The GDR becomes a member of the UN Security Council for two years.
10 January
1980
US President Jimmy Carter imposes a grain embargo on the Soviet Union because of its intervention in Afghanistan. The conditions for Western technology exports (CoCom agreement) to the Soviet sphere of influence are also tightened.
14 January
1980
The UN General Assembly calls for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in a resolution.
22 January
1980
The Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov is arrested along with his wife, Yelena Bonner, and exiled to a camp near the city of Gorky.
In the GDR weekly magazine "Horizont", the West German government is called upon to take action against Western "escape assistance" organisations; otherwise, the magazine says, GDR "measures" affecting transit traffic from and to Berlin were to be expected.
RIAS report on the GDR’s threat to obstruct transit traffic because of Western "escape assistance", 28 June 1980 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Rundschau am Mittag, Moderator/Reporter: Peter Kohagen, Dettmar Cramer)