Cabinet Ministers

Romania's prime minister-designate, Calin Tariceanu, named a centrist Cabinet of fresh faces to lead the country on the difficult path to European Union membership in 2007. Two young intellectuals will hold key posts. Economist Ionut Popescu, 40, was named finance minister, and 36-year-old historian Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu will be foreign minister in a government made up largely of unknowns.

President Victor Paz Estenssoro replaced four Cabinet ministers on Friday, including the man who, as interior minister, was responsible for the country's drug enforcement campaign. The other Cabinet changes were in the aeronautics, agriculture and labor ministries, according to Information Minister Herman Antelo. Antelo said that Interior Minister Fernando Barthelemy will be succeeded by Juan Carlos Duran.

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, threatened by growing pressure for Quebec's independence and shrinking public support, shuffled senior Cabinet ministers Sunday. The Conservative Party, in power since 1984, is mired in third place with 16% in opinion polls. Mulroney gave new jobs to half of the Cabinet's 40 members of Parliament.

The government will provide $237 million for rehabilitation projects in coastal areas devastated by Typhoon Thelma, officials said Monday. The National Counter-Disaster Center said 118 people were killed in the storm that struck last Thursday, and 215 are still missing. More than 24,000 people were left homeless, and damage totaled at least $250 million, it said.

Ecuadorean President Jamil Mahuad, besieged by massive protests to force his resignation, announced Sunday the dollarization of the poor Andean nation's economy as a move to fight a deep economic crisis. Mahuad, in a speech broadcast on television, also said all Ecuador's cabinet ministers had submitted their resignations to allow him greater freedom of maneuver. He said that in the coming days, he would announce which changes, if any, he would make in the cabinet.

Most of Iran's six vice presidents and 24 government ministers have submitted their resignations to protest the barring of thousands of would-be candidates from upcoming elections, a government spokesman said Wednesday. Vice President Mohammed Ali Abtahi warned that unless the candidates were reinstated, the country would "face many problems, both at home and abroad." "Such disqualifications of prospective candidates is against democracy ...

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appointed new foreign and defense secretaries today, fired two other Cabinet ministers and switched around several more in the biggest government shake-up since she won power. Thatcher named John Major, one of the least-known members of her 22-member Cabinet, as the new foreign secretary. He replaces Sir Geoffrey Howe, who was moved to a vacant post as deputy prime minister and the governing Conservative Party's leader in the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki ousted all but one former Communist from his Cabinet today to counter criticism of his 10-month-old government's performance. But some Solidarity activists said the changes weren't sweeping enough. In a speech before Parliament that was broadcast nationwide, Mazowiecki said political battles in the non-Communist-led government were threatening the country's peaceful evolution to democracy.

King Baudouin refused to accept the resignation of Belgium's government Tuesday in a political crisis over an English-Italian soccer riot in Brussels two months ago that left 38 people dead. Premier Wilfried Martens offered the resignation to the king after a Cabinet session earlier in the day failed to resolve a split in the Christian Democrat-Liberal coalition over political responsibility for the riot.