Word: tyrants
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Instead, the unrelenting sectarian violence in daily Iraqi life soon turned the trial into a televised sideshow. For those who bothered to watch anymore, the sight of Saddam in court sometimes had the exact opposite effect than officials expected - it evoked nostalgia for a time when, under the tyrant's yoke, Shi'ites and Sunnis were not at each other's throat. Although viewership spiked today, interest in the proceedings will quickly subside again...
...told, there was never any doubt Saddam would get the death sentence; he had himself anticipated it weeks ago, when he asked that he be shot - like a soldier - rather than hanged. That request was not honored. As the presiding judge, Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, announced the verdict, the tyrant responded by shouting, "God is great," and "Long live the nation!" and an assortment of other slogans. But by his standards, it was a subdued performance; there was none of the bug-eyed ranting that has characterized many of his court appearances...
...polls is former President Daniel Ortega - the leftist Sandinista whom Nicaraguans tossed out in 1990 after he presided over a civil war-torn decade of Marxist authoritarianism and economic disaster. Ortega was a bona fide guerrilla hero who had helped lead the Sandinista insurrection that overthrew the tyrant Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. But Ortega proved to be a clueless and corrupt head of state, and after his 1990 electoral humiliation, he had looked set for the Cold War scrap heap. He failed in presidential bids in 1996 and 2001, and in 1998 his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, accused...
...imprisoned in hyper-specific studies of obscure topics. Cramped in overpopulated and under-taught classes, wails of bondage arose from the people. Finally, University Hall lent a kindly ear to the cries of the oppressed. And after years of internal debate, they released a grand plan to usurp the tyrant. “Let them have civics,” they cried, in a tone befitting Marie Antoinette...
...past five years under the democratically elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra were a nightmare [Oct. 2]. He was a tyrant in disguise. He bought votes to pave his way to power. He and his Cabinet members destroyed the system's checks and balances, abused state power, blocked access to information and violently suppressed peaceful protests. Can you still call that democracy? We want democracy in practice as well as in form. Thaksin's manipulation so deeply divided Thailand that the coup can be regarded as a coup de grace, not a coup d'état. The military did not tear...