Word: unraveler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...especially hard to solve a mystery if all the people who actually know the truth are either accomplished liars, adamantly mute, or already dead. Such a conundrum is facing investigators who are still trying to unravel the Iran- contra scandal and other baroque plots that American officials may have hatched in the Middle East over the past decade. Last week, as yet more charges came to light, there was no shortage of fingerprints, plot twists or stool pigeons. But there was a desperate shortage of certainty, perhaps because when truth is stranger than fiction, the two are harder to separate...
...Bush Administration said last weekend that it wouldn't object to getting rid of the levy. But Washington insiders say the odds of killing the tax are still very low, since it was part of a delicately balanced package. If the tax is eliminated, it could unravel a budget compromise that took months to hammer out. Says a staff member on the House Ways and Means Committee: "Once you allow the process to start, you just don't know where it is going to stop...
...weeks before Mengistu fled, when the Americans were trying to persuade him that the country would not unravel if he stepped down, the Eritreans said they were willing to postpone their independence vote, perhaps for several years. But once victory was secured, they wasted no time asserting their secessionist agenda. In a press conference last week, Issaias Afewerki, leader of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, stated baldly, "Eritrea is not part of Ethiopia." He added that his group would administer the province until a vote on Eritrea's status is held, a plebiscite the front is convinced will endorse...
...wanted. Result: in early February employees at Harley's assembly plant in York, Pa., walked out. Management had proposed, among other things, varying factory employees' pay according to the quality and quantity of their production, while union members wanted the security of a fixed wage. The strike threatened to unravel years of productive cooperation and undermine one of the most heartening examples of U.S. manufacturing's turning itself around. Last Friday company and union announced they had reached tentative agreement on a new contract. Neither side would disclose terms...
Last week the Bush Administration disclosed that Moscow too was "thinking ) innovatively" about ways to unravel the gulf mess. President Mikhail Gorbachev surprised his American counterpart with an early-morning phone call to discuss possible outs, which the Administration did not describe. While downplaying these proposals, Washington was gratified that after speaking with Baker about the stalemate in Geneva, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sent Baghdad his own message, echoing the U.S. contention that Iraq must immediately choose war or peace...