Word: rulers
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Jihadis challenge one of the pillars that have kept the Moroccan monarchy stable since independence in 1956: the idea that the King, as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, is a Commander of the Faithful - a temporal and spiritual ruler rolled into one. When Mohammed VI first came to power, this exalted title jarred with his public image as a rather shy leader less enthused about statecraft than about computer games and the water sports that earned him the nickname His MaJetski. His relaxed behavior in the first years of his reign made him an easy target for jihadi...
...Press Club in June. The "rights and values" which he and Mandela enshrined in the country's 1994 constitution, "are under severe pressure," he said. It says something for how far the ANC has fallen from the moral high ground that in today's South Africa, a former apartheid ruler can re-invent himself as a defender of the public interest...
...These are disproportionate measures coming from an autocratic ruler who protects his family," says Daniel Moeckli, a Middle East expert at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich. "Obviously, that is not a democracy." As for the threat of an oil embargo, "I am skeptical that the Libyans would carry it out," says Rolf Hartl, managing director of Swiss Oil Association, noting that Libya delivers 49% of Switzerland's supply of crude oil and owns one of the country's two refineries; those business ventures yield annual revenue of between $2 and $3 billion. "I believe they will calm down...
...image of an overextended empire mired in conflict in the Middle East sounds eerily familiar, and the British Museum builds on this geopolitical relevance in "Hadrian: Empire and Conflict," a fascinating study of the Roman ruler. Drawn from 11 countries, the 170 objects on display provide a remarkably layered portrait of Hadrian as a skilled statesman, an amateur architect and an unabashed homosexual - a man far more dynamic and complex than his idealized busts suggest...
...this exhibition makes clear, it would be too simplistic to remember Hadrian merely as a canny practitioner of realpolitik and a tragic victim of doomed love. He was also a victimizer - a ruler with a barbaric legacy in parts of his empire. Seeking to bring Jerusalem to heel as a Roman colony, he stripped it of its name, outlawed circumcision and built a temple to Jupiter near the site of the great Jewish Temple, which the Romans had sacked in A.D. 71. When Simon Bar Kokhba led a Jewish rebellion beginning in A.D. 132, Hadrian's troops exacted revenge: according...