Word: ironic
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ELECTED. ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF, 67, former World Bank economist; as President of Liberia; in Monrovia. With 59% of the vote, the "Iron Lady" claimed victory over presidential rival and former international football star George Weah, who lodged a complaint of fraud. Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female President in Africa, must now calm Weah's supporters and start rebuilding the West African nation, which suffered through two civil wars and the misrule of former President Charles Taylor until the United Nations intervened...
...Johnson-Sirleaf worked for years at the World Bank and within the United Nations. As Liberia’s finance minister, she narrowly escaped death when 13 cabinet ministers were executed by firing squad in a government purge in 1980. She also earned the moniker “The Iron Lady” for her fearlessness in challenging the warlord Charles Taylor for Liberia’s presidency...
...personally chose Spain's King, who jailed homosexuals. Today, I can spout republicanism in my village bar to Rafael, a captain in the Guardia Civil reserve. He can try to shout me down with "Viva el Rey, Viva Leonor!" Yes, semantic democracy is definitely more fun than iron dictatorship. And Franco? May he rust in peace...
...What House are you in?” wasn’t a vapid question. Adams was artsy. Eliot was snooty. Lowell was brainy. Mather was jock-y. Sure, there are potential problems with racial self-segregation and intra-house homogeneity, but flattening these wrinkles with the iron of randomization was a quick and ultimately careless fix, one that has resulted largely in the social sterilization of Harvard. Unfortunately, in an attempt to pick up the social slack, final clubs have instead taken the heat...
...fish compared to the bandits who strike in Asia's Malacca Straits and South China Sea. But over the past seven months, Somali pirates have attacked 25 vessels, including the Semlow in June, another ship carrying food aid in September, a Maltese-registered cargo ship carrying 15 tons of iron ore, and, just last weekend, a cruise ship with some 300 American and British holidaymakers aboard. (Though the pirates fired semiautomatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade, the ship's crew used an on-board "acoustic bang" to scare the pirates off, according to a spokeman for the liner.) Maritime...