Word: tyrant
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fiery rhetoric of a madman? Or the calculated political message of an ambitious tyrant seeking to ensure his own coronation as master of the Arab universe? That is just what statesmen in the West and the Middle East are asking as Saddam accelerates his determined campaign for regional dominance. In recent months he has thrust himself into the world spotlight with a series of saber-rattling actions, statements and threats that have reinforced his reputation for ruthlessness and provoked disturbing questions about his ultimate designs. "He is playing on an old theme; call it constructive craziness," says Mark Heller...
...film's Mars is Earth's cracked mirror image: a domed underworld of freak psychics and three-breasted prostitutes, ruled by a tyrant from whom the colonists must buy air, and he has just jacked up the price. It is on Mars, toward the end, that Total Recall slows down to tie up its plot and provide each villain with an appropriately gruesome demise. It goes wussily misterioso when Quaid meets a Yodaesque guru. But even when the film flirts with becoming ordinary, it is propelled by the stolid charm of Schwarzenegger, who carries the whole movie as easily...
With a 94% turnout and 85% of the vote in elections last week, President-elect Ion Iliescu of Romania was almost in the same league as his predecessor, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist tyrant who posted similar landslides in pro forma balloting. But this was a free election, complete with opposition candidates and Western observers. That must have made Iliescu's victory all the sweeter, despite opposition allegations of ballot-box fraud, voter intimidation and media monopolization by his incumbent National Salvation Front...
...aware of its explosive nature. He realized that if his original proposal was formally implemented without guaranteeing the rights of republics, the union would eventually be transformed into a notorious ruler of the center over the republics, overseen by what he called the "Great-Russian chauvinist, villain and tyrant, which is what a typical Russian bureaucrat is." After Lenin died in 1924, his worst fears became a reality under Stalin...
...calls the Popular Front's supporters part of a "defiant and sullen populace," and likens the Popular Front itself to a "religious cult" (New York Times, January 25, 1990). On the other hand, when there was violent protest in Romania, the American media applauded it. The execution of the "tyrant" Ceaucescu was cause for celebration. There is an amazing absence of outrage in the media against our own use of violence to "liberate" the Panamanians...