Word: backroom
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...backroom battle reminiscent of the strife that toppled Harvard’s president last week, faculty members of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) have in recent days clashed with their dean, Alan A. Altshuler. The battle reached a boiling point this week, when the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing board—intervened with an unusual letter of support for Altshuler and a pledge to summon incoming Interim President Derek C. Bok to help resolve the matter next week...
Once parliament is in session, the loose alliances that grouped candidates together on election lists could well melt away as backroom haggling begins. And because the constitution requires only a 50% vote of no confidence to dissolve the government, it's possible the first Prime Minister and Cabinet won't stay in power anywhere close to their four-year terms. That means the biggest threat to the fledgling democracy may be political gridlock. A Pentagon official monitoring Iraq acknowledges that a weak administration could invite a coup. But that risk, says the official, "may just be one of the albatrosses...
...backroom haggling and front-and-center rhetoric over the Act's extension went on right up to the end. Earlier in the week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist declined an offer made by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy of the Judiciary Committee to enact a three-month extension of the law to buy time for further negotiations. In the last few days, the White House dispatched Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to address the Senate Republicans' policy luncheon on Capitol Hill. But he failed to convince key Senators, such as Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa...
...took three weeks of hard bargaining and backroom deals to settle a woefully indecisive election, but Germany finally has a new Chancellor-designate: former physics instructor Angela Merkel, 51, who will be the first woman ever nominated for the post. Merkel will not be officially sworn in until late November, but although talks continue between her conservative Christian Democrat party and Gerhard Schroeder 's center-left Social Democrats on how to form a coalition government, Schroeder's party has now given up its claim to Germany's top post...
...will depend on whether the stumbling front runner David Davis (widely deemed dull) holds off the hard-charging old gaffer Ken Clarke and the up-and-coming new boy David Cameron, who is only 38. The mere fact that there was such an open contest instead of the venomous backroom plotting of previous years prompted talk of a general revival in party fortunes. Many delegates surprised themselves by concluding they could support any of the candidates, even though they range from Europhile to Europhobe, from 38 to 65, from right-wing to right-of-center, from electrifying to wooden...