IT WAS a crabby week in Europe, culminating in a half-agreement in Amsterdam which, far from drawing a nice clear map of the European Union's future, left a vista of blank spaces on a dog-eared document and scowls on the faces of many of the continent's leaders (see article).
In a news conference with the three ministers, Hassan Rowhani, a powerful middle-level cleric who has emerged as Iran's chief negotiator during the current crisis, said the one-and-a-half-page agreement would first have to be approved by Iran's elected Parliament.
"I prefer to take responsibility for a failure rather than a half-hearted agreement or an agreement for appearance's sake," he told French radio Europe 1 as he made a final push to get an action plan.
The final two-and-a-half-page political agreement – the Copenhagen accord – was vaguely worded, short on detail and not legally binding.
"The bottom line: Can Olmert reach a half-baked agreement minus Jerusalem with Abbas and with Condi looking on proudly in the next several months?
The English teacher's score and the Flesch-Kincaid score were within a half-year agreement.
The three-and-a-half-year contract agreement between the 97-member orchestra and the Houston Symphony Society was reached after 36 1/2 hours of negotiations that began at 9 a.m.
It took around a year and a half for an agreement on the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, which is not out of the ordinary for a first contract.
However, a year and a half after the agreement, little progress has been made toward lifting the blockade.
The leading Internet service provider, America Online Inc., said today that it had struck a half-dozen agreements with major players in the wireless communications arena, furthering its effort to liberate its Web services from the tether of telephone lines.
Even the Dominion settlement is simply a re-affirmation of a two-and-a-half-year-old tentative agreement.
