Word: coups
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...tomb of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the populist Pakistani President who was overthrown in a military coup and executed in 1979, looms over the poverty-stricken salt marshes of rural Sind province. From a distance, the hulking mausoleum resembles a plasticine model of the Taj Mahal squeezed onto too small a foundation. Before Bhutto--who founded the Pakistan People's Party--was hanged, he had requested nothing more than a humble marble slab to mark his grave. But in Pakistani politics, image is everything. It's a lesson Benazir Bhutto learned at her father's knee. Hence her decision a dozen...
...France's blighted housing projects as the head of the group "Ni Putes, Ni Soumises" (Neither Whores Nor Submissive). Hirsch, meanwhile, previously headed an organization caring for and defending the homeless founded by the Abbé Pierre. The recruitment of both well-known leftists was considered as big a coup for Sarkozy as the luring of a Socialist Party figure like Bernard Kouchner to his cabinet. Their declarations will embolden critics from within Sarkozy's own conservative ranks who have long opposed the very policy of "ouverture" - and who just last week were scolded by the President for upping...
...generally wide popularity. Franco's hand-picked successor, Juan Carlos surprised the nation when the dictator died in 1975 by lending his support to parliamentary government - basically writing himself out of power - and later, in 1981, by courageously appearing on the floor of Congress to disavow an attempted military coup. "Juan Carlos played such a sterling role during the Transition [to democracy] that it basically shelved questions about the nature of the new political regime," says Paul Preston, professor of Spanish history at the London School of Economics and author of a biography of the King. Since then, the royal...
...father's execution at the hands of military dictator Ayub Khan in 1979, and refused to relinquish power even when in exile. Since becoming Prime Minister in 1988, she has hopscotched into and out of power with archrivals Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister who was ousted by military coup in 1999, and Musharraf. For the past 20 years those names have dominated the Pakistani political scene. "It really is like a soap opera," says Haq. "Year after year we still see the same faces, the same plot and the same kind of deal making." And it seems, the formulaic...
...military's stranglehold on the economy is what has most alienated the Burmese populace. Coup leader Ne Win quickly ruined one of Southeast Asia's most promising economies by unveiling the "Burmese Way to Socialism." The army took over colonial-era business concerns like shipping and banking. Even as civilians have grown poorer, the military continues to enrich itself through timber, mineral and natural-gas deals with Burma's neighbors. In 2005, the junta mysteriously moved the nation's capital from Rangoon to a new city called Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle at a cost of hundreds of millions...