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- WORLD, Page 39World NotesTERRORISMTo Break or Not to Break
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- The Satanic Verses kept sparking repercussions around the
- world last week. The Riverdale Press, a New York City weekly,
- was fire-bombed, possibly in response to an editorial
- championing the novel by Salman Rushdie. In California offended
- Muslims are believed to have tossed Molotov cocktails into two
- bookstores selling the book.
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- In Tehran, Iran's parliament voted to cut the Islamic
- Republic's relations with Britain if Prime Minister Margaret
- Thatcher's government did not officially denounce Rushdie's
- novel. Britain responded with a carrot and a stick. Foreign
- Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe told the BBC World Service that
- Britain understood why Muslims criticized the book and said it
- was "offensive" for comparing Britain to Nazi Germany. But he
- emphasized that nothing justified Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's
- order to kill Rushdie.
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- On a visit to Tehran, meanwhile, Soviet Foreign Minister
- Eduard Shevardnadze sought to capitalize on the affair, saying
- "conditions are ripe" for improved Soviet-Iranian ties.
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