Word: primed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...politics is poker, the best players know when to double down and when to cut their losses. For Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a sex scandal that had dogged him for months seemed to be finally quieting by late July. Though his reputation was stained, his popularity was solid and it seemed time to put the controversy behind him and get back to trying to run the country...
...Italians appeared to be losing interest, the 72-year-old billionaire was apparently still seething over the repeated publication of accusations from his estranged wife that Berlusconi "frequents underage girls" and the release of racy audiotapes of conversations he allegedly had with a high-priced prostitute. (Read about the Prime Minister of Italy coming under attack - from his own wife...
...Hosni has little choice. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wants an Egyptian as the head of a U.N. body as a matter of national pride - and has reportedly applied diplomatic pressure on the U.S. and France to back Hosni. Geopolitics is also probably behind the attitude of hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he would not block Hosni's election. That move is likely to be part of an array of horse-trading necessary to find an eventual Israel-Palestinian peace agreement all Middle Eastern nations will adhere...
...eyes earlier this year when Rahul Gandhi, a rising star in the ruling Congress Party, proclaimed his commitment to making sure merit and internal democracy were recognized in his party. After all, Gandhi's mother is the head of the party - and his father, grandmother and great-grandfather all Prime Ministers. (See a pictorial history of the tempestuous Nehru dynasty of India...
...Russians invaded Chechnya in 1994 to try to keep it part of Russia. They failed. In 1999, three years after the end of the first Chechen war, they went back, at the prodding of then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In a move reminiscent of Tolstoy's hundred-year-old Hadji Murad - which was also set in a strife-ridden Caucasus - the chief separatist, Akhmad Kadyrov, like the title character in the prescient short novel, switched sides at the beginning of the second Chechen war and crushed the rebellion. Assassinated in May 2004, Kadyrov was replaced by his son. (From TIME...