Word: thorniest
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...thorniest issue is how to constitute a government. Washington and Moscow would like to resolve the issue with some form of coalition between the ruling Afghan Communists and the mujahedin, but neither Afghan party likes the idea. Most mujahedin leaders reject outright any suggestion of sharing power with the Afghan Communists, who will be powerless without their Soviet backers. U.S. Under Secretary of State Michael Armacost raised the issue with rebel leaders last week in Islamabad but made no headway. Said Sayed Ahmed Gilani, chief of the National Islamic Front for Afghanistan: "We told Mr. Armacost that the future government...
Defense lawyers are alarmed. In criminal trials the Government must always prove guilt, but in many confiscation proceedings the burden of proof falls on the person who wants to reclaim his goods. The thorniest disputes involve prosecutors' efforts to seize lawyers' fees when the defendant's money has come from illicit profits. The Justice Department claims it uses the fee gambit only in clear cases, but a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers charges, "A lot of people can't get a lawyer of their choice, and many can't get a lawyer at all." Civil libertarians...
Powell was one of the court's most frequent swing votes. Without him, a number of 4-to-4 ties are likely. Though the ideological splits are by no means firm, deadlocks are possible on some of the thorniest questions scheduled for argument in the coming weeks...
...government as instruments of altruism. The issue points up a division between Dutch Protestants, many of whom favor euthanasia, and Catholics, many of whom oppose it on the ground that it is tantamount to murder. Above all, the argument demonstrates once again the Dutch compulsion to solve even the thorniest problems in the open, with the solution written into...
Sancton, a former Paris-based correspondent, had watched Gorbachev in action during the Soviet leader's October 1985 visit to the French capital. "I was impressed by his immense self-assurance and his eagerness to field the thorniest questions," he recalls. "I thought at the time that this was a very different kind of leader." At the very least, we think readers will agree, the Soviet leader's actions have borne out that observation...