Word: strongman
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...where she had last been seen. The officer was no help. When Amruddin - who, like most poor farmers in Afghanistan, only has one name - finally found his daughter a week later, she identified the police officer as one of her eight rapists. Three other suspects worked for the village strongman. When their case came to the local prosecutor, he dismissed it, saying there wasn't enough evidence. More likely, says Amruddin, there wasn't enough of a bribe. Amruddin says that in order to raise enough money for all the necessary bribes, he sold his two other daughters, ages...
...helped him soundly defeat his rivals. Regional geopolitics also helped. In the last week of the election campaign, the possibility of war with Cambodia's historic foe, Thailand, over disputed border territory, spurred a widespread feeling that Cambodia could only be safe in the hands of its long-time "strongman," as the leader refers to himself. The question for many now is whether Hun Sen, who now has the opportunity to rule alone since the country's first democratic elections in 1993, can turn his latest victory into real reform and take the necessary steps to pull his people...
...Bulgaria's plight is also a failure for the E.U. The lure of E.U. membership is often held up as the best way to get countries to reform. The chance to join Europe is one reason Serbia saw to it that wanted Bosnian Serb strongman Radovan Karadzic was arrested this week. Serbian authorities can now look forward to new trade agreements, and to starting the long and laborious process of joining...
...Panamanian General Manuel Antonio Noriega has long had a reputation for being more corrupt than most. Last week evidence came to light that suggested Noriega's reputation is well deserved. Relying on U.S. intelligence reports, both the New York Times and NBC News detailed charges that the military strongman is involved in smuggling drugs and weapons, laundering money and selling U.S. intelligence secrets to Cuba. Most damning, Noriega, who as commander of Panama's armed forces essentially runs the country, was linked to the September 1985 murder of Dr. Hugo Spadafora, a leading critic of the Panamanian army...
...aides then lead you, with hushed solemnity and even a hint of fear, toward the chambers of their commander in chief. One would expect a grim, towering leader behind the headquarters' oak doors, but General Moeen is conspicuously diminutive and unassuming, hardly looking the part of the South Asian strongman he very well may be. Yet Moeen pulls few punches when speaking of his country's politics and its democracy's many failings. "No systems of government are bad in their own right," says Bangladesh's top-ranking military officer with a thin smile. "It's the human beings...