Word: authoritarians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...President George W. Bush was likely including North Koreans when, in last Thursday's inaugural address, he vowed: "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you." Some residents of the authoritarian state may not need much encouragement: earlier in the week, a Seoul-based human-rights group released an anti-regime video that it says was produced by dissidents in the North. Following some jerky shots of a market, a high school and a factory, the camera pans across a poster that declares: "Down with Kim Jong Il!" in Korean characters scrawled in red ink. "People...
...That sort of doom-laden analysis is an extreme minority view - but the fact that it is being aired at all is remarkable. The Russian political system is authoritarian and secretive, but there's no sign that Putin's supporters are preparing to abandon him. In the past, Putin has shown himself ruthless in imposing his authority - as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Yukos founder who tried to challenge Putin's power by funding rival political parties, discovered to his cost. Khodorkovsky has been in prison since October 2003, charged with offenses, which he denies, including tax evasion, embezzlement and theft...
...Rosneft, bought its main oil producing unit, Yuganskneftegaz, for a knockdown price, "demonstrated the state's unwillingness to guarantee private property." And Yushchenko's victory in Ukraine showed that Russia wanted to pursue "an imperialist foreign policy but couldn't even achieve that." Shevtsova believes Putin is building an authoritarian system that "contains not only colossal menace for Russian society, but could escape from the control of those who created...
...them the target of a "war on terror" akin to America's own. This is more than a little farfetched - indeed, it's an idea cultivated in no small part by Arafat himself, in the days when Israel and the U.S. were quite happy to accept him as an authoritarian strongman who would keep a tight rein rather than demand democratic accountability from...
...refrain in the first place from making promises on which he can't deliver. Nor to compromise on the Palestinian national consensus without consultation. It'll be a lot harder for Israel and the U.S. to strike a political deal with a democratically accountable Palestinian leader than with an authoritarian national symbol such as Arafat - although if they do eventually reach a deal, it might be far more durable for the democratic process that preceded...