Word: ruler
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Majid, the Saddam intimate foreigners have dubbed "Chemical Ali" for his role overseeing the 1988 poison-gas attacks that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds. Al-Majid raises his right arm with palm open in the gesture Saddam uses, smilingly acknowledging the crowd's chants as if he were the ruler. "We sacrifice our blood, our souls for you, Saddam," the mob trills...
Saddam is nowhere in sight for his Tikrit party or any of the other parades and cake cuttings orchestrated across Iraq during the six-day birthday celebration. He is, more than ever, an invisible ruler, his authority wielded from the shadows, where he hides from potential assassins. The Potemkin parties were intended to deliver a message to any Iraqi citizen feeling restive, to any foreign government contemplating his overthrow. The all-powerful puppet master can make his whole nation sing his praises as a blunt reminder: I am still here. It won't be easy...
...else to clean up - which some feel is happening in Afghanistan as the Pentagon refuses to allow international peacekeepers past Kabul city limits. Since the Administration has made it clear that the objective is Saddam's ouster, he has no reason to behave: on his last legs, the Iraqi ruler would seemingly have no reason not to launch missiles laden with chemical or biological weapons against U.S. troops or Israeli cities...
Swiss banks will be ordered to return $535 million of embezzled money to Nigeria. The money was stashed in Switzerland by the African state's former military ruler, General Sani Abacha. The Nigerian government has agreed to drop criminal proceedings against the family of the late dictator and allow them to retain $100 million of the estimated $3 billion that Abacha was alleged to have looted during his five-year rule. Nigeria will eventually recover more than $1 billion from banks around the world...
...Karzai's confidence in dealing with the international community may be growing, but his grip on power at home remains precarious. Just over halfway through his six-month term as the country's first post-Taliban leader, he still looks more like the Mayor of Kabul than the ruler of Afghanistan. The limits on his authority beyond the capital were underscored last week when opium-poppy farmers angry at Kabul's plans to eradicate their crops fired on government officials and blocked the main road linking Kabul to Pakistan. And attacks continue by anonymous groups opposed to the government...