Word: parliament
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...outcome, like Switzerland itself, contained elements of both compromise and illogic. After rejecting one female legislator, on what some called sexist grounds, for membership on the ruling seven-member Federal Council, parliament approved a woman nonlegislator with the same background (a French-speaking socialist) and roughly similar political views (a reduced role for the military, pro-E.C.). The principal difference between the rejected Christiane Brunner and winner Ruth Dreifuss, says Dreifuss, is that "I reassure people because I look a little plain...
...UNWRITTEN RULE, THE VACANCY IN SWITZERland's seven-member Federal Council, or Cabinet, could be filled only by a Social Democrat from a French-speaking canton. Member of parliament Christiane Brunner, 46, not only met those criteria but also represented a major labor constituency in the metal and watchmaking industries. No matter. Brunner's bid to become the second woman ever to hold Cabinet rank was scuttled by the overwhelmingly male parliament, apparently because of sexual politics...
...refused comment, and of having been photographed in the nude, which she denied. Those issues aside, Brunner raised a fatal quotient of parliamentary eyebrows by a perceived antimilitary attitude, informal taste in dress and having been twice wed. Several hundred women supporters, some spattering dollops of paint, gathered outside parliament to protest the rejection of Brunner, who declared that "we have lost the first battle, but only the first...
Part of the diplomacy involves keeping Russia on the West's team. President Boris Yeltsin is under heavy pressure from parliament to join forces with Russia's traditional Slav allies, the Serbs. A way to strengthen the existing bond, Washington has decided, is to bring the Russians into the airlift. Moscow has agreed, and five U.S. Air Force officers are to fly there this week to plan Russian participation, which will include flying cargo missions to Bosnia from NATO bases in Germany and Italy -- the first U.S.-Russian joint operations since World...
...first, party bigwigs tried to brazen it out. But as the evidence of graft among the major parties multiplied, so did public outrage. Shortly before resigning, Craxi was accosted by an angry mob outside his party headquarters. Damning testimony from several key figures, and the likelihood that members of Parliament will be stripped of their immunity from criminal prosecution, sent party higher-ups into a frenzy. Says sociologist Franco Ferrarotti of the University of Rome: "These people always operated on the concept that public funds belong to the person who grabs them first. Whatever they steal is theirs. There...