The director of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, is considering splitting up the organisation’s analysis and spying divisions to create hybrid sections dedicated to individual geographical regions and to specific threats to national security. Still in the preliminary phase, the proposal has already been submitted to an internal committee of the Virginia-based agency, which will evaluate its efficacy.
News of the potential changes was published in an article in The Washington Post that contained parts of a message Brennan sent to employees. In the message, he expressed his concerns over the effectiveness of the CIA’s current structure at a time when “the need for integration has never been greater” as an increasing number of the agency’s missions “cut across our organizational boundaries”.
Since the CIA’s founding in 1947, its employees have been essentially divided among four directorates. The National Clandestine Service sends agents on covert operations overseas; the Directorate of Intelligence employs thousands of analysts providing timely information to President Obama and other top policymakers; the Directorate of Science and Technology focuses on these two specific areas; and the Directorate of Support offers everything from administrative to logistical assistance as well as training for diverse operations.
Brennan’s new model would create centres that bring together analysts, operators and support personnel, basically replicating the organisational structure of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
Young Americans prefer bikes – The evidence is undisputable, the reason less so: young Americans are losing interest in cars. They aren’t buying as many and often don’t even bother passing their driving test, which in most US states can be obtained at the age of 16. A study conducted by the United States Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) confirms that millennials – those born between 1983 and 2000 –prefer alternative solutions to driving to work: public transportation, bicycles or working from home. The percentage of US high school seniors (in their last year of school) holding driver’s licences is also on the wane: from 1996 to 2010, it dropped from 85% to 73%. There are several reasons why kids are no longer interested in owning a set of wheels. Recession for one, which has certainly made it harder to buy a car. But some trends, including the rising number of young Americans now living at home with their parents, were already in the pipeline. New lifestyles have also emerged with growing numbers moving into urban centres where cars ownership makes little sense or is being replaced by technological evolutions such as car sharing and car services run by the likes of Uber and Lyft. Not everyone agrees with this analysis, and especially the large auto companies. “I don’t see any evidence that young people are losing interest in cars”, General Motors’ long-time Chief Economist Mustafa Mohatarem told Automotive News. “It’s really the economics doing what we’re seeing and not a change in preferences”.
Results that count – The US economy ended 2014 with a tailwind, registering an estimated growth of 2.3% that, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, should accelerate to 3.1% this year. There are numerous positive indicators: share indexes repeatedly reaching record highs; the US economy adding 2.95 million jobs in 2014, the largest increase since 1999; and unemployment last December dropping by over a percentage point to 5.6% over the last 12 months, the best result since 1984. Perhaps the most important result, however, is how the American economy has managed to shrug off the crisis signs hailing from Europe, Latin America, China, Japan and Russia. According to many economists, this instability is partly due to the delayed effects at the tail end of the great economic crisis of 2008, the worst in nearly 80 years. Unlike other economic recoveries, the current one was particularly slow to materialise: it has taken America six-and-a-half years to regain the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession. Nonetheless, two major factors are contributing to the revival of the US economy. The first is plummeting oil prices – from $110 (€93) a barrel to nearly $50 (€42) at the beginning of 2015 – with positive repercussions on interest rates and consumption. The second factor is wage growth. As more job opportunities become available, there are now also tentative signs that salaries too are on the increase.
The director of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, is considering splitting up the organisation’s analysis and spying divisions to create hybrid sections dedicated to individual geographical regions and to specific threats to national security. Still in the preliminary phase, the proposal has already been submitted to an internal committee of the Virginia-based agency, which will evaluate its efficacy.