Word: westly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Guinea-Bissau Assassination Tit for Tat Joăo Bernardo Vieira, the longtime President of this volatile West African nation, was assassinated by army troops on March 2 in apparent retaliation for the killing of a general hours before. The speaker of parliament, Raimundo Pereira, was sworn in as the state's interim President and is required to call elections within 60 days. Since winning independence from Portugal in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has been racked by poverty and upheaval, becoming in recent years a key transit point for cartels smuggling drugs from South America to Europe...
There are two main reasons for regret - one practical and one symbolic. The practical point is best made by the phrase: the West made them do it. Yes, some of the countries on the brink of collapse have brought disaster on themselves. Places such as Latvia and Bulgaria have run massive current-account deficits and are now paying the price. But the ability to borrow and spend so much comes, in part, because the countries had opened up their capital accounts and sold off their banks to Western Europe at the E.U.'s urging. Financial liberalization and free trade were...
...Rather, if public service is to become a more attractive option, the government must ensure that career advancement is a real possibility. Here, some inspiration may be taken from the elite military academies. The prestige and concrete career boost conferred on West Point graduates—they start out as second lieutenants after graduation, rather than privates—motivates students and assures them of being properly valued in the military...
...similar career boost for bright students would be helpful in government. The public sector already has plenty of institutions that do the job of a West Point in the form of high-ranking government and public-service schools. The government would be well-served by starting a “Public Service Fellows” program in which students who graduate magna cum laude are put on an official career fast track. Of course, this does not mean that such graduates should be blindly promoted regardless of competence. But simply giving a promise of open doors and professional attention ahead...
...Tuesday, Clinton met with Abbas to reaffirm Washington's support for the creation of a Palestinian state. But Clinton's aides had briefed her on Abbas' woes: nearly half his domain - Gaza - remains in the grip of Islamists Hamas, and even in his West Bank stronghold, his popularity has taken a dive for his failure to gain any concessions on the issue of Israeli settlements...