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...then splashed by the bucketful at the Prime Minister's office and private residence. Brahmin priests attended the bloodletting, casting hexes on the government amid swirls of incense. Such black magic, which dates back to Thailand's pre-Buddhist past, might seem like the domain of superstitious peasants. But last year, yellow-shirt leader and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul placed sanitary napkins soaked with menstrual blood around a Bangkok monument as part of a spell designed to vanquish Thaksin. Many locals seem to believe that witchcraft will be just as influential in driving the course of Thai politics as good...
...glitz and buzz, Libya's international acceptance has not brought deeper political or social change. Last September, Gaddafi celebrated his 40th anniversary in power with a blowout party featuring an air force flypast, hundreds of performers and a massive fireworks display. Aged just 68, Gaddafi Senior is now the world's longest-serving head of government (a few monarchs beat him when it comes to longest-serving head of state). His face peers from billboards across the country, and his firebrand style has barely tempered with age. His blast against Western leaders in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly...
...Britons, Saif is best known for successfully negotiating the release from a Scottish jail of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland - an attack which killed 270 people - al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Tripoli last August with Saif by his side. The move cemented Saif's standing among millions of ordinary Libyans. "After that, Saif could no longer be accused of being infected with Western values," says Noman Benotman, a former leader in the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, who fought alongside al-Qaeda...
...country where most people have only ever known his father's rule, Saif says Libyans have grown impatient for change. Last February, when President Gaddafi ended his one-year term as the head of the African Union, the organization passed a resolution giving itself the power to expel or impose sanctions on leaders who seize power through force. The message was not lost on Libyans. "In black Africa, we see real democracy, real elections, real parliaments, real constitutions," Saif says. "Why don't we have the same as them...
Mindful of such pitfalls, Saif rejected his father's proposal last year to assume the country's second-highest post. "I would not accept [a position] because you need to have a constitution," Saif says. "You need transparent political rules of the game." He's also prepared to test the system. Tensions erupted into full view last December after Saif invited the Washington and Middle East directors of Human Rights Watch to launch its report on Libya's human-rights violations at a press conference in the heart of Tripoli. Few groups had ever been allowed to speak out publicly...