Word: firebrands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been a major factor in bringing down the overall level of violence in Iraq. Sadr had sent some signals to the Americans suggesting he was likely to extend the cease-fire. And U.S. officials, such as Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, believe that the Shi'ite firebrand may be changing his ways...
...made clear in the election, they vote for the mainstream political parties that espouse moderate agendas. Many follow a peaceful, tolerant version of Sufism. Most of the country's educated élite wants to keep religion in the mosque and out of government. Yet when firebrand clerics such as Mullah Fazlullah, a militant leader who spews antigovernment diatribes from his pirate radio station, calls for jihad, threatens girls who go to school and boasts squadrons of suicide bombers ready to detonate explosives, the moderate mullahs stay silent. Virtually unhindered, al-Qaeda has regrouped in the ungoverned tribal areas along Pakistan...
Less than six months ago, Samak Sundaravej's political career was all but dead: after his election to Thailand's senate was negated by the 2006 military coup, the former Bangkok governor had gone back to hosting a popular TV cooking show. But on Tuesday, the 72-year-old firebrand, once called a "devil" by democracy activists for his support of past right-wing military regimes, was formally voted in as Thailand's 25th prime minister by the country's first elected parliament since the Generals took power. Yet the question remains: will Samak really be running Thailand...
...Story also document his struggles with alcohol, which lent poetry to his reputation yet almost certainly contributed to the old lion's final vanquishment by cancer last month at the age of 64. Viewing him through posterity's filter, it is clear that he wasn't simply a local firebrand and celebrity. He was the last of a breed of reckless, old-style, table-thumping China Coast journalists...
...Minister Patrick Dewael, Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, and Finance Minister Didier Reynders. Francophone liberal Reynders, one of two deputy Prime Ministers, claimed that the formation of a government meant "the crisis is over for Belgium." However, questions still surround the managerial ability of Leterme: after all, the Flemish firebrand failed to form a government despite six months of trying. By contrast, Verhofstadt took less than two weeks to secure his unity coalition...