reforms

(Newser) - Iraq ended months of political paralysis today by selecting Ayad al-Samarai as its new parliamentary speaker, the BBC reports. An even-tempered Sunni engineer, al-Samarai failed to win a big enough majority for 4 months because of fears he sought to oust Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Los Angeles Times...

(Newser) - Raul Castro has ordered employers to create new salary structures that include extra pay for increased productivity—a bold departure, by Cuban standards, from Socialist orthodoxy, the Miami Herald reports. Under the current system, workers get a flat fee based on their job descriptions with no hope for incentives. Low...