Word: gratae
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Even before France's 2007 ban on lighting up in public areas, smokers had been declared persona non grata in Paris' Métro stations, where they risk hefty fines if they venture the merest puff. Now, however, even people who support France's crackdown on smoking feel things may have gone too far. This week, the Métro refused to run posters advertising the new Coco Chanel biopic Coco, Before Chanel, which stars Amélie's Audrey Tautou, saying the photo that depicts the fashion legend with her trademark cigarette violates anti-smoking laws...
...still grim. Oil production--which once accounted for 90% of government revenue--is on the decline. Inflation has rendered unsustainable the food and fuel subsidies on which millions of poor Syrians depend. Enter President Assad, who Syrians hope can help attract much needed foreign investment. Once persona non grata in the West, Assad is more secure than ever at home and abroad. The violence that followed U.S. regime change in Iraq has raised his profile in a region where stability is often valued over freedom. In August, French President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first Western leader to visit Damascus...
...eventually skipped to avoid the heat. A week later in Honduras, Selma Estrada, minister of the National Institute of Women, resigned her government post in protest over the official invitation of Ortega to Tegucigalpa. And in El Salvador, feminist leaders are asking their government to declare Ortega persona non grata before he's scheduled to attend a presidential summit there at the end of the month...
...bold challenge to Washington, Bolivia's President Evo Morales has declared U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg persona non grata in his country, and requested that he be expelled. The surprise announcement is based on government allegations, as yet undocumented, that Goldberg has fomented civil unrest in South America's poorest country...
...Without fear of the [U.S.] empire, I stand before the Bolivian people today and declare United States Ambassador Mr. Goldberg persona non grata," Morales said Wednesday afternoon, in a speech inaugurating a youth employment program. "We don't want people here who conspire against our unity. We don't want people who threaten our democracy...