Word: saab
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Tarek William Saab is a veritable Renaissance man, a Venezuelan human-rights lawyer and a published poet who reveres Bob Dylan and the writers of America's Beat Generation. But this former Congressman and now two-term governor of Anzoategui, a prime oil-producing state on Venezuela's eastern coast, is also one of President Hugo Chávez's most popular and devoted lieutenants. That means he has lots of issues with the U.S. and is watching President-elect Barack Obama with a hopeful but wary...
...Saab was imprisoned by an opposition mob during a failed 2002 coup against Chávez that the Bush Administration tacitly supported. The State Department refuses to give him a U.S. entry visa, reportedly because it suspects that Saab, who is of Druze Lebanese descent and is an outspoken critic of Israel, has ties to Arab terrorists, a charge he strongly denies. "It goes against everything I stand for," Saab, sitting under a large photo of Chávez, told TIME at his home. The real reason he's barred from America, he insists, is that...
...Whether or not that's true, Saab's sentiments reflect how many if not most Latin Americans feel about Washington. And that's actually good news for Obama, whose first regional summit, fittingly, will be the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Trinidad in April. (Obama already met with Mexican President Felipe Calderón earlier this week and has said he will make Canada the destination of his first foreign visit as President.) Improving relations with the western hemisphere - as an early item on his diplomatic agenda and not as an afterthought, as most U.S. Presidents approach...
...Mexican peasants than to building multibillion-dollar border walls to keep them out, it could go a long way toward making Latin America a more pro-yanqui messenger in places like the Arab world, where the foreign policy stakes are higher. "He's promised a historic change," says Saab. "So if he wants a genuine alliance with Latin America, he should talk about technology transfers instead of the drug war - which is a great hypocrisy since U.S. drug addiction is responsible for it - or health-care projects instead of free trade...
...bosses resorted to Hail Mary attempts to fix what were long-term issues. "They were constantly looking at buy, sell, hire, fire, looking to be rescued from their predicament," says Spear. On the buy side, GM CEO Roger Smith acquired Hughes Aircraft, EDS and a 50% stake in Saab. His successors bought the Hummer, 20% of Korea-owned Suzuki and 20% of Fiat with the obligation to buy it or pay to get rid of it. (The latter course was chosen, at a cost of $2 billion...