Afghanistan
is an Islamic republic headed by
President
Hamid Karzai
He emerged
as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine the regime.
He is well
versed in several languages, including his native Peshto, Persian, Hindi,
French and English.
Several
times in 2001, Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected
with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United
States, but his warnings went unheeded.
source:
Biography.com
Brazil is a
federal republic headed by President Dilma Rousseff
She opposed
Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1960s and ‘70s, and served three years in
prison, where she was repeatedly tortured.
She has been
divorced twice.
She has a
degree in economics, and now rules the country with the eighth-biggest economy
in the world.
She
underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma in 2009, and is now in remission.
source: NYTimes
China is a
communist state, ruled by President Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping
is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's
founding fathers.
He married
folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also holds the rank of army general, in 1987. To
many in China, Ms. Peng was the better-known half of the couple before Xi
Jinping became leader of the Communist Party.
The couple
have a daughter named Xi Mingze, who is studying at Harvard University in the
US.
France is a
republic headed by Francois Hollande
Hollande has
no previous experience in a national government position.
The mother
of his four children is Ségolène Royal, with whom he shared a 30-year
relationship.
He was born
in 1954 in the city of Rouen to an extreme-right physician father and
progressive social worker mother.
Germany is a
federal republic headed by
President
Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel
Graduated
from University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics and physical
chemistry; earned a PhD in quantum chemistry from the German Academy of
Sciences in Berlin in 1986
Has been
Chancellor since November 2005
Merkel has
earned the top spot on the FORBES list of Most Powerful Women In The World for
eight of the past 10 years.
sources:
Forbes, Christian Science Monitor
India is a
federal republic headed by
President
Pranab Mukherjee
He taught
Political Science at the Vidiyanagar College, and worked as a journalist before
entering politics.
Mukherjee
was rated as one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was
adjudged the best parliamentarian in 1997.
He had a
conflict with Rajiv Gandhi (who took over as Prime Minister from his mother
Indira after she was assassinated in 1984) and started his own party –
Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress.
source: The
Indian Times
Iran is a
theocratic republic, ruled by Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, and
President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani
In 1963,
took part in street protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. After the
uprising was quashed, Khamenei was exiled. Khamenei was imprisoned multiple
times and, in 1975, was internally exiled to a remote region in southeastern
Iran.
Was elected
President of Iran in 1981 and re-elected in 1985. Became Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989.
source: Time
magazine
Mr Rouhani
has held several parliamentary posts, including deputy speaker and has also
served on the Supreme National Security Council.
Was just
elected President of Iran - June 2013
He has been
openly critical of the outgoing president, saying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
"careless, uncalculated and unstudied remarks" have cost the country
dearly.
source: BBC News
Israel is a
parliamentary democracy,
headed by
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Shimon Peres
was born in Belarus. To escape the persecution of Jews there, the family fled
to Palestine in 1934.
When Arab
forces launched their attack on the new state of Israel in 1948, Peres was
given the chief responsibility for securing military equipment for Israel from
abroad.
Later he organized
Israel's nuclear program and is regarded as the father of Israel's atomic bomb.
As Israel's
Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres was in charge of the Israeli
negotiations during peace talks with the Palestinians. In the autumn of 1994 he shared the Nobel
Peace Prize with his own Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat.
source: Nobelprize.org
As a child
and youth he lived with his family in the US in the years 1956-58 and again in
1963-67
After his
brother Jonathan (Yonni) was killed, in July 1976, in the course of the Entebbe
Operation, of which he was one of the commanders, Netanyahu returned to Israel
and started to advocate international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
Quote:
"There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the State
of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the State of
Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have
occurred."
S
Mexico is a
federal republic
headed by
President Enrique Pena Pieto.
He was the
eldest of four siblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique
Peña del Mazo, was an engineer for the electric company and his mother, María
del Socorro Nieto, a schoolteacher.
Reports that
he fathered two children in extramarital affairs while his wife Monica raised
the couple’s 3 children, plus the investigation into the sudden death of his
wife at home in 2007, have prompted many to call him the Teflon candidate
because trouble seems to slide off him.
Two years
later he announced his engagement to soap opera actor Angelica Rivera. Rivera became his wife in a star-studded
wedding ceremony two years ago and is now the first lady of Mexico.
sources: New York Times, NBCLatino.com
Saudi Arabia
is a kingdom ruled by
Abdallah bin
Abd al-Aziz Al Saud,
who is both
King and Prime Minister
He has
fathered 22 children, the youngest when he was 79.
He is worth
approximately 21 billion dollars.
He was
appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still
holding when he became king.
In November
2007, King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict in the Apostolic Palace. He is the
first Saudi monarch to visit the Pope.
In March 2008, he called for a “brotherly and sincere dialogue between
believers from all religions.”
In 2011 he
granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the
biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices
strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving (the only
country in the world with such a ban).
sources:
NYTimes, Saudi Gazette
The United
Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm,
ruled by
Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth II
At the age
of seven, the young Cameron was packed off to Heatherdown, a highly exclusive
preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and Andrew among its pupils.
Then, following in the family tradition, came Eton, Britain’s top private
school.
His first
child, Ivan, who was born profoundly disabled and needed round the clock care,
died in February 2009.
The
experience of caring for Ivan and witnessing at first hand the dedication of
NHS hospital staff, is said by friends to have broadened Mr Cameron's horizons.
He had, friends say, led an almost charmed life to that point.
Cameron is
the youngest Prime Minister (43 when he took office) in over 200 years.
Elizabeth
became queen on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953. Her reign has lasted 60 years - and counting.
source: BBC
Venezuela is
a federal republic headed by President Nicolas Maduro Moros
Nicolás
Maduro Moros worked as a bus driver before becoming politically active in the
early 1990s.
Maduro was
introduced to Hugo Chávez in 1992, after Chávez and other disenchanted members
of the military were imprisoned for an attempted coup and Maduro began
campaigning for Chávez's release.
(Chávez was released in 1994 and won election to the presidency four years
later.)
After
President Chávez won a third term in October 2012, he selected Maduro to serve
as vice president. Maduro worked alongside the outspoken president, serving as
one of his closest advisers as well as a loyal spokesman, until Chávez's death
at 58 on March 5, 2013, from cancer.
source:
Biography.com
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