Word: bashar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...kiss his hand during working hours, then kick back as former high school buddies at night. He's working on ways to get together with his close friends and fellow Arab rulers King Abdullah II of Jordan and Emir Hamad of Bahrain; he hasn't met Syrian heir Bashar Assad, 34. Despite high expectations for this new wave of leaders, Mohammed VI cautions, "One should not think that a new generation will turn everything upside down...
...smoothness with which Bashar Assad is being elevated to his late father's job as ruler of Syria must be generating some envy in the two other prominent heirs waiting to succeed a parent as head of state--Prince Charles and George W. Bush. Of the three countries involved, Syria, which is supposedly a socialist republic, seems to be the only one that still observes the monarchical line of succession in unreconstructed form. Bashar Assad is in line for the top job simply because his elder brother was killed several years ago. The only other person claiming...
Although it isn't clear how Bashar Assad, a young man who was trained as an ophthalmologist, can combine his own specialty with that of his father ("Actually, that letter you read as F in the bottom line is E, so the nurse here will take you into the next room and one of our technicians will shoot you in the back of the head"), his succession has been virtually taken for granted. The other two heirs lack this unobstructed path to the top job. Before Charles can even think about ascending to his rightful position, he has to continue...
...trying to remain good-humored while dealing at a press conference with a trick question that is obviously designed to see if he knows the difference between Austria and Australia. In either situation, it would be perfectly natural for the heir in question to think to himself, "How come Bashar Assad didn't have to go through this sort of nonsense...
...Still, Bashar has positioned himself as more reformer than strongman. As president of Syria's computer society, he has recruited technocrats to help broaden Syria's cyber horizon--this in a country where only 2,000 people are officially allowed access to the Internet. (King Abdullah of Jordan, who knows Bashar well, calls him an "Internet youth.") Bashar also reportedly wants more foreign investment in Syria--but whether that translates into closer ties to the West is anybody's guess. Bashar will need much of his father's cunning to put his own vision in place...