Word: sheikhs
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...consisted of a dozen or so lavish dishes delivered sequentially on a 30-person service of monogrammed, gilt Limoges china. (The meal was delicious, thank you, but surprisingly none of the dishes was as good as the goat's brains from the buffet laid out by the palace of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum of Dubai on Monday). Back to the interesting part: amid all the excess, the Gulf is becoming a test case for the theory that oil wealth is a curse rather than a blessing when it comes to democratic development...
...possible to propose a corollary theory: countries that greet American Presidents with the gaudiest displays of oil wealth tend to be the least democratic. In Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed presented Bush with an obscene necklace consisting of a number of increasingly large solid gold stars encrusted with scores of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Though Bush talked up his "Freedom Agenda" there, his aides dodged questions about the fact that 50% of the country's parliament is appointed by Sheikh Khalifa, who is also the lifetime "President." Saudi Arabia, the most repressive of all the countries Bush visited...
...Gulf - almost. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia and Iran are not liberalizing, while Bahrain is. The outlier is Dubai. It is diversifying economically as its oil runs out, but has taken almost no steps to democratize. When Bush brought up the "Freedom Agenda" in private talks with Sheikh Mohammad, says National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley...
...accused Modi and his party of playing on communal tensions to win votes. The Gujarat government, she said, were "merchants of death" - a charge that Modi and his party say is outrageous. Gandhi's comment and one by Modi that seemed to endorse the controversial police killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a young Muslim man who was allegedly wrongly branded a terrorist, earned the ire of the Election Commission, who asked both leaders to explain how their comments did not contravene a code of conduct that politicians must adhere to during polling. Modi says his comments were a political response...
...Gibbons' sentence also did not satisfy some clerics. Sheikh Abdul-Jalil al-Karuri, imam of Ash-Shahid mosque and an adviser to President Omar al-Bashir, said he was not surprised that people had decided to demonstrate over what he deemed a lenient sentence. "I was expecting more because this is a serious case and the court just gave her 15 days. She has done five already so she can leave any time soon," he said...