Word: spain
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...from Iraq to the forefront of many Spaniards’ minds. A week later, U.S. newspapers pointed out that 2007 has been the U.S.’s deadliest year in Iraq. Conversation here in Granada, particularly when walking past newspaper stands, frequently turned to the Iraq War. When Spain reacted to the Madrid bombings, which the Spanish call 11-M, by pulling out of Iraq, it was criticized internationally for capitulating to terrorism. In light of the clear lack of progress and rising casualties over the last three years of the Iraq War, however, it’s clear...
...When Spain's King Juan Carlos verbally slapped down bad boy Hugo Chavez at the Ibero-American summit, it came, to say the least, as a surprise. For a man who normally is the very embodiment of decorum, Juan Carlos' retort to the Venezuelan president - "Why don't you shut up?" - seemed shockingly uncharacteristic. But a statement from the Palace on Tuesday may have offered a bit of context on the royal mood: the king's eldest child, the infanta Elena, was separating "temporarily" from her aristocratic husband, Jaime de Marichalar. Could His Majesty - coolheaded impeder of military coups, tireless...
...world leaders would consider it a good day if the King of Spain were to tell them publicly to "shut up." But then, few heads of state are as skillful as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez at turning a foreign diplomatic rebuke to domestic political advantage. Chávez's radical left-wing rule resides in his populist challenge to "imperialist" threats - and what more convenient symbol of colonial oppression for Chávez (besides his favorite, the U.S.) than the Spanish throne, which plundered South America for three centuries before it was thrown out in the 1800s...
...accused former Spanish Prime Minister José MariaAznar of being a "fascist" who had supported a 2002 coup attempt against Chávez. Chávez later spun Juan Carlos' outburst as a monarchical affront to democracy (though Juan Carlos was, in fact, key to restoring constitutional rule in Spain after the death of its genuinely fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1975). "The king is a head of state like me," Chávez said, "only I've been elected three times with 63% support...
...behind the royal reprimand, much of the international media missed what may have set Chávez off in the first place. Chávez became visibly irritated at the summit when Spain's current Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero - a socialist and Chávez ally - insisted that Latin America needs to attract more foreign capital if it's going to make a dent in its chronic, deepening poverty. Chávez blames "savage capitalism" for Latin America's gaping inequality and insists "only socialism" can fix it - hence his tirade against Aznar and other...