Word: leader
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's true. And no doubt the issues of any perceived political incorrectness - and potential racial reverberations - are trickier to handle when the offender is the leader of a NATO ally. But Berlusconi's prominence is the point, and as the first black leader of the most powerful nation on earth, Obama is seen as a model by many countries struggling to integrate people of different races and religions. (See pictures of Barack Obama's family tree...
...director in Rome of the Anti-Racism Observatory, says the Prime Minister's comments are indicative of attitudes in Italy and unhelpful in changing prejudices. "Berlusconi thinks he's funny, but he's not," says Faye, an Italian citizen who emigrated from Senegal 30 years ago. "For one world leader to talk about the skin color of another is utterly disrespectful and sets a bad example for ordinary folk." Faye says Berlusconi's comments make it more likely that people on the street in Rome will make a crack about the color of his or his children's skin...
...NATO and the U.N. - whose senior representative to Afghanistan, Norwegian Kai Eide, was accused by his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, of tacitly favoring a Karzai victory following the election debacle (Galbraith was fired this week) - will now be forced to work with an Afghan leader that has not only distanced himself from Western tutelage but also lacks legitimacy in the eyes of his people. (See the top 10 U.N. General Assembly moments...
...Relations between Karzai and his Western backers deteriorated significantly over the past couple of years, particularly after the onset of the Obama Administration. Instead of stinging Karzai into cleaning up his act, public criticism from Washington enabled him to set himself up as a leader at odds with the U.S., boosting his support in some sections of the population. He sought to strengthen his position through alliances with regional power brokers, including warlords accused of major human-rights abuses and known drug traffickers - people he will be beholden to as he enters a second term...
...Still, the U.S. and NATO have little choice but to work with the leader they have, even if he's not the leader they wish they had. Karzai believed that Washington was trying to get rid of him ahead of the election, and he'll see his victory as a triumph also over those in Western capitals who had sought his ouster. Having secured another term of office, and with the West desperate to save its mission in Afghanistan from collapse, Karzai has the upper hand - and that will make it all the more difficult to cajole him into fighting...