Word: strongman
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...Castro, sending Juan Miguel to the U.S. was obviously a risk - if he chose to defect and join his uncles in Miami, that would have been a humiliating propaganda defeat for the Cuban strongman. But failing that, Castro had nothing to lose: With ordinary Cubans incensed by a case whose meaning to them was that the U.S. might question their fitness as parents simply for living in Cuba, Castro would have reaped a political dividend even if the Miami relatives had won the case...
...began only after Mugabe lost a referendum in February that would have dramatically increased his constitutional powers. Then again, for the ZANU apparatchiks whose well-being depends on control over the state, their mauling at the polls could be taken as a cue to retire the 75-year-old strongman before he has to face the voters...
...intact city, frozen in time." With those dramatic words, French underwater explorer Franck Goddio announced the discovery of Herakleion, the long-lost Egyptian port city often mentioned in classical writings and described by Herodotus. He visited it in 450 B.C. and toured a temple dedicated to the mythic strongman Hercules...
Still, Bashar has positioned himself as more reformer than strongman. As president of Syria's computer society, he has recruited technocrats to help broaden Syria's cyber horizon--this in a country where only 2,000 people are officially allowed access to the Internet. (King Abdullah of Jordan, who knows Bashar well, calls him an "Internet youth.") Bashar also reportedly wants more foreign investment in Syria--but whether that translates into closer ties to the West is anybody's guess. Bashar will need much of his father's cunning to put his own vision in place...
Somebody wanted Vuk Draskovic dead, but it may not have been Slobodan Milosevic - after all, the Serbian strongman has little reason to fear the veteran opposition leader these days. In contrast to the string of professional hits that have eliminated both friend and foe of the Milosevic regime over the past year, Friday's attempt on Draskovic was an amateurish hit-or-miss affair, the gunmen spraying the opposition leader's holiday apartment with automatic rifle fire while he was vacationing in Montenegro. But not even an attempt on his life is likely to restore his declining political fortunes...