Word: primed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Zimbabwe Finally a Unity Government, But Huge Problems Remain After a nearly five-month impasse, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (below) has agreed to serve as Prime Minister in a power-sharing arrangement with President Robert Mugabe. Although the political turmoil may be over, Zimbabwe faces a cholera epidemic, mass hunger and hyperinflation. The central bank has said it will permit the use of foreign currency and announced on Feb. 2 that it would chop 12 zeros off new notes, making an old trillion-dollar bill equal to one new Zimbabwean dollar...
This all amounts to the first serious test of Putinomics--the policies put in place by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during the two terms of his presidency, from 2000 to 2008, and continued by his successor, President Dmitri Medvedev. While oil money was pouring in, the Kremlin was able to fund generous social spending and hefty pay raises awarded by the monolithic state companies that dominate the economy. Jobs were plentiful, and over the past five years, average wages have risen 25% annually...
...having trouble paying their debts--including Oleg Deripaska, a metals tycoon who until recently was Russia's richest man. It is also playing an increasingly intrusive role in the private sector. At a meeting in Moscow on Nov. 25, for example, Igor Shuvalov, Putin's First Deputy Prime Minister, told the nation's major retailers that the Kremlin would ensure they gain access to credit on the condition that they demonstrate "social responsibility" by not raising prices...
APPOINTED After a failed economy forced Iceland's government to resign on Jan. 31, Johanna Sigurdardottir, 66, was named interim Prime Minister, making her Europe's first openly gay leader...
Both Zardari and Kayani will seek from Holbrooke an assurance that the U.S. will pressure India to resolve Kashmir. But Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is unlikely to play ball. India is intractably opposed to any outside mediation on Kashmir, and lobbied successfully to have the matter removed from Holbrooke's mandate. Especially after last November's terrorist attacks on Mumbai--blamed on a Pakistan-based group with long links to Islamabad's intelligence services--any hint of a concession to Pakistan would be hugely unpopular in India. The U.S. has some cards to play: it can offer India nuclear...