Afghanistan/ Hamid Karzai
Islamic republic
Headed by President
Hamid Karzai
He
emerged as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine the
regime.
Knows a lot of 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 no one listened to his warnings .
Brazil/ Dilma Rousseff
Federal republic
Headed by President Dilma Rousseff
She
opposed Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1960s and ‘70s, and served three
years in prison,
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.
China/ Xi Jinping
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.
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, she is studying at Harvard University
in the US.
France/ Francois Hollande
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/ Joachim Gauck, Angela Merkel
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.
India/ Pranab Mukherjee
Federal republic
Headed by President
Pranab Mukherjee
He
taught Political Science at the Vidiyanagar College
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.
Iran/ Khamenei and Ruhani
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.
Hasan
Fereidun Ruhani Background: 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.
Israel/ Peres and Netanyahu
Parliamentary democracy
Headed by President
Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Shimon
Peres background: 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.
Binyamin
Netanyahu background: 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."
Mexico/ Enrique Pena Pieto
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.
Saudi Arabia/ Abdallah
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).
United Kingdom/ Cameron and the Queen
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.
Venezuela/ Maduro
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.
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