of a large crowd of supporters and negotiates the surrender of the rebellious soldiers.

*A unit of the Provisional Irish Republic Army drives a backhoe digger rigged with a bomb through a fence surrounding a Royal Ulster Constabulary station in Loughgall. As the bomb detonates, the SAS and RUC - apparently expecting the attack - open fire, killing eight while only five of their own suffer injuries. The IRA declares the eight martyrs, and thousands attend their funerals – the largest pro-republican funerals since the 1981 hunger strike.

*16 Americans and 2 Greeks, most of which are soldiers, are wounded when the 17 November Group detonates a car bomb.

*As union-wide reforms continue apace in the USSR, Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev, Chief of the Soviet General Staff, resigns his position. Speculation is rife that Gorbachev has forced him out, with Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, a reformer removed by Brezhnev from the same position, is reappointed as his replacement. Unrest appears rife throughout the military at the move, and Soviet-watchers in the West speculate that Gorbachev will have expended considerable political capital in the move.

*May Day 1987 is marked with a Congress of the Workers of Bolivia in La Paz, with the Congress declaring it to be in remembrance of the strike which began the Second Bolivian Revolution (or, variously, the People's Revolution). The Congress quickly compels the President to enforce better labour standards, and issues statements of solidarity with the peoples of Palestine against Zionism, and of Chile against the dictatorship.

*Japan privatizes its national railway system. While some worries of unemployment and early retirement plague the country famed for its lifetime employment system, the economy continues its steady ascent. Many foreign nations, particularly the United States, debate protectionist measures to keep themselves from being outpaced – and in turn, many Japanese advocate for the same.