Word: strongman
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Libyan leader MUAMMAR GADDAFI, spooked by Operation Desert Storm and feeling lonely now that Syria has tilted toward the West, however slightly, is trying to end his isolation from the West. The strongman met secretly in Tripoli with Teddy Taylor, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, to talk about re-establishing diplomatic ties that were cut off in 1984, after a London policewoman monitoring an anti-Gaddafi rally was killed by a sniper hidden in the Libyan embassy. Gaddafi apologized and presented Taylor with a $500,000 check to a British police charity as restitution, but the Libyan...
...Israel to trade land for peace. Thus Damascus will not settle simply for a one-on-one session with Israel. At the same time, Assad is tempted by the opportunity he sees in Saddam's humiliation to take his old rival's place as the No. 1 radical Arab strongman...
Life in exile isn't so bad -- just ask Rifaat Assad, the fiftysomething brother of Syrian strongman Hafez Assad. Rifaat once ran a 20,000-man militia at home but was kicked out of the country in 1983 when Hafez Assad began to worry about his sibling's lust for power. Since then Rifaat has lived the lush life of a global businessman, managing millions of dollars' worth of investments in Europe and the Middle East. He visits the properties with an entourage of 20 that includes his two wives and several shapely female "secretaries," all traveling aboard two customized...
...surprise arrest stemmed from a takeover attempt led by former Duvalierist strongman Dr. Roger Lafontant after the populist Roman Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the presidency in the Dec. 16 vote. Pascal- Trouillot has said that she was kidnapped from her home and held hostage for 10 hours before loyalist troops stormed the National Palace and ended the siege. But Lafontant contends he is not guilty of trying to oust the government, because Trouillot willingly handed power over to him. Many Haitians believe that Trouillot and other members of her government stole millions from the national treasury during...
Nicolae Ceausescu: Builder of Modern Romania and International Statesman, 1983. In an introduction, Maxwell grilled the strongman (who was executed in the 1989 uprising): "What has, in your opinion, made you so popular with the Romanians...