Government Reform

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

SACRAMENTO - A proposal to revamp the way California handles its budget and web of state regulations is running into opposition from politicians, unions and various activists who say it would only worsen Sacramento's dysfunction. The wonky measure, Proposition 31, could have far-reaching effects on state government. California Forward, the nonpartisan organization behind the initiative, says its provisions would increase transparency and accountability in a Capitol not known for either.

Conservative die-hards and reformers went to war Tuesday for the hearts and minds of the Soviet Communist Party, with Yegor K. Ligachev denouncing the Gorbachev era's "reckless radicalism" and other leaders defending policies that stripped the "evil empire" label from their nation. One day after President Mikhail S.

A congressional committee has launched a wide-ranging examination of the California high-speed rail project, including possible conflicts of interest and how the agency overseeing it plans to spend billions of dollars in federal assistance. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), notified the California High-Speed Authority about the review Monday and ordered the agency to preserve its documents and records of past communications.

Ali Bassem plans to start saving for a new car now that the extra money is rolling in. The Baghdad University architecture professor regards his 75% salary increase as a fitting reward for having stayed in Iraq while so many other people of means fled. The extra dinars in his paycheck, Bassem said, are proof of a tentative step forward from the darkness and violence. They mean that years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, "the government is beginning to take root and establish itself," he said.

SACRAMENTO - A proposal to revamp the way California handles its budget and web of state regulations is running into opposition from politicians, unions and various activists who say it would only worsen Sacramento's dysfunction. The wonky measure, Proposition 31, could have far-reaching effects on state government. California Forward, the nonpartisan organization behind the initiative, says its provisions would increase transparency and accountability in a Capitol not known for either.

State and local government must find new ways of doing business or risk ruin, state Controller Kathleen Connell warned a group of San Fernando Valley business leaders Friday. Addressing a meeting of the board of directors of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. at the newly reopened Northridge Fashion Center, Connell said the state's precarious fiscal condition should compel government and the private sector to cut waste and create jobs.

Like many of her neighbors, Garden Grove resident Barbara Anderson says she's fed up with city and county government and proclaims wholehearted support for the concept of the year: restructuring. But mention one downsizing proposal under consideration--disbanding her city's Fire Department in favor of contract service from the county fire authority--and Anderson's zeal wanes. "I think we have a good Fire Department. I don't see the purpose of messing with it," she said warily.

A reformist government forged from a political deal to overturn Romania's post-Communist legacy took office after parliament backed its pledges to speed up market-oriented change. "This is another kind of government, capable and willing to change Romania's fate," Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea said after taking the oath of office.

President Alvaro Uribe suffered a surprising double blow in two days of balloting that ended Sunday as Colombian voters rejected most elements of a government reform package he had promoted and chose one of his political enemies as mayor of the nation's capital. Uribe, America's closest political ally in South America, had made the package of 15 constitutional reforms the centerpiece of his agenda, introducing it to Congress the day he took office last year.

The cigarette smoke hovers dense inside the neighborhood cafe. Young patrons knock back beers at greasy wooden tables. A heated debate rages about Syria's revolt. The rotund bar owner labels the rebels baltajiya , or bandits, who are ravaging towns and villages. Demonstrators want only change and freedom, replies a young man in a hooded sweat shirt. Others wrangle over the president and the uncertain future. It is a striking scene for a tightly controlled police state.

President Obama this morning will ask Congress to give him authority to significantly shrink the federal government by merging six agencies dealing with trade and commerce, a senior administration official said. Obama is seeking power to propose a sweeping consolidation of agencies with overlapping duties with an eye toward saving money and improving performance, the official said. The president is asking Congress to grant him authority held by no president since Ronald Reagan.

A septuagenarian anticorruption activist ended a 13-day hunger strike Sunday with a glass of coconut water after India's Parliament bowed to his demands, agreeing to create a powerful, independent lokpal , or ombudsman, with authority to go after high-level corruption. Whether or not the new agency has teeth or ultimately does much to stem endemic corruption remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that activist Anna Hazare ("Anna" is an honorific title meaning elder brother)

Thousands of people took to the streets in the southern city of Dara, chanting "Syria, Freedom," a day after a deadly crackdown on protests there, human rights activists said. The demonstrations Thursday occurred at the funerals for some of those killed when government forces opened fire on protesters the previous day. Initial reports put the death toll at 15, but Reuters news agency, citing a hospital source, said more than 25 people were killed. Video on YouTube purporting to show the assault included images of streets littered with bodies, some shot in the head.

Mohamed Albuflasa was different from everyone else taking the stage on the second day of Bahrain's protests. He was a Sunni Muslim. The 34-year-old Salafist favored government reform, and he believed he should speak at the rally to promote unity among the country's Shiite Muslim majority and Sunnis at Manama's Pearl Square. Within hours, a security agency had detained him, and he has not been seen since. Even as hundreds of political prisoners were freed this week by King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, Albuflasa remains jailed and his whereabouts a mystery.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the California congressman who has promised to closely scrutinize the Obama administration, will become chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the new GOP-controlled House of Representatives in January, it was announced on Wednesday. The appointment had been expected. Issa (R-Vista) is the ranking minority member of the committee in the current Congress. As chairman, Issa will be the leading voice in choosing what to investigate. A frequent Republican critic in the current Congress, Issa has said he wanted to seek new subpoena powers for dozens of federal agency watchdogs as part of a campaign to downsize government spending.

Whenever someone proposed tinkering with government in California in the past, a familiar outcry went up from a chorus of anti-reform skeptics: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." This time, however, there is considerable agreement that the state's tangled mosaic of state and local government is indeed broke, or at least dysfunctional. The dilemma is how to fix it.

As William Hauck labored to explain a plan to modernize California's bewildering maze of 7,000 separate governments, he blurted to reporters: "The easiest answer is to declare there are no more local governments and start over again." Well, why not? After all, Hauck is the chairman of the 23-member California Constitution Revision Commission.

Egypt has been governed for 29 years by President Hosni Mubarak, and a state of emergency limiting civil liberties has been in effect for that entire time. The most popular opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, is banned and its candidates must run as independents. Egyptian political analysts expect that the government will manipulate this fall's parliamentary elections, as it has in the past, to guarantee the ruling National Democratic Party another sweeping majority. Against this backdrop, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has called for a boycott of the elections unless electoral reforms are implemented first.

Thai security forces fired into a crowd of anti-government protesters on the outskirts of Bangkok on Wednesday in a bid to keep demonstrators contained in the capital. A soldier was killed and at least 18 protesters injured in the melee, the government's Erawan emergency center reported. It was not immediately clear whether the troops were using live ammunition, rubber bullets or both, and there was some speculation that the soldier was accidentally shot by security forces. The showdown, the third time protests have turned deadly in the last three weeks, occurred along a major street connecting the capital with its northern suburbs as the Bangkok demonstrators, known as "Red Shirts," tried to take their protest on the road in a convoy of vehicles.