Word: reformer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Whether Bush and Congress, which would have to approve any major reforms, can truly transform the FBI and the CIA is anyone's guess. Neither political party is overflowing with will--or goodwill--at the moment, and big changes have not been the capital's forte for a decade or more. Washington has not been sitting on its hands since 9/11, but the repairs it has made in the way the feds gather and share intelligence have come mostly at the margins, little fixes to huge federal bureaucracies--in the words of Tenet, evolutionary, not revolutionary, change. That's partly...
...somewhat open to outside reform, the CIA is ever on guard against it. The agency has always been better than the FBI at doing bureaucratic judo, working the press or finding a CLASSIFIED stamp for documents that it may not want to see the light of day. The commission found and disclosed a number of these last week that suggested the CIA was slow to report, if not detect, the jihadist army that was forming on the horizon in the 1990s. The commission reported that though al-Qaeda was formed in 1988, the CIA "did not describe" the organization comprehensively...
...Reform in France has always been dramatic, but never quite like this. The nation's annual Molière theater awards went unplugged last week, after performing-arts workers protesting a cut in their unemployment scheme stormed the Paris event and convinced stage hands to walk out. The scene verged on the surreal as actors collected their awards without music, backdrops, professional lighting or even microphones. All over France, unemployment has taken center stage. The spat over unemployment compensation in performing arts threatens to disrupt the Cannes film festival in mid-May. And two weeks ago, a Marseilles court overturned...
...their payments slashed over the next two years, the Marseilles precedent could carry costly consequences. Last year, the state unemployment insurance administration was in the red to the tune of €4.3 billion. The agency's plan to limit the shortfall to €1.2 billion this year under the reform is now in jeopardy. It has appealed the Marseilles ruling, but if the initial judgment is upheld, chances are high that more and more jobless will be heading to court - or forcing a government climb-down through protests like that of the performing-arts workers. That would effectively neuter...
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Shakespeare on legislators who disbelieve in marijuana reform. Opens tonight at Winthrop House...